In the week in which former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai abandoned the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to chart a different political trajectory with the Social Democratic Party, SDP, his son, Bashir, characteristically made it known that “Southern Kaduna residents will keep seeing sheghe if they continue to attack indigenous Fulani herdsmen.”  Three things about […]

​At the end of February 2025, Nigeria’s Supreme Court continued a tradition of afflicting the people of the territory of Rivers State with curious jurisprudence.

Comprising five of the country’s 36 states, south-east Nigeria is the site of resilient atrocity. In the eight years from the middle of 2015 to the end of 2023, the monitoring coalition, Nigeria Mourns, confirmed about 3,000 killings in this theatre from open source records but unofficial estimates suggest that there may be up to […]

…This column this week publishes their rejoinders (modestly edited for economy) without comment.  ____________________________________ My Father Refused to Swear in Muhammadu Buhari after the Coup of 31 December 1983 By Seyi Sowemimo, SAN I have in recent times come across two posts or write-ups put up by Professor Odinkalu containing some misinformation, which requires correction […]

In January 1983, a suspicious fire incident did considerable damage to NECOM House, the high-rise building in Lagos that housed the headquarters of the country’s telecommunications monopoly, then known as the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, NITEL. Alhaji Shehu Shagari was in power as elected civilian president.

In 1954 Sir John Verity lost his job because he won an argument. It was in his ninth year in office as Chief Justice of colonial Nigeria. Sir John arrived in Nigeria in October 1945 from the British Guyana, where he had served in a similar position since 1941. At the time, Nigeria was still a […]

In 1954 Sir John Verity lost his job because he won an argument. It was in his ninth year in office as Chief Justice of colonial Nigeria. Sir John arrived in Nigeria in October 1945 from the British Guyana, where he had served in a similar position since 1941. At the time, Nigeria was still a unitary system under colonial rule.

In the aftermath of the announcement on 28 January 2024 by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger Republic denouncing the Revised Treaty of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and leaving the regional bloc “without delay”, reactions spanned the spectrum from hubris to hyperbole.

Depending on what view one takes of the matter, 10 February 2025 promises to be Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja. On that day, a panel of five Justices of the Supreme Court will take arguments on seven appeals connected with the synthetic political crisis in Rivers State.  The issues that […]

Depending on what view one takes of the matter, 10 February 2025 promises to be Proxy Wars Day at the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja

Fifty-seven years ago almost to the month, celebrated Kenya political scientist, Ali Mazrui, observed that “for some reason a disproportionate number of the historic acts of violence in Africa since independence have tended to happen in the months of January and February.” He had good reason for this.  In January 1961, the Belgians and the Americans […]

By the time Muhammadu Buhari ran for a second presidential term in 2019, it seemed clear that the judicial process in many parts of the country had been actively co-opted in the intimidation of civic opponents of the government, both real and imagined. The case of Steven Kefas was a defining moment in that process. Steven […]

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu By the time Muhammadu Buhari ran for a second presidential term in 2019, it seemed clear that the judicial process in many parts of the country had been actively co-opted in the intimidation of civic opponents of the government, both real and imagined. The case of Steven Kefas was a defining […]

In 1991, Nigeria was in the full throes of the interminable transition to civil rule programme of General Ibrahim Babangida. The effort by the regime in 1991 to relocate their terminal date from 1992 to 1993 coincided with a planned meeting in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria, of the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS.  […]

In 1991, Nigeria was in the full throes of the interminable transition to civil rule programme of General Ibrahim Babangida.