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Opinion

Thursday, 02 July 2020 05:45

We’ve been celebrating the wrong people - and the wrong values - Sally Jenkins

There are a half-dozen statues of Stonewall Jackson peering from pedestals, so tall he can see over three states. For a representation of Pen Hallowell, you can find only an archival photograph of a mildly handsome bearded young man in plain tunic, a forage cap in one hand, the other resting lightly on a sword. Even in that, though, you can see his easy athleticism and his backbone. It’s not really your fault if you don’t know who Hallowell was. His life and slim writings largely have been buried by “Gone With the Wind” nonsense. They should be revived and…

Wednesday, 01 July 2020 05:44

The long, unhappy history of working from home - David Streitfeld

As the coronavirus keeps spreading, employers are convinced remote work has a bright future. Decades of setbacks suggest otherwise. Three months after the coronavirus pandemic shut down offices, corporate America has concluded that working from home is working out. Many employees will be tethered to Zoom and Slack for the rest of their careers, their commute accomplished in seconds. Richard Laermer has some advice for all the companies rushing pell-mell into this remote future: Don’t be an idiot. A few years ago, Mr. Laermer let the employees of RLM Public Relations work from home on Fridays. This small step toward…

Tuesday, 30 June 2020 05:04

The African University - Mahmood Mamdani

It is striking, in the postcolonial era, how little the modern African university has to do with African institutions. It draws its inspiration from the colonial period and takes as its model the discipline based, gated community that maintained a distinction between clearly defined groups: administrators, academics and fee-paying students. The origins of this arrangement lay in 19th-century Berlin, and Humboldt University, founded in 1810 in the aftermath of Napoleon’s conquest of Prussia. The African university makes its appearance later in the 19th century. At the southern end of the continent, colleges were started from scratch – Stellenbosch, Cape Town,…

Monday, 29 June 2020 05:28

As Ondo governorship election hots up...(8) - Bola Bolawole

For good reasons, South-westerners are nostalgic about the tenure of Obafemi Awolowo as the first premier of Western Region – what with the ‘first this’ and ‘first that’, and the free education policy especially! While that age remains golden, it is usually eulogised to the point of faultlessness. These days when we talk of run-away corruption, the impression is usually created as if there was no corruption in the First Republic: That is baloney! The breakdown of law and order apart, corruption was another reason for the first coup of January 15, 1966. Kaduna Nzeogwu, who led that coup, labelled…

Monday, 29 June 2020 05:27

The Main Street manifesto - Nouriel Roubini

The historic protests sweeping America were long overdue, not just as a response to racism and police violence, but also as a revolt against entrenched plutocracy. With a growing number of Americans falling into unemployment and economic insecurity, while major corporations take bailouts and slash labor costs, something had to give. The mass protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer are about systemic racism and police brutality in the United States, but also so much more. Those who have taken to the streets in more than 100 American cities are channeling a broader critique of…

Sunday, 28 June 2020 06:09

I warned Bola Tinubu that this day would come - Farooq Kperogi

The political coalition between Muhammadu Buhari’s CPC and Bola Tinubu’s ACN has all but collapsed. There was nothing even remotely surprising about it. In previous columns, media interviews, and social media updates, I predicted that this would happen. For example, in my June 23, 2018 column titled “Buhari’sJune 12 Pandering and Naivety of Yoruba Elite,” I wrote: “Buhari may well get a second term with the help of votes from the Southwest. But one thing is as certain as tomorrow’s date: he will spectacularly fall out with the Yoruba elite whose support he’s bending over backwards to court now. He’d…

Sunday, 28 June 2020 05:59

APC as one big forest of lion, hyena and cobra - Festus Adedayo

Professor of Linguistics and President, Academy of Letters, Francis Egbokhare of the University of Ibadan, on an Ibadan, Oyo State, radio programme where we both appeared yesterday, made a profound analysis of the ongoing political chess-gaming in the All Progressives Congress (APC). Only last week, at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari had dissolved the party’s National Working Committee, (NWC) appointing Yobe State governor, Mai-Mala Buni, as Caretaker Chairman. Other chain reactions which apparently signaled a huge conflagration in the party, came in tow. This was reminiscent of similar crisis which led to the…

