politics

a photo of nyesom wike with arrows projecting towards him

The Trials of Nyesom Wike

Happening on Wike’s 56th birthday, it was the most unlikely birthday present from the government of Siminalayi Fubara…If Wike was good enough to carry the governor through the dark, difficult days of their trials together when some of the governor’s ardent supporters today didn’t know him from Adam, the governor should be the last person to hang his benefactor out to dry so quickly

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An image of outgoing Liberian President George Weah pointing stands out from a backdrop of african leaders

Weah’s New Jersey for A Troubled Continent

Weah was determined to launch an earlier presidential bid that may have disrupted Johnson’s presidency. Regional leaders fearing Liberia’s fragile state prevailed on him to wait. After watching bands of mostly jobless and potentially vulnerable rural youths fall under the spell of Weah’s star power, Nigeria’s president at the time, Olusegun Obasanjo, advised the former World Footballer of the Year to suspend his ambition and return to school

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a picture of atiku, tinubu and obi seated in front of a backdrop of the supreme court and Themis, the Greek goddess, who represents law, order, and justice

Atiku, Obi and the Road to Kilimanjaro

On a good day, it’s improbable that any of Abubakar’s or Obi’s lawyers would say, with a straight face, that they believe that the constitution created Abuja as an enclave of super voters. Even for a constitution widely criticised for its clutter, it would be taking a malicious lack of clarity too far to suggest that the writers meant that Abuja voters were greater than the rest of us. Not even in the US, famous for its ‘federational’ oddities, does the capital, Washington DC, hold an electoral veto vote over the other states. In fact, the whole point of the Electoral College is to equalise the states. Nigerian courts have also made this point repeatedly. But obviously, the election petition industry will stop at nothing to reinvent its growth, expansion, and prosperity

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president of nigeria, bola ahmed tinubu and indian Prime minister, narendra modi seated on a backdrop of the g20 india logo

Begging for a seat at the table

Nigeria is not even among the eight countries currently participating in AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), a platform that is supposed to boost the region’s trade policy framework. How can Nigeria, which ought to be in the forefront of turning this state of affairs around, but which is sadly one of the laggards in AfCFTA commitments, covet a table at the G-20? And on what terms when, like most of the continent, Nigeria is still largely a market for primary commodities with the inherent disadvantages?

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an image merge of Omoniyi Ibietan and his new book, Cyber Politics – Social Media, Social Demography and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria

Does Social Media Affect Your Voting?

Is it true that social media influencers are ‘motivated to undertake organised campaigns during the election using their platforms, largely due to the need to bring about a better social order?’ It does appear to me (and perhaps this was unique to the 2023 elections) that social media influencers were just a force for good as they were a force for mayhem. The sludge of fake news sometimes unleashed by so-called influencers, not to mention toxicity of the avatars in that space who often insisted it was either their way or the highway, left people like me bereft and alienated

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fake ministerial list with wike, oshiomole and elrufai

Tinubu And Burden of Ministerial List

Nobody knows more than Tinubu that even though he carries the same party flag with Buhari, he does not have the luxury of Buhari’s honeymoon period. And should he make any wrong choices – hopefully not – given the scale of the challenges facing the country, he must immediately remove such appointees, instead of indulging them like his predecessor, as if it was some complicated conjugal misery

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