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Opinion

Saturday, 09 November 2019 05:20

The imperative of ‘people’s manifesto’ - Edwin Madunagu

In the 20 months since I wrote “Drafting a people’s manifesto” and “Further notes on the people’s manifesto” (February/March, 2018), a sufficient number of significant things have happened and are happening in our country, Nigeria, in the Nigerian Left, to the Nigerian Left and in the world to raise the level of the urgency of the broad suggestion I alternately called “draft” and “notes”. The use of these terms to describe my attempt was a cautious way of indicating that I was not, and could not be publishing a manifesto on behalf of the Nigerian Left. I could only suggest,…

Saturday, 09 November 2019 05:18

The danger of an unchallenged myth: The lie that is Rwandan Paul Kagame - David Hundeyin

When I set about writing this, two poignant quotes kept bouncing around in my head, which describe everything I want to express in this column. The first, by Martin Luther King goes thus: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” The second quote, from a speech by US President John F. Kennedy at Yale University goes thus: “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.” These two quotes perfectly sum up my views on the…

Friday, 08 November 2019 05:04

Decades of free-market orthodoxy have taken a toll on democracy - Joseph Stiglitz

After 40 years of neoliberalism, the verdict is in – the fruits of growth went to the few at the top At the end of the cold war, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a celebrated essay called The End of History? Communism’s collapse, he argued, would clear the last obstacle separating the entire world from its destiny of liberal democracy and market economies. Many people agreed. Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries that contain well over half the world’s population, Fukuyama’s idea seems quaint and naive.…

Thursday, 07 November 2019 05:38

Okon makes a pitch for Lebanese juju - Tatalo Alamu

Wonders will never cease in this most wondrous and entertaining land. As they say it is one wonder per one day. When you are not hearing of some women forming The Mothers of Yahoo Boys Union, you are hearing rumours of a departing governor hurriedly granting state pardon to a recently convicted husband-killer who was immediately shipped out of the country. As soon as the news hit the airwaves of a Lebanese huckster who was hurled down from the ceiling of his luxury pile with his pouch of juju strangely intact, Okon’s brains went into over-drive gear about how to…

Wednesday, 06 November 2019 05:53

The happy, healthy capitalists of Switzerland - Ruchir Sharma

Like many progressive intellectuals, Bernie Sanders traces his vision of economic paradise not to socialist dictatorships like Venezuela but to their distant cousins in Scandinavia, which are just as wealthy and democratic as the United States but have more equitable distributions of wealth, as well as affordable health care and free college for all. There is, however, a country far richer and just as fair as any in the Scandinavian trio of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. But no one talks about it. This $700 billion European economy is among the world’s 20 largest, significantly bigger than any in Scandinavia. It…

Tuesday, 05 November 2019 05:12

How colonial rule committed Africa to fragile authoritarianism - Nic Cheeseman and Jonathan Fischer

The impact of colonial rule on sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the subject of intense debate and controversy. Barely a year goes by in the UK without a public figure igniting a furor by arguing that colonialism somehow benefitted the people it oppressed. But our new book, “Authoritarian Africa: Repression, Resistance, and the Power of Ideas”, paints a very different picture. We re-evaluate the political legacy of colonialism and find that it had a profound impact on African political systems. The colonial era strengthened the power of “Big Men” – powerful local leaders – over their communities. This undermined pre-existing…

Sunday, 03 November 2019 05:33

Why millennials are skipping church and not going back - Christine Emba

Here are a few things we’ve learned about millennials this month: We don’t have time to relax or think, but we do like to sleep. We’re less interested in television than our parents. And after destroying vacations, weddings, car commuting and other traditional activities in a well-publicized rampage, we have turned our attention to the basilicas. Or rather, away from them. Apparently, we’ve stopped going to church. The data comes from the findings of two surveys released this month. Analyzing 2017 data from the American Time Use Survey, economist Michelle Freeman of the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that while…

Sunday, 03 November 2019 05:32

A tale of firewood Mama told me - Bolanle Bolawole

I recently heard that jollof rice cooked with/on firewood tastes better than the one cooked with/on gas. I also heard that jollof rice cooked with/on charcoal/coal sits in-between – not as tasty as the former but tastes better than the latter. I cannot lay claim to being an extra-ordinary chef, even though I was raised to be able to fend for myself and can cook very well as a proud member of the old school; not of the new generation raised on meat-pie and indomie. I wouldn’t know why this difference between jollof rice cooked with different types of “firewood”;…

Sunday, 03 November 2019 05:19

When Esu, god of construction and destruction, mapped own role in Nigeria - Festus Adedayo

The Agbekoya war is indisputably one of the focal points of the most successive resistance to the Nigerian state. The peasant farmers union had gone berserk in the Western Region, in protestation against high taxation during the civil war. They held the government of the West literally hostage, hounding soldier administrators and civil servants, as well as royal fathers. In the process, Mr Olateru Olagbegi, Oba of Owo, was hounded and eventually fled his throne, so also for the Odemo of Ishara, Mr Samuel Akinsanya, while the Soun of Ogbomosho, the traditional ruler of Mr S.L. Akintola’s town, suffered the…

Saturday, 02 November 2019 05:29

Why rich cities rebel - Jeffrey D. Sachs

Having lost touch with public sentiment, officials in Paris, Hong Kong, and Santiago failed to anticipate that a seemingly modest policy action (a fuel-tax increase, an extradition bill, and higher metro prices, respectively) would trigger a massive social explosion. Three of the world’s more affluent cities have erupted in protests and unrest this year. Paris has faced waves of protests and rioting since November 2018, soon after French President Emmanuel Macron raised fuel taxes. Hong Kong has been in upheaval since March, after Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed a law to allow extradition to the Chinese mainland. And Santiago exploded…

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Friday, 01 November 2019 05:50

The man who knows the truth - