Petrol subsidy is gone, means petrol subsidy is gone. Anything short of saying so on day one, would have amounted to kicking the can down the road, again. And that, we have seen, has been the graveyard of speeches in the last several decades full of economic philosophy and poetry but meaning nothing. Enough.
Tinubu Biting the Bullet from Day One Read More »
Obasanjo being Obasanjo, he did not mind imitating a low-grade version of Otto von Bismarck’s philosophy, that the business of Nigeria’s redemption at the time – restructuring, corruption and a pariah economy – required bloody noses and a hand of iron. By the time Buhari was elected eight years later, the landscape had changed somewhat. Yet, Buhari’s hands-off approach was dictated just as much by the relatively mature political landscape as by his complicatedly insular, almost abdicatory political style. Tinubu is a different matter altogether
What Should Tinubu Do About the Assembly? Read More »
The real elephant in the room is that the NPC knows the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government would reject the outcome of a census rammed down the country’s throat with only days before President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration leaves. They’re dealing with a familiar customer. It was Lagos State, under Tinubu, that dragged the Federal Government to the tribunal over the 2006 census, on grounds that the state’s population had been underreported by nearly half its size
The Fowl of Mecca and Nigeria’s Census Palaver Read More »
In the last election, Buhari showed himself as the master of strategic ambivalence. He did not want Tinubu as his successor. Yet, in his valley of indecision, he knew that the surging wave would land the shore and was quite pleased, in spite of his misery, to go with the flow. It was not always like that
What Nigeria’s Election Cannot Teach Does Not Exist Read More »
As Hadiza would later find out, office politics for a political appointee could be more fierce, more complicated and often more vicious than electoral politics. And if you’re going to make too much noise about principles or patriotism, Hadiza wrote, you must be prepared to resign or have your head served on the platter of the big man
Hadiza and the Toes of the Nigerian Big Man Read More »
It would have taken extraordinary nerve for the government under Buhari to formally bring charges against Abubakar, his main rival and leading opposition candidate on the eve of the elections. And even if Buhari’s government succeeded in doing so, it would have been interesting to hear what the US and other Western countries would have said…It is difficult to imagine that the prosecution would come up with this raft of charges against Trump – and press them in court now – if he was not interested in running again in the 2024 elections
Why Trump’s Trial Doesn’t Make America Special Read More »
The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for example, campaigned in the South East that he deserved their vote because he has an Igbo wife. And then, to the embarrassment of his Igbo wife, he went to the North to say, “only a Northern president can best serve the interest of Northerners.” Others are on their own.
A British Example in Our Rascally Times Read More »
I took particular interest in four anglophone countries with a fairly vibrant and robust tradition of press freedom and randomly browsed coverage, just before, during and after the polls, to see if I would be disappointed. I wasn’t. Not by Ghana, Nigeria’s western neighbour, which has its own district and local elections later this year…The Editor of a major Ghanaian newspaper, The Chronicle , Emmanuel Akli, explained why: ‘The Ghanaian economy is in a very bad shape,’ he said. ‘The press is struggling. Readership is very low. Advertising is even worse. We are all struggling, and that includes Daily Graphic the biggest daily. We can’t even cover internal issues well, never mind sending reporters to cover elections in Nigeria!
A British Example in Our Rascally Times Read More »
One unintended consequence of the prolonged grieving is further loss of faith among voters who braved the odds to vote on February 25. This is the last thing the opposition needs at a moment of promise and significant electoral gains. Voters have sacrificed a lot for this moment and it would be a shame if politicians mismanage it
INEC Server and Other Election Day Stories Read More »
I’m bereft that the irony of Obasanjo’s demand was lost on him. How the man whose government committed one of the worst electoral heists in Nigeria in 2007 has the audacity to demand stoppage of election results, mid-count, on the grounds of a suspicion, defies belief. But Obasanjo is apparently too fortified and absorbed in a public life of hypocrisy to care much about irony, that quality of existence without which tragedy becomes blatant
What Really Matters to Obasanjo Read More »