President Bola Tinubu’s ribbon-cutting for a gleaming new ECOWAS headquarters in Abuja offered a flattering image of ambition — but brick and glass do not heal the fractures that threaten the community’s very purpose. Fifty-one years after its founding in 1975 in Lagos to promote economic integration, collective security, free movement and democratic stability across […]

Kano’s recent announcement that it spent N1.5bn to bankroll mass weddings should prompt national alarm rather than applause. Kano State remains rampant in the worrying roster of northern states – including Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Borno – that have for years organised and financed large-scale nuptial ceremonies. Authorities offer three common rationales: to reduce […]

In the past decade, Nigeria’s name has become increasingly associated with crime, insecurity, and institutional decay, at home and abroad. Official corruption, weak institutions, terrorism, banditry, and the routine kidnapping of schoolchildren for ransom have normalised a national crisis that has eroded public trust and damaged the country’s global standing. The crimes not only persist; […]

The proliferation of small arms and light weapons across Nigeria is not a distant threat; it is an immediate, corrosive reality that bleeds communities dry of security, livelihood and hope. Pistols, assault rifles and improvised firearms have become the currency of violence, multiplying the lethality of banditry, kidnapping, communal clashes and organised crime. Where once […]

The Senate’s planned probe of the Safe Schools Initiative (SSI) has arisen from a bitter national irony: a programme meant to protect children has become a symbol of waste and recurring insecurity. Fresh outrage over school kidnappings has pushed lawmakers to demand answers on how about N144 billion was spent with so little visible protection […]