By Olu Fasan A WEEK hardly goes by without some negative news about Nigeria in the British press. And hardly a week passes without some readers of this column emailing me and lamenting the appalling state of affairs in Nigeria. The recurrent message is that President Muhammadu Buhari is not in control of the deteriorating situation […]

By Olu Fasan THE recent crackdown on cryptocurrency transactions by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, follows a worrying pattern. From the exclusion of importers of 43 listed items from access to foreign exchange through the official window to wider exchange controls and now a ban on digital currency trade, the Central Bank has an […]

By Olu Fasan THE death last month of Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande,first civilian governor of Lagos State, brought back memories of the late 1970s and early 1980s when, as a young man, I was enrapturedby politics, without being a politician. Aristotlefamously said that man is, by nature, a “political animal”. Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his […]

By Olu Fasan THE outside world is puzzled about Nigeria. How can a country be so richly endowed and yet so utterly backward? Foreigners always lament how Nigeria is badly governed, how its resources are unconscionably squandered and how it has become a fragile state. Yet, Nigeria doesn’t only have a rich natural-resource base, its […]

By Olu Fasan WHEN President Muhammadu Buhari said recently that Nigeria’s ‘elite’ were ‘harassing’ his government, I instinctively wanted to defend him. I may be his arch-critic, but I don’t want his government harassed unfairly. But then, I asked: Is the allegation true? Is President Buhari’s government unfairly harassed? The answer is no! Why? Well, […]

By Olu Fasan PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari rejected National Assembly resolutions and public demands to sack his utterly inept service chiefs. Suddenly, on January 26, President Buhari tweeted: “I have accepted the immediate resignation of the service chiefs.” But, akin to a “golden handshake”, he promptly nominated them as “non-career ambassadors”. Was there a special relationship […]

By Olu Fasan SINCE leaving office in 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s stock has risen sharply. Deeply unpopular in office, he is widely feted out of power. The main reason, of course, is that he wisely conceded defeat in an election he lost. Given how, recently, a defeated American president refused to concede but, instead, […]

By Olu Fasan RECENTLY, Nigeria marked the 51st anniversary of the end of its civil war, from July 6, 1967 to January 15, 1970. Too often, retired generals tell us they fought the war to secure Nigeria’s ‘unity’. But, in truth, all they did was to stop, with lethal force, a constituent unit – the […]

By Olu Fasan SINCE Nigeria was cobbled together in 1914, the North has rarely seen eye to eye with the South on the future direction of the country. On the critical question of whether Nigeria should be independent and free from colonial rule: The South said yes, the North said no. Now, on another critical […]

By Olu Fasan WHEN Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari was appointed as President Muhammadu Buhari’s new Chief of Staff in May last year, he pledged total dedication to the president. In fact, in response to a journalist’s question, he said: “I don’t report directly to the nation, I report to the president.” He then set out […]

By Olu Fasan PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is showing typical behavioural strains. Beleaguered leaders, who are out of touch with reality, usually find solace in the echo chambers of sycophancy and tend to see enemies in even well-meaning critics. That’s how to view the Presidency’s recent attacks on Bishop Matthew Kukah, Bishop of Sokoto Catholic diocese, […]

TODAY, December 31, Nigeria joins the rest of the world to say good riddance to 2020, a year eviscerated by COVID-19. A recent TIME magazine cover says: “2020 Cancelled: The worst year ever”! Of course, 2020 is the year of Nigeria’s 60th independence anniversary, and of my 60th birthday. So, I won’t dismiss it as […]

By Olu Fasan LAST year, I wrote a piece titled “A lesson of Christmas: Nigeria needs sacrificial leaders” (Vanguard, December 27, 2019). A year on, I’m returning to the same theme. For while Christmas brings hope as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, who came to save the world, thinking about Nigeria fills one […]

By Olu Fasan THERE is an intellectual dishonesty at the heart of the opposition to rotational presidency in Nigeria. The advocates of “meritocracy” conveniently forget that Nigeria is, politically, not a meritocratic country, and that zoning is a political imperative that speaks to this country’s deeply flawed political structure that creates recurrent inter-ethnic conflicts over […]

By Olu Fasan NIGERIA recently fell into recession for the second time in about five years. In 2016, this country’s economy contracted for the first time in 20 years. Less than five years later, Nigeria has now slumped back into another recession. The government blames the current recession on external shocks; specifically, on COVID-19 and […]