BAT 2023

Bonnie Honig, political theorist and author of ‘Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy’ wrote: “Democracies must resist emergency’s pull to focus on life’s necessities (food, security, and bare essentials)” as they “tend to privatize and isolate citizens rather than bring us together on behalf of hopeful futures.”  Emphasizing the connections between contemporary food politics and the […]Read More

Augeas, the mythical king of Elis, kept great stables that held 3,000 oxen and had not been cleaned for thirty years – until Hercules was assigned the job. Hercules accomplished this task by causing two rivers to run through the stables. This story depicts two things: the misfortune of inheriting a messed up estate, and […]

During the Jonathan administration, an outspoken opposition spokesperson had argued that Nigeria was on auto-pilot, a phrase that was gleefully even if ignorantly echoed by an excitable opposition crowd. Deeper reflection should have made it clear even to the unthinking that there is no way any country can ever be on auto-pilot, for there are […]

Like a troubador traversing the land, we set forth at dawn, leaving Beijing for Shanghai, China’s economic nerve center. It was 8 am when we headed for the airport, meaning time was 1 am in Nigeria. Every honest Nigerian (except those on essential duties) was supposed to be in bed, drifting from one dream to […]

This reflection is a continuation of my last week’s piece on how to re-engineer our politics to make it less anarchic and more oriented towards nation-building. As I argued, there is pervasive fear that the ethnic group/region that wins power at the centre will use it to privilege its in-group or to disadvantage the others. […]

“I saw something yesterday. I thought it was a joke.” “What happened?”   “Nigerians and their sense of humour; we always manage to squeeze laughter out of every situation, no matter how sad.”   “I don’t like the suspense. What is it?”   “I attended a wedding engagement ceremony.”   “And?”   “When the groom’s […]

Recently, Prince Tony Momoh cane out boldly to state that he has offered himself for stoning should President Muhammadu Buhari not perform at the end of his present four-years tenure. That may seem a dangerous gamble: staking with one’s own life over an issue that presently draws contestation between the supporters of the President and […]

This commentary is inspired by Olusegun Adeniyi’s “Of wailers, counterwailers and Buharideens” (ThisDay, March 31). In that piece, the ace journalist and public affairs commentator successfully defines the tri-polarities governing public responses to the Muhammadu Buhari administration.  The take-away is that the biggest challenge that Nigeria faces at the moment is political partisanship, which has divided […]

I had a few sleepless nights last week. It had nothing to do with the searing heat in the country or the epileptic power supply by Nigeria’s eternally dysfunctional electricity company. My discomfiture had to do with the report about the heist at the Nigerian Air Force. The dizzying allegations of sustained robbery by the […]

There is today in Nigeria an entire generation of Nigerian-passport wielding men and women who do not actually know, to borrow Achebe’s words that indeed “there was once a country”. These children born in a season of austerity, and raised during the years that the locusts ate, have become angry citizens. They are angry because […]

”Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.” –Mahatma Gandhi I will start this piece by ingeminating the story of a young man who wanted to travel to the city, but needed to have the foreknowledge of what life is all about. In his curiosity, he went to his […]

Those who either sentenced themselves or were sentenced to inconsolable heedless wailing by the outcome of last year’s general election can never stop being funny. Often when you hear or read their loud, frenzied and syndicated cacophony of complaint and twisting of everything from President Buhari and his government lately to suit their wailing enterprise, […]