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Opinion

Thursday, 29 October 2020 04:47

#EndSARS: Tinubu, ‘Yoruba Ronu’, and the ‘destruction’ of Lagos - Bola Bolawole

An adage says: When a child falls, he looks ahead of him to see why he fell but when an elder falls, he surveys where he is coming from to find out what caused the fall. In other words, today’s events are not necessarily – in fact, are not usually – caused by events happening today. Elders behaved like children in their rationalization of last week’s #EndSAR catastrophe! I dare to say that they deliberately decided to obfuscate issues for selfish, self-serving, disgraceful, and degrading reasons. So were we told by the authorities that the #EndSARS protests were hijacked and…

Thursday, 29 October 2020 04:46

The Nigerian Apocalypse - Abimbola Adelakun

The days after Black Tuesday, that fateful day when soldiers committed atrocities at the Lekki tollgate, was the Apocalypse, the revealing of the vulnerability of our collective existence. As the artifices that have upheld our fragile civilisation ripped off, the reality of the horror that underpins our everyday existence was un-concealed. By Wednesday morning, law and order had virtually broken down in Nigeria, especially in Lagos. Given the number of people killed throughout the state during the #EndSARS protests, it was not surprising that some people decided to hit back at the government in a spectacular manner. From BRT buses…

Wednesday, 28 October 2020 05:39

Prospects of popular democracy - Kayode Komolafe

If last Thursday’s broadcast by the President failed to fully capture the mood of the nation, the outcome of the National Economic Council (NEC) of two days ago seemed to be closer to a problem-solving approach. It is, therefore, more constructive to read the NEC statement as a useful complement to the President’s speech. Apart from the conspicuous omission in the broadcast of what happened at Lekki in Lagos State on that Black Tuesday, there was the gross disappointment caused those who had expected a rousing speech imbued with sufficient empathy to appeal to the collective humanity of the people.…

Monday, 26 October 2020 05:34

#EndSARS protests; a fundamental lesson in democratic governance - Bola Tinubu

I heavily grieve for those who have lost their lives or been injured during the period of these protests. My deepest sympathies go to their families and loved ones for none should have been made to pay such a dear price. My career as an active politician spans nearly three decades. In that time, I have seen many things as Nigeria has struggled, sometimes against itself, to undertake the often painful yet inexorable push toward democratic government accountable to, and protective of, the people. Though this journey, I have traversed the landscape of human experience. Having been as a political…

Monday, 26 October 2020 05:32

Nigeria: Death of a dream - Bola Bolawole

Or call it the death of illusion! The sordid and dastardly events of the past few days brought my days as an undergrad at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) flooding through my mind. We bristled with ideologies and were called “ideologues” or “Socialists” by our ideologically-empty, naive or outright reactionary opponents on campus. Yes, we were proud Socialists, mainly of the Marxist-Leninist hue but we also broke into Leninists, Trotskyites, Kautskyites, Stalinists; Mao-ists; and there were those who idolized Che and Fidel. I remember Femi Falana, Shenge Rahman (Akanbi), Akin Akingbulu, Mallam Olapeju, Femi Adewunmi (of…

Sunday, 25 October 2020 05:40

The day the devil drank water - Tatalo Alamu

When he was asked to summarize the two days that shook Nigeria to its foundation, Baba Lekki, the old Yoruba sage and philosopher of antiquity, responded with a gnomic Yoruba barb straight out of the ancient corpus: “It was the day the devil drank water”. For two days, the devil drank water and something more deadly and deathly indeed. Having finally reached Lagos after a twelve hour odyssey on the Lagos-Ibadan Express last Sunday, snooper thought it was going to be the revolution as a carnival. At a point after the Redeem Church, vehicular movement was at a complete standstill…

Sunday, 25 October 2020 05:39

The bloody or bloodless massacre of Lekki - Festus Adedayo

As leaders of the youth miscreants who invaded the palace of Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, triumphantly made away with the monarch’s insignia of office last Wednesday, writ large in my subconscious was same image in celebrated cinematographer, Tunde Kelani’s epic, Saworoide. Though Saworoide’s plot and the unmitigated arson, murder and lootings in Lagos the day after that black Tuesday may be dissimilar, they are united by a single motif: no matter how long it takes, the oppressed will someday find their grits. Saworoide is Kelani’s eloquent metaphor of the festering governance crisis in Nigeria, a vote of no confidence…

