Category: Leaders

Setting the context: It seems like a long time ago now when the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus began in Wuhan, China. Yet it has been less than six months, and in that time, it has since become the COVID-19 disease and a pandemic that is now ravaging the whole world, and is changing life and our conditions of living… Read More

You have possibly watched the 1998 action-thriller film with the above title, starring Will Smith. It was the box office hit story about a group of people plotting to kill an American Congressman, and the tape of the plot was discovered. Well, an Enemy of the State struck in Nigeria on Monday, but this time, it was no fiction. It… Read More

Any objective analysis of a long-winded essay, “COVID-19: Can Africa Afford Lockdowns?”, by Chukwuma Soludo, would wonder if the renowned economist is suddenly cast with a voodoo spell.  Mr. Soludo needs no introduction. A distinguished professor of economics, with advanced degrees—both academic and honoris causa—from the prestigious University of Nigeria, he was a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),… Read More

Yesterday April 28, 2020, a piece of draft legislation that could permanently change the experience of Nigeria as we know it was quietly transmitted to members of the House of Representatives for consideration. On the surface, it is a somewhat innocuous bill – possibly even praiseworthy and necessary, but as has become the case in recent times, a closer examination… Read More

Following a string of suspicious deaths in Kano last week, some have said the state, arguably Nigeria’s most populous, could be Nigeria’s Italy.  They are wrong and right. They are wrong because healthcare in Kano and what obtained in any region in pre-COVID-19 Italy is not comparable. Like night and day, they’re not even close. But they are right because… Read More

President Muhammadu Buhari was presented with two difficult choices early this week as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on – a choice to continue the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory to further curtail the spread of the pandemic or a decision to relax lockdown in these states and the FCT for businesses to reopen. Each of the… Read More

Two days ago, the police arrested Mubarak Bala, President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, in Kaduna. Detectives from the Kano State Police Command went to his residence, arrested and later detained him at Gbabasawa police station. According to local sources, the police were planning to transfer him to Kano where some lawyers had lodged a petition against him. They… Read More

“We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.”    -Kenneth Levine “When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”     -Lois McMaster Bujold After what appeared to be the overwhelming verdict of the majority of Nigerians… Read More

The truth is that social distancing is impracticable in Lagos. Over 70 per cent of Lagosians use the public transport system, mainly buses popularly called “danfo”. Here, people are compelled to sit really very close to one another under very uncomfortable and disconcerting situations. The bus conductor cries out intermittently, calling passengers to come board the bus for a trip.… Read More