A Nigerian newspaper and Online version of the Vanguard, a daily publication in Nigeria covering Nigeria news, Niger delta, general national news, politics, business, energy, sports, entertainment, fashion,lifestyle human interest stories, etc
By Olu Fasan Nigeria: WHY do most countries have prime ministers and not executive presidents? Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, only about 46 have a presidential system, where full executive powers are vested in one person. Out of the 50 sovereign states in Europe, 34 are parliamentarian; so are nearly 40
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By Olu Fasan LET’s start with a basic point but allow me to use metaphors in making it. Here’s the point: Britain is Nigeria’s father, and Nigeria is Britain’s baby. If that sounds controversial, then consider this: Without Britain, there would have been no Nigeria. When George Goldie came here in the 1800s, he didn’t
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THE Yoruba are quintessential federalists. They are the Californians or Texans of Nigeria. California and Texas are powerful American states that have positioned themselves as bulwarks against the erosion of federalism in the US. For instance, Texas sued the Obama administration 48 times and, so far, California has sued the Trump administration 32 times. Both have won several legal battles to safeguard the federalist principles. The Yoruba are doing something similar in Nigeria: fighting to move this country towards true federalism.
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By Olu Fasan, Abraham Lincoln famously defined democracy as “the government of the people, by the people, for the people”. This means that in a representative democracy, governments can only emerge through the explicit consent of the governed expressed by votes in elections. It is that direct electoral link between the voters and their elected
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DURING the 2015 presidential election campaign, the Economist magazine described General Muhammadu Buhari as a “sandal wearing ascetic”, and a columnist for the London Times called him a “party pooper”.
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DAVID Pilling, Africa Editor of the Financial Times, sent a text to me last November. The newspaper was doing a special report on Nigeria, and he wanted to speak with me about the infrastructure crisis in Lagos. “Has Lagos stopped working?” he asked. We spoke the next day, and I gave him my views. “The Lagos State government is overwhelmed and daunted by the infrastructure crisis,” I said, before going into detail. He later wrote a piece entitled: “Lagos life overwhelmed by Nigeria infrastructure crisis” in the report, quoting me.
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WHEN I started this column in November 2018, the debut article was titled “Nigeria is stuck on a treadmill – going nowhere fast!” (Vanguard, November 15, 2018). One year later, Nigeria, regrettably, is still stuck in the rot. Several decades ago, the distinguished publisher of this newspaper, Sam Amuka-Pemu, a titan of journalism and one of Nigeria’s finest columnists of any generation, ran a famous column called Sad Sam. But today, columnists are sadder, more despondent, because of the country’s deepening decay, and as we see Nigeria’s leaders doing everything in their power to run the country aground.
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THE Punch newspaper recently decided it would henceforth prefix President Muhammadu Buhari’s name with his military rank of Major-General and refer to his administration as a regime. In an editorial entitled “Buhari’s lawlessness: Our stand”, the newspaper said it would refer to the president and his government in those militaristic and pejorative terms “until they purge themselves of their insufferable contempt for the rule of law.”
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TODAY, as you read this, voters in the United Kingdom are going to the polls to elect a new government. Although the opinion polls predict a majority win for the ruling Conservative Party, the outcome is not a given. In a country where only 16 per cent of the population identifies strongly with one political party or another, where 40 per cent of the electorate are swing voters and where volatility at the polling booth is rife, with voters increasingly likely to vote for different parties at different elections, the British politics is genuinely competitive and contestable. This is not only in terms of the absence of entry barriers in the political market but also in the sense that voters cannot be taken for granted or treated as dim, gullible and easily biddable.
Read More THE World Bank warned this week that Nigeria was heading for an explosive poverty crisis without urgent reforms. Launching its Nigeria Economic Update on Monday, the Bank said the number of extremely poor Nigerians could rise by 30 million by 2030. Of course, with nearly 100 million of its citizens living in extreme poverty, Nigeria has already acquired the sobriquet “poverty capital of the world”, snatching the shameful title from India. But now the World Bank has warned that this country could account for 25 per cent of the world’s extremely poor population by 2030 if it fails to act urgently.
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