It was too quick. Humanity heaving a sigh of relief on Tuesday, April 7, 2026 when a two-week ceasefire in the United States/Israel-Iran war came into effect.  The very next day, one of the most savage attacks in the war took place in Lebanon. Israel, a sidekick of the US, carried out a series of deadly […]

Recently, after the mass killing in Jos, Plateau State, President Bola Tinubu said he was not elected “to comfort and create widows and widowers”. Yet since he became president barely three years ago, his administration has overseen the creation of thousands of widows, widowers and orphans whose husbands, wives and parents were killed in terrorist attacks. […]

Electoral umpires in Nigeria have a long history of dalliance with academics so much so that it has almost become a rule for a professor, the discipline notwithstanding, to be appointed chairman. Granted, some non-academics sometimes find themselves in the saddle, but that is more of an exception. So, the 1959 federal election, which preceded […]

It started with dishes. Just a few cereal bowls left in the sink. But by week three, neither roommate was speaking—they were leaving passive-aggressive notes instead. By month two, one had moved out, and both felt blindsided. The irony? They could have resolved everything with one honest conversation. I hear versions of this story constantly from […]

For me, the legacy of the late President Muhammadu Buhari remains the most profound failure of Nigerian leadership. It was a tenure defined by a litany of institutional abuses. Chief among these was Operation Safe Corridor, OPSC. Initiated almost as soon as he touched the levers of power in May 2015 and fully activated by September […]

There is a saying among my people that if you want to lace garri with sand for a visually impaired, you do it with some tact and wisdom instead of a single desperate act that will cause some stir. This is plainly a parable, which should be measured in the lesson it teaches, instead of being […]

The ongoing leadership crisis in the African Democratic Congress was a disaster everyone who is a Nigerian saw coming. Everyone except those bent on reaping where they had neither sown nor watered. Some members of the party in fact read the writing on the wall and gave the impression they were prepared for any eventuality. They […]

“The true measure of a man is how he bears up under misfortune”—   Plutarch If the early phase of Alhaji Ado Bayero’s reign was defined by adaptation and consolidation, the later decades were marked by endurance, influence, adversity and the quiet exercise of statesmanship. By the 1970s and 1980s, Nigeria had entered a prolonged period of […]

From last week continues the narrative on the 1959 elections, the nation-wide campaigns and the accusations and counter- accusations by rival party leaders of infractions by supporters of other parties. For instance, Alhaji Aliyu Makama Bida had said that Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his supporters had violated Northern traditions, for which they would never be […]

Democracy rarely dies in one dramatic moment. It is more often weakened quietly by technical rulings, administrative decisions, and institutions that begin to forget why their powers exist in the first place. That is why the imbroglio between the African Democratic Congress and the Independent National Electoral Commission deserves to worry every Nigerian, regardless of party. […]