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Opinion

Thursday, 03 August 2023 04:23

Tinubu finds his own demons - Abimbola Adelakun

Successive administrations in Nigeria start out by apprehending demons, or enigmatic forces, against which they will test their political strength and define the character of their government. Those forces are the factors on which all evil bedevilling the nation must necessarily be blamed. From coup speeches to inauguration addresses, each administration launches itself by stating what the others have done wrong and how they—the new government, that is—will fix it. Hell is always the previous government. For the eight years the last administration spent in power, they had a favourite demon—the whipping boy of their failures. The name they called…

Tuesday, 01 August 2023 04:26

Coup d’état in Niger: Why Nigeria must tread cautiously - Femi Mimiko

The current leadership of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) deserves commendation for being alive to its responsibilities in catalysing discussions on issues of global relevance to Nigeria. Precisely on July 13, it hosted a seminar, most appropriately themed, “Nigeria’s Foreign Policy under President Bola Tinubu: Which way forward?” It was my privilege to speak, albeit virtually, on “President Bola Tinubu, Nigerian Foreign Policy and the Expansion of Democracy in Africa,” at the well-attended event. As expected, the directions in which the panelists felt Nigeria should be headed under the Tinubu presidency were fully explored. My interrogation of its…

Tuesday, 01 August 2023 04:25

The new scramble for Africa is underway, and Africa’s leaders seem clueless about it - Seun Kolade

When, on 26th July, soldiers from the presidential guard deposed and detained Niger’s president Mohamed Bazoum, it became part of a concerning narrative about the growing frequency of coups in African countries in recent years. Since 2020, there have been coups in Chad, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sudan and now Niger. When you peel a little under the surface, you begin to unpack a telling pattern. The first is that all of the listed countries, except Sudan, are “former” French colonies. Except that they are quite “former”. The so-called Francophone countries are routinely among the least developed countries on the…

Monday, 31 July 2023 04:35

A humbling economy for economists - Jim O’Neill

Given all the uncertainty in the world economy today, we have been reminded that for all the authority economics commands, it is still a social science. Many major developments over the past year have departed from the consensus forecast, exposing the limitations of our understanding. Most notably, many experts and forecasters predicted a recession in the United States this year. But not only have we avoided that (so far); the latest inflation figures have led many sell-side forecasters to write down the probability of a recession happening at all. Suddenly, financial markets are entertaining the idea that policymakers can indeed…

Sunday, 30 July 2023 04:29

The hell awaiting Davido and Asisat - Festus Adedayo

When Pakistani medical student, Salman Ahmad, stood up to twiddle his guitar, to the delight of all, at a student talent show event in a Lahore hotel in 1980, he was oblivious of the raging silent war between religion, music and sports. As he sang, a Pakistani fanatic dashed to the stage, snatched Ahmad's Gibson Les Paul guitar from around his neck and smashed it into smithereens. Nothing happened. The fanatic could not understand Ahmad’s temerity of playing rock music or music in general which Arabs potentates of the Islamic religion once referred to as “a prompting of the Devil” …

Sunday, 30 July 2023 04:27

Major signposts to prosperity breakthrough! - Taiwo Akinola

If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge ~ Job 36:11-12. Introduction God doesn't ever want His children to be poor; no, not at all. He rather wishes for us to be saved, free, healthy and wealthy (3 John 2). However, we must first lay down our traditional views, and start thinking as God thinks, before we can expect to be imbued with the anointing for supernatural breakthroughs (Jeremiah 29:11). Money is not…

Sunday, 30 July 2023 04:25

Article of faith: God’s preference for the last above the first (2) - Femi Aribisala

God rejects everything that is first in this world. He is even opposed to every firstborn child. When God delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt, He killed all the firstborn of the Egyptians, including the firstborn of their livestock. But He saved the firstborn of the Israelites. Thereafter, He commanded that all the firstborn males of Israel should be sacrificed to Him. (Exodus 22:29). To avoid death, he later said they had to be redeemed with money. (Numbers 18:15-16). Jacob and Esau With the children of Isaac, God preferred the younger Jacob to Esau, the firstborn, even before they were…

Friday, 28 July 2023 04:38

Does social media affect your voting? - Azu Ishiekwene

When I first voted in an election in Nigeria in 1983, the Internet was just newly born. It had not even been properly named. Forty years later when I voted for the fifth time, my daughter who attained voting age only 13 years ago and has since voted only once, as far as I know, was telling me from thousands of miles away, where she now lives with her family, how she thought I should have voted and for who. I laughed. This was by no means a unique experience. A very close friend and managing director of one of…

Friday, 28 July 2023 04:37

The demystification of Bola Tinubu - Ikechukwu Amaechi

It took less than 60 days for the fabled political wizardry and leadership ingenuity of President Bola Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu, to unravel. In fact, the jury is still out as to who, between him and his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari, unravelled faster. Some say Tinubu did. At this stage in Buhari’s presidency, his so-called ‘body language’ still enthralled many. Not so for Tinubu – there is no body, not to talk of language. At the end of the day, the biggest tragedy of the unfolding saga is the likelihood of comparing Tinubu to Buhari and the former president,…

Thursday, 27 July 2023 04:20

The Lagos necropolis - Abimbola Adelakun

Since the ill-fated night of October 20, 2020, the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration has heavily invested in propagating its version of what went down. One press release issued by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Olusegun Ogboye, to deflate the outrage following the leaked memo revealing that the Lagos State Government planned a mass burial for the 103 victims of the 2020 #EndSARS violence punched a hole in one of their strongest arguments. From the Dis-Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, to state officials who traversed the news media circuits over the Lekki toll gate incident, one of their most vehement…

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Thursday, 27 July 2023 04:19

This puny presidency - Steve Osuji

HOBBLED PRESIDENCY LAPSES INTO INERTIA: There seems to be something about those who crave a thing so bad before they land it. When they finally get that object of their desire ennui seems to quickly embrace them and squeeze the joy out of their victory. Let’s make a quick checklist: that beautiful lady you chased for years before she said yes. That dream car; that mansion or that job you wanted badly. After you finally get it, you find yourself asking: is this all?This must be the same feeling now with President Bola Tinubu. Storied to have craved the presidency…

Wednesday, 26 July 2023 04:08

What to do about radical uncertainty - William H. Janeway

A central premise of neoclassical economics is that the consequences of the decisions of market participants can be known in advance and quantified as risk-adjusted estimates. As John Kay and Mervyn King showed in their 2020 book, Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers, such probabilistic reasoning has a long history. As applied in economics, it has operationalized the concept of “expected utility” – the desideratum that rational economic agents are defined to be maximizing. As the author of a major analysis of the stock market sponsored by the British government (Kay) and a former governor of the Bank of England…

Tuesday, 25 July 2023 04:28

Our generation was told liberal economics would make us free. Look at us now - Nesrine Malik

Jane is a junior doctor working several extra locum shifts to make ends meet. Burnt out after the pandemic, and struggling with her physical and mental health, she would really like to take unpaid leave, but she cannot afford to do so. Last month, her landlord hiked up her rent, then served her with an eviction notice when she said she couldn’t afford it. She now has to move for the fourth time in three years, and is back in a flat-hunting market where rents are higher everywhere. She feels trapped, she tells me. Trapped in her job, with her…

Monday, 24 July 2023 03:21

The Shylocks within - Hassan Gimba

Last week, the federal government, through the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), banned two loan app banks, permanently removing them from Google Play Store and initiating the process of deleting their respective apps. The culprits, Sycamore Integrated Solutions Limited and Orange Loan and Purple Credit Limited, along with their apps, Getloan and Camelloan, were permanently delisted due to their illicit practices and for their harassment of Nigerians. They were also accused of duplicity and illegal activities when they were discovered to be using APKs to attract borrowers, which is both illegal and unregulated. The truth is that loan…

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