Sunday, 28 June 2020 05:58

Now, give me this mountain - Taiwo Akinola

Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said. Joshua 14:12 Introduction: Beloved, you’re never too old or ever so disadvantaged that you cannot yet win and enjoy the sweet promises of God. Caleb the son of Jephunneh was numbered among the twelve leaders of Israel that Moses sent out to spy the land of…

Sunday, 28 June 2020 05:57

Defining the true Born Again - Kola Oyefeso

Since we resumed this series, we have discussed philosophy, science and, lately, we have been on religion, trying to examine how well all these have fared in making life more abundant for us in the coarse material plane. Philosophy tries to bring rationality to life's phenomena, science has an edge in devising instruments to soothing the effects of our stay in the world, while religion is conceptualised to unite us back to our Creator. What we have, however, discovered is that religion itself has become generally limiting. This is because some of its practitioners have settled for the external aspect…

Sunday, 28 June 2020 05:56

Falling statues and the collapse of moral authority - Mathew Walther

Why does it feel like autumn? I am not referring to the weather, which has been almost unseasonably hot in many parts of the country, but to something else one sees venturing outdoors or turning on the television: our great cities emptied out, like clusters of silver birches, save for the tens of thousands of people massed together in stratonic clusters: fallen leaves. It would be premature to say that what we are witnessing is the "fall" of the American political and social order. What is happening instead is that we are all from our separate vantage points coming around…

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Friday, 26 June 2020 15:30

Ajimobi’s journey of no return, as recounted by close aide

Bolaji Tunji It was just like yesterday. He had received a call to come to Abuja. It was to discuss party matters. He was not sure of who would follow him. Because it was a private flight, he had limited options. He only went with his security aide. He had told us earlier in our office in his Oluyole home that we would talk about the movement to Abuja since he had become the Deputy National Chairman. Our office had to shift to Abuja. He was in his usual caftan and cap, always impeccably dressed even at home except when…

Friday, 26 June 2020 05:45

In praise of Marxism - Edwin Madunagu

One of the earliest objections we encountered from our opponents when we entered the organized Marxist political activism in the early post-Civil War years was the one built around the thesis that Marxism, our ideology, was alien to Africa and to Nigeria in particular. We soon realized that this objection was not new, that it was as old as the history of the Marxist ideology in Africa and Nigeria. We found that our older Nigerian comrades (especially the intellectuals and academics among them) had confronted the objection for at least two decades and a half before our entry. Still later,…

Friday, 26 June 2020 05:44

This game called life - Dare Babarinsa

Ladipo Akinkugbe, professor emeritus of medicine, who died on Monday June 15 at 86, led a good life. I don’t know whether life could have played one a better hand than it did Akinkugbe; teacher, author, physician, orator, professor of professors, nationalist, raconteur and builder of lives. He was simply exceptional. He embraced fame and fortune with benign equanimity. Akinkugbe was the first vice-chancellor of University of Ilorin, Unilorin, and the first chairman of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB. He was later transferred from Unilorin to succeed Iya Abubakar as vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. His appointment…

Friday, 26 June 2020 05:43

Explaining China’s economic resilience - Zhang Jun

It is naive to believe that forced technological decoupling, trade sanctions, or forced changes to global supply chains will put an end to China’s future economic expansion. If critics are too short-sighted to see this, it will be their loss. Widespread lockdowns and border closures aimed at combating the Covid-19 pandemic have interrupted global supply chains and largely paralyzed the global economy. Yet, the real weakness of today’s global economy is not the vulnerability of its globalized production networks, but rather souring attitudes toward globalization – and toward China in particular. Fear of China’s growing economic clout drives many countries’…

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