politics

a photo of a triumphant donald trump and a defeated kamala harris

Unusual Reasons Africa Wanted Trump to Win

International Affairs, politics /

Trump 2.0 will do at least two things for the world. It would further hasten the internal decay of the US by aggravating racial tensions and emboldening right-wing excesses. Two, Trump’s America First ultra-
insularity and his off-the-fly foreign policy style will distance the US from its traditional allies and enable crazies around the world, like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to run amok. This sounds more like saying that if US voters were happy to be seduced by their worst selves, they deserve what they get.

Unusual Reasons Africa Wanted Trump to Win Read More »

michelle obama reading a letter with the faces of donald trump and kamala harris in it

Tight Race: Letter from Abroad to Michelle Obama

International Affairs, politics /

An inconvenient point, dear former First Lady, is that Kamala Harris is part-paying a backlash from Barack Obama’s era that your husband didn’t do enough for people of colour, especially blacks. This is a race of margins, and despite his charm and eloquence, your husband and former president has struggled to convince black male voters that Harris will serve them well

Tight Race: Letter from Abroad to Michelle Obama Read More »

Does it Still Make Sense to Trust Tinubu?

Economy, politics /

I wouldn’t write off the government, however tempting. If Tinubu’s shock therapy has been disjointed, and his economic policies severely criticised by a despairing public, the tax-and-spend remedy by The Financial Times, the West’s standard response to budget deficits – apart from the added trope about transparency and corruption – is hardly the cure in Nigeria’s case for at least two reasons

Does it Still Make Sense to Trust Tinubu? Read More »

an image of oshiomhole hitting a home-run, with Monday Okpebholo carrying the flag, while Asue Ighodalo and Olumide Akpata lose

Home Run for Oshiomhole

politics /

In case you missed it, Senator Babafemi Ojudu shared a viral message last week: Asue Ighodalo was a member of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu transition committee after he was elected Lagos State governor in 1999. In another life, Ighodalo, a dyed-in-the-wool Lagos Boy, might have been on Tinubu’s side, as Obaseki once was. What politics can not divide does not exist

Home Run for Oshiomhole Read More »

Edo Polls

Edo Polls and the Famous Product Vendor

politics /

I guess that Obaseki’s style – not to mention his take-no-prisoner politics, a bad habit he may have inherited from his estranged promoter, Oshiomhole – may have further alienated him and reduced the chances of his candidate, Ighodalo, making significant inroads in the North. Prominent people in PDP who sheltered Obaseki from vagrancy in 2020 against whom he turned his back are waiting to take revenge. Will it be the triumph or perhaps the redemption of the product vendor? Will President Bola Ahmed Tinubu get his vindication four years after Obaseki’s campaign mocked him with, “Edo no bi Lagos?” Or will this be Obaseki’s chance to affirm himself as the new political force in Edo and shut down the production factory of the decorated lousy product vendor once and for all?

Edo Polls and the Famous Product Vendor Read More »

president tinubu in front of a crowd of protesters

The Trouble with Tinubu

politics /

His government’s two most consequential decisions – announcing the removal of petrol subsidy and attempting to create a more transparent exchange rate system – touched a raw nerve. The biggest beneficiaries, primarily wealthy, powerful, and deadly people across the country, but particularly in the North, are determined to fight his government to a standstill

The Trouble with Tinubu Read More »

an image of donald trump with a bandaged ear and kamala harris hugging biden

In This Difficult Marriage, Democrats Must Love Biden

International Affairs, politics /

Teflon Trump thrives in scandals. Today’s Feeble Joe is not the same Biden who faced Trump four years ago and got away by the skin of his teeth. While he is weaker, frailer and poorer even at sharing his accomplishments in the last four years, his opponent, Trump, has been emboldened by his worst excesses. The race for the US presidency is a match-up between horror and uncertainty

In This Difficult Marriage, Democrats Must Love Biden Read More »

an image of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer imposed on a backdrop of the British parliament interior

Rishi Sunak’s Next Life

International Affairs, politics /

When it was time to replace Boris Johnson, the country that copied Piper’s art from Egypt and popularised it didn’t need anyone to tell the Tory party that handing over the keys of Number 10 to Sunak could signal the echo of an unfamiliar tune. They kicked the idea of having Piper Sunak further down the road. Instead, they settled for Liz Truss, a former rebel and basher of the Crown, but a Brit, through and through, to lead the party. Truss didn’t last; her incompetence threatened to bring Britain to its knees. The Tories soon got rid of her, but apart from further endangering the British economy, her brief reign had also emboldened the Labour Party. Keir Starmer, Labour leader and the next British Prime Minister, is a gift to Britain from Tory hubris

Rishi Sunak’s Next Life Read More »

an image of Abiola, Obasanjo and Tinubu

A Reckoning in June

politics /

We don’t need foreign newspapers to tell us. The daily lives of most Nigerians today, whether at home, school, work, or in the market, tell the story unedited. And folks are beginning to ask, first in whispers and now in louder, angrier tones, what is the point of democracy that does not put food on the table?

A Reckoning in June Read More »

Scroll to Top