Tag: saharareporters

Legislation is usually enacted to improve the society. The legitimisation goes far beyond the purpose of law. People say that the law reflects society and vice versa. In recent times, the prevalence of rape have increased at an alarming rate in Nigeria. This is fast becoming a pandemic worse than Covid-19 in the country as several lives are being lost to this ignominious act. The social media has been inundated with several reported murderous rape cases that requires urgent intervention.  It is pivotal to state that Rape, like other forms…

Read More

As public gaze and feminist rage are directed towards seeking justice for Uwa, a 22-year-old undergraduate, raped and left for dead in an assumed safe space, a church building, it is crucial to reengage the illusion of safe spaces for female bodies in Nigeria. Her death is a classic reminder that the safety of women and girls in sexist societies that always instigate, endorse, and normalize predatory actions against them is, at best, an illusion. Where the idealized performances of maleness across social spaces are constructed to threaten, control, and…

Read More

The arrest and incarceration of Mubarak Bala has compelled a review of the role of religion, in this case Islam, in governance, in Nigeria’s nation building and development. I did not know Mubarak Bala until 2014. Then I was studying for my doctorate in Germany. Before leaving for my studies, I knew a few ex muslims who were part of the Humanist Association. From interacting with them. I understood how dangerous it was to be an atheist or an ex muslim in Northern Nigeria. I am from southern Nigeria, in…

Read More

Of the three arms of government in our country, it would seem as if the Judiciary has been relegated to the background in the balance of power and its ability to regulate its own affairs.  Though unconstitutional, we have witnessed situations in the very recent past where the President purportedly single handedly suspended the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, the head of an independent arm of government which has powers to review even the President’s decisions. Eventhough we continue to argue about the unconstitutionality of that move, the…

Read More

Jungle justice has been repeatedly happening day in day out in many Muslim communities in Nigeria. In fact, the act has become popular not only among Muslim communities but in the Nigerian society in general. Only a few months ago, to be precise, on March 15, 2010, a taxi driver called Umaru Mohammed alias Marau-Marau was mercilessly killed and burnt to ashes in Kano by some youths, majority of whom were identified as commercial motorcycle operators, on the allegation that the deceased had kidnapped three school children.  But a comprehensive…

Read More

The United Sates of America is doubtlessly a great nation that is unique in many ways. She has a unique President named Donald Trump(et). I call him ‘trumpet’ because he has mastered the art of trumpeting his achievements or lack of same thereof in a nauseating self-glorifying fashion never before seen in the hundreds of years of history of democratic America. Some critics (including the megastar Lady Gaga recently) had labelled him “buffoon”, “imbecile” or “racist” yet he has refused doggedly to change his ways. Leading an emancipated nation is…

Read More

When I first read about the rape and subsequent murder of Vera Uwaila Omozuwa – Uwa – a 22-year-old undergraduate at the University of Benin, I had no doubt in my mind that the perpetrators and their ilk must be the much talked about devil incarnate, the one the Yorubas call Èṣù.  Because let’s face it, how else can you rationalise the rape and murder of Uwa, who was only reading in a church before such horror was visited on her. It was a case of classic inhumanity, the kind…

Read More

On April 21, 2020, and for a couple of days thereafter, my article, “Re-introducing the Lugano Report”, appeared in the media and on discussion platforms. The content of the piece is what the title indicates: a repeat introduction to readers, particularly from the Nigerian Left, of a book I had previously introduced under a different rubric. The earlier introduction of the quasi-fictional book, “The Lugano Report: on preserving capitalism in the 21st century”, written by Susan George, was published about a decade ago. In re-introducing the book I proposed that…

Read More

Something is strikingly absurd in the petition brought against Mubarak Bala. That his said posts were forms of racist and xenophobic attack. Racist and xenophobic attack? Did the petitioners look up the meaning of these terms in a dictionary before using them? They said: “It should be noted that Mubarak’s characterization of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a terrorist follows that his followers, The Muslims, are also terrorists” Does it follow? The petition further states: “and this is a racist and xenophobic attack within the meaning of section 26(1)C of the…

Read More

In the wake of killings in Southern Kaduna, Nigerians are engaging “black oppression” from a different angle. The number one family; Governor El-Rufai, his wife, and son have appeared in the eye of “social media” storms for some time now. The question of value to an African life is constantly brought to fore whenever their names make the rounds. This is coming at a time when Nigerians are maltreated in China and black Americans are protesting the countless extra-judicial killing of black men by an American policeman. In 2017, during…

Read More