God complex: Can Tinubu remake Nigeria in his own image? By Olu Fasan
Recently, someone sent me an unsolicited WhatsApp message. As a columnist, and being naturally curious, I read any written message sent to me. After all, column ideas can come from unusual sources. However, on this occasion, after skimming the message, I dismissed it right away. Why? Well, the content of the message was too outlandish […]
January 15, 1966 : The day the military upended Nigeria’s future, by Olu Fasan
Every year, Nigeria celebrates the Armed Forces Remembrance Day on January 15. But that date represents two epochs in Nigeria’s history. The first, January 15, 1966, was when junior officers of the armed forces executed a coup, which, though aborted, triggered a chain of events that led to the civil war. The second, January 15, 1970, […]
The right and wrong of Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, by Olu Fasan
Barely a week after President Donald Trump sent the US military to launch air strikes in Nigeria on Christmas Day last year, he dispatched them to Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cicilia Flores, both handcuffed, blindfolded and shipped to the US. While President Trump said the air strikes in Nigeria were to […]
Dodgy data: The fallacies about Nigeria’s economy in 2025, by Olu Fasan
Mark Twain, the American writer and humourist, famously said: “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics.” This aphorism is truer in Nigeria than in virtually any other country. Put bluntly, one must be utterly gullible to believe official statistics in Nigeria. The unreliability of official data in Nigeria is known universally, with […]
‘Guns-a-blazing’: Trump’s unilateral strike betrays Nigeria’s weakness, by Olu Fasan
The year 2025 ended with the humbling of the Nigerian state by a foreign power. That humiliation began in November when Donald Trump, the US president, described Nigeria as “that now-disgraced country” and designated it as a “Country of Particular Concern” after alleging it harboured “Christian genocide”. Having tagged Nigeria with those derogatory labels, Trump threatened to […]
Christian genocide in Nigeria? Blame the state’s failure to protect, by Olu Fasan
Today, December 25, 2025, Christians all over the world are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour. Christianity is the world’s largest religion, with around 2.4 billion Christians, spread across 120 countries and territories, according to the Pew Research Centre. Islam, the second largest religion, has around 2 billion adherents and spans 53 countries […]
Tinubu’s low-grade ambassadors: A disservice to Nigeria! By Olu Fasan
In the end, Nigeria’s obsequious Senate lived up to its reputation. Toadyish as ever, it supinely rubber-stamped President Bola Tinubu’s tacky list of ambassadorial nominees without as much as a whimper. Last week, following the infamous and shameful “bow and go” practice it has adopted in approving President Tinubu’s political appointees, the Senate waived through his […]
A memorable book launch, and my deepest appreciation, by Olu Fasan
Twelve years after I last came to Nigeria in 2013, I returned home last month. The purpose? To launch my new book, “In The National Interest: The Road to Nigeria’s Political, Economic and Social Transformation.” The event, held at the famous MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, on Thursday, November 20, 2025, was both memorable and splendid. Indeed, […]
Creating a new Nigeria through the ‘veil of ignorance’, by Olu Fasan
The theory of political justice is based on two conceptions. The first is the ‘might-is-right’ school, which describes the illegitimate or amoral exercise of power over individuals or communities. The second is the contractarian perspective, based on the notion that a political community should be founded on consensus among its people, and serve their best interests. […]
Structure matters: Nigeria needs the right political system to succeed, by Olu Fasan
Too often, one hears that it is not Nigeria that needs restructuring, but the minds of Nigerians and their leaders. Those who hold that view try to shift the emphasis away from structure to culture. They are wrong! Of course, culture matters, and leadership matters too. But empirical studies around the world show that it is […]
In the National Interest: A book for our time and why I wrote it! By Olu Fasan
Nigeria goes by the sobriquet “Giant of Africa”, principally because of its size. But the best metaphorical description of the country is a “sleeping giant”. And being asleep, Nigeria is not fulfilling its potential. The challenges are daunting and if things remain as they are, the omens are not good. Cobbled together by Britain in 1914, […]
