Nigeria, once brimming with promise and potential, has tragically veered off course in its pursuit of good governance. The fundamental principles of effective government and governance have been sidelined amidst a self-serving political elite. Government, the apparatus responsible for creating and enforcing laws, comprises three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. However, governance transcends these formal structures, encompassing the broader processes and systems that shape decision-making and policy implementation. While government focuses on institutions and power holders, governance emphasizes citizen participation, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness to societal needs. In Nigeria, corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement have become endemic, with political opportunists prioritizing…

Construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has begun amid a myriad of fiscal and due process concerns. But indifference is the response of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to the challenges. The 700-kilometre stretch of road infrastructure, which will span eight years to complete, will gulp a staggering N15 trillion. This figure is tentative, given the country’s inflationary spiral. The project might well have significant economic benefits for the country but there are real questions involved, especially as regime spokespersons have repeatedly reiterated the fact that our economy is bankrupt, of which there is no question. The pilot phase of the…

“Fools at the top would cause damage to any system not to talk of the fragile institutions of a fledgling democracy.” – Charles Archibong, A Stranger in Their Midst: A Memoir, 97 (2021) In the last week of April, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Olukayode Ariwoola co-convened and chaired a “National Summit on Justice” in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital. Addressing the participants “with a profound sense of responsibility”, the CJN invited them “on a journey of comprehensive reform to ensure that justice is not only dispensed but also perceived to be dispensed fairly and impartially.” More specifically, he asked them…

“One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to convince them steadily with propaganda that they are still free.” N. A. Scott, American author. Every human being currently living on earth came to this world and saw the United States of America posing as the cradle of democracy, a bastion of freedom and a citadel of human rights. For those of us in Africa, especially West Africa, and particularly those along the coastline, that America ruptured family cohesion, ties and lineage by forcefully taking our able-bodied forefathers and enslaving them, was either forgotten, forgiven,…