In a recent broadcast, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, mentioned that most of those who would vote for him are not on social media. During his interview with Arise TV last Friday, Atiku noted that 90 per cent of the people comprising his political base, the Northern region of Nigeria, do not use social media. This silent majority is his joker compared to his Labour Party opponent’s online following. Some people made predictable noises about Atiku’s claim, but the man was hardly wrong. According to data provider Statista, only about 53 million of us currently use social…

Whenever america’s Federal Reserve raises interest rates, investors reflexively worry about a crisis in emerging markets. Today it might appear the usual pattern is playing out. On July 27th the Fed is expected to raise rates by another three-quarters of a percentage point. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has run out of foreign exchange, Argentina faces another default and many poor countries are in trouble. Look more closely, however, and the world economy has been transformed in ways that mean the nature and consequences of emerging-market turmoil have changed. The archetypal emerging-market crisis was in 1997-98. As the Fed raised rates, pulling…

Recently, the video of hundreds of slaughtered cattle, was making the rounds, on various social media platforms. An old classmate posted it on my Secondary School Class WhatsApp platform; and because he neither spoke Fulfulde nor Hausa, he was sufficiently alarmed, to request for translation of what was being said, by the obviously distressed people, in the video. I made a translation of the conversation; but I thought it was proper to provide some more engaging context for the video. There have been circulated in the recent past, several videos, in the same vein, of the slaughter of cattle; the…

In the wake of the terrorists attack on Owo, Ondo state on June 5, 2022, I asked questions around to try and establish the likely reasons for the bestial and dastardly attack. One explanation was that the terrorists appeared to have a grouse with Catholics – whatever the grouse! Previous as well as subsequent events of the number of Catholic priests killed by terrorists all over the country may justify the need to further explore this explanation. Another reason given was that it was a subtle declaration of war on the Igbo outside of their insurgency-ravaged enclave, since it is…