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Is Nigeria still a secular state? By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Is Nigeria still a secular state? By Ikechukwu Amaechi

When TheNiche, an online newspaper, exclusively reported on February 13, that a few hours after announcing the 2027 elections timetable, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was set to tinker with the schedule due to pressure from some Muslim groups, many were incredulous. Earlier that day, INEC Chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, after waiting endlessly for the […]

Regulator builds coalition for a new telecom policy, by Okoh Aihe

Regulator builds coalition for a new telecom policy, by Okoh Aihe

The telecommunications industry opened with a bang in early 2000 after a snail-walk in the previous years of political uncertainties and economic decisions that were at best tentative. The industry was not only deregulated but phone ownership was so democratised that the development mocked previous assertions that telephones were for the rich. It was the birth […]

El-Rufai wanted and begged to be arrested, by Rotimi Fasan

El-Rufai wanted and begged to be arrested, by Rotimi Fasan

Well before he arrived Nigeria from Egypt, Nasir el-Rufai, a former governor of Kaduna State and frontline promoter of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, the new political home of the major opposition figures that have sworn to unseat President Bola Tinubu, had announced that he would be arrested upon arrival in the country. More than a […]

“I Remain Loyal”: Beyond the slogan and rethinking loyalty in Nigeria’s politics(3), by Usman Sarki

“I Remain Loyal”: Beyond the slogan and rethinking loyalty in Nigeria’s politics(3), by Usman Sarki

“All things are possible in politics”— Douglas Reed After two weeks of examining the language and practice of loyalty in Nigerian politics, one conclusion stands out with unsettling clarity: the phrase “I remain loyal” has become both a confession and an indictment. It confesses the fragility of conviction in our political culture and indictes a system […]

City Boy’s South-East invasion, by Ochereome Nnanna

City Boy’s South-East invasion, by Ochereome Nnanna

Before now, not many people outside the South-West, especially inner Lagos circles knew, or bothered about the “City Boy” phenomenon. It was a byname invented for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu by his followers at the outset of the 2023 political season to emblematise his “street-smart” persona which has enabled him to streak from nowhere to President […]

Jibo, Bugaje, el-Rufai, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

Jibo, Bugaje, el-Rufai, by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency”.– Arnold Glasow I travelled by road for much of the last one week. Nigerian highways are faithful records of causes and consequences of our current state as a nation. Their skeletons remind you of promises and hopes of […]

The Illusion of a single party (6), by Eric Teniola

The Illusion of a single party (6), by Eric Teniola

This is the concluding part of this piece which last week  introduced  the narrative of how two youth groups emerged and launched public campaigns in support of  the undeclared presidential ambition of General Sani Abacha, which eventually culminated to his adoption as the presidential candidate of all the five political parties at the time. Despite […]

Biodun Jeyifo: The intellectual as a revolutionary, by Owei Lakemfa

Biodun Jeyifo: The intellectual as a revolutionary, by Owei Lakemfa

The inaugural lecture of Professor Wole Soyinka in the 1980/81 period at the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, was expectedly explosive. Its title, “The Critic and society: Bathes, Leftocracy and Other Mythologies”, left no one in doubt that this was an ideological offensive. It was the famous writer’s nuclear-powered intellectual attack against Leftists who had […]