Sunday, 25 October 2020 05:37

The Lordship of Jesus Christ (3) - Taiwo Akinola

I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the LORD of hosts ~ Haggai 2:7. Introduction: This is a moment of hard choices, globally - a moment of social unrest, pains and tears. Unfortunately, I sense that we cannot pray it away; it is an act of God, and it cannot be prevented. We can pray, however, to handle the situations correctly. With hope and sacrifice and, most importantly, with our thoughts fixated on Jesus Christ the Lord, we can come through it changed for the…

Sunday, 25 October 2020 05:36

How the Green Revolution Is harming Africa - Jayati Ghosh

The Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing climate change should have taught us the importance of resilience. Unfortunately, well-intentioned efforts to improve food security in Africa are instead increasing small farmers’ dependence on global agribusinesses without raising their incomes, and making farming systems more fragile. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations World Food Programme, declaring that it wanted “to turn the eyes of the world toward the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger.” Those numbers are now greater than ever – and the dysfunctional global food system…

Saturday, 24 October 2020 04:24

‘I have become death, the destroyer of lives’ - Dare Babarinsa

October is a special month for Nigeria. That was when the national flag was first hoisted at the old Race Course, now Tafawa Balewa Square, on October 1, 1960. It was on October 19, 1986 that Dele Giwa, the first Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine, was killed with a parcel bomb. In October 2020, Nigeria celebrated 60 years as an independent country. The same October, the youth of Nigeria gathered at the Lekki Toll Gates to actualize a campaign that started on the social media asking for the scrapping of the notorious police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SAS. It was…

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Saturday, 24 October 2020 04:23

Nigeria’s useless politicians are trying to crush #EndSARS. Africa’s leaders are silent

Karen Attiah Nigeria’s Independence Day is Oct. 1, 1960. But Oct. 20, 2020, will go down in Nigerian history as the day the whole world saw images of the green-and-white striped flag stained with the red blood of protesters bludgeoned by the forces of the state. The abuses of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government are no longer being kept in the dark. Around the world, people have continued to protest and send resources to organizers on the ground. Nigerian celebrities such as DJ Switch have gone so far as to broadcast the army’s brutality on social media. On her Instagram live…

Friday, 23 October 2020 05:45

#EndSARS: Sanwo-Olu’s cross and the meaning of Lekki Toll Gate - Azu Ishiekwene

It was hard to keep up with the torrent of posts as the power of social media was deployed in all its ferocity for good and evil. Through it all though, one thing was constant on my mind on Tuesday night: the images of vulnerable, distressed youths fighting for their lives. You couldn’t make up the chaos, if you tried. How did Lagos, a city of refuge, become a shooting range against defenceless young people waving the flag and singing the anthem? How was it within the powers of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to declare a curfew published within hours of…

Friday, 23 October 2020 05:43

#EndSARS: Sanwo-Olu's curfew and executive hypocrisy - Michael West

At last, President Muhammadu Buhari has failed! His government has brought self-inflicted uprising despite warnings from different quarters on the need to handle the #EndSARS protests carefully and tactically. Impunity is a blind executive arrogance often used to serve sinister motive than public good. In the context of what happened Tuesday night at the Lekki Toll Plaza venue of peaceful protest, Buhari has failed both as a father and a leader. As at Thursday morning, the President was yet to yield to pressures from the Senate and some key personalities that he should address the nation on the raging issue.…

Friday, 23 October 2020 05:43

The key to the productivity puzzle - Diane Coyle

Although the factors contributing to stagnant productivity are well known, economists and policymakers have so far paid little attention to figuring out how to address these problems in a coordinated way. But the need to deliver broad-based prosperity is more pressing than ever, and this shortcoming must be rectified without delay. In a 1996 lecture entitled “Big Bills Left on the Sidewalk,” the late Mancur Olson made a powerful observation: an individual from a poor country – say, Haiti – who migrates to a richer country like the United States immediately becomes vastly more productive and earns a far higher…

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