Broken politics: Deeply flawed primaries point to a messy 2027, by Olu Fasan
The morning foretells the day. Early signs can indicate how a day will unfold. In that sense, the recent presidential, gubernatorial and legislative primaries foretell a very messy general election next year. Over the past two weeks, the media have been awash with endless stories about deeply flawed party primaries. The primaries betray a political […]
Tax reform bills: Tinubu lacks the will for national consensus building, by Olu Fasan
Hardly anyone will disagree that Nigeria needs a fundamental tax reform. This, after all, is a country with one of the most cumbersome tax regimes in the world, where tax laws and regulations are overlapping and burdensome, where the administration and collection of taxes, and their spending, are ridden with inefficiency and corruption, and where tax […]
Yorubanisation of Tinubu’s government: Nigeria’s fate is now in Yoruba hands! By Olu Fasan
SHORTLY before the 2023 presidential election, I wrote a piece titled “Yoruba ronu: A Tinubu presidency would tarnish your race” (Vanguard, February 16, 2023). The premise of that thoughtful and, in my view, patriotic intervention was threefold. First, Bola Tinubu’s miasmic past was the antithesis of the honour-signalling ‘omoluabi’ ethos that Yorubas claim define them. His […]
Donald Trump’s return: Americans put economic self-interest above moral values, by Olu Fasan
THERE are two views of human behaviour. One is that people are primarily motivated by self-interest – what’s in it for me? The other is that people are primarily influenced by deeply ingrained moral values – what’s right and wrong? The first view comes from the rational choice or game-theoretic school, the second belongs to what […]
Stop blaming IMF, World Bank; Nigeria’s economic woes are self-inflicted, by Olu Fasan
The International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank have long struck a raw nationalistic nerve in Nigerians. Romantic patriotism drives the nationalistic urge to reject any perceived IMF/World Bank ‘interference’. Several years ago, as a magazine publisher, I interviewed Dr Kalu Idika Kalu, then finance minister under General Ibrahim Babangida’s regime, when he stopped over […]
Beyond the economy, why is Tinubu so unpopular? It’s arrogance of power! By Olu Fasan
Recently, Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s chief economist and senior vice-president for development economics, wrote an article in the Financial Times urging Nigerians to embrace the economic reforms of their president, Bola Tinubu. “The country’s elites must forge a political consensus in support of these reforms,” he said. Like every seasoned policy expert, Gill knows that […]
