In our society, it is uncommon for public officials to admit faults, let alone offer a tearful apology, and that seems to explain some of the reactions to the actions of JAMB registrar Is-haq Oloyede. We are used to poor leaders scoring themselves high and branding those who ask legitimate questions as “haters”, and so the reaction to Oloyede was either extreme vilification or wild applause. Take, for instance, the University of Nigeria chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities that alleged a conspiracy against their region and threatened to sue JAMB. Even if taking legal action was part…

“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business” – US President Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865. I address you as “my brother” not because you are Yoruba and Ijebu; but because you are a Nigerian. As a stubbornly non-party member, I remain non-partisan. Politicians can play their games as they always do – deceive, decamp, destroy, defraud – but my neutrality is unassailable. That should not be misconstrued to mean that I have no opinions about performances, usually horrible, but they are never…

Ibrahim Traore is the latest sensation on the African continent. For many young- and not so young- people on social media, he has become the figurehead of a new pan Africanism that is suspicious to Western interest and interventions on the continent and specifically opposed to the French neocolonial hold on large swathes of African countries- with little to show in terms of development and progress after many decades. They are also sceptical about democracy and its lofty promises, against the reality of continued under-development and impoverishment of the African continent. Captain Ibrahim Traoré, a 34-year-old artillery officer in Burkina…

In March 2006, Uganda’s Supreme Court convened to begin adjudication of the disputes over the presidential election that occurred the previous month in the country. Voting took place on 23 February. Two days later, on 25 February, the Electoral Commission announced the results, giving the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, 59.28% of the valid votes cast. In second place, with an award of 37.36% of the votes, the commission announced Kiiza Besigye, a medical doctor whose military career began as part of the bush war that brought Museveni to power 20 years earlier in 1986. In his petition against the announced result,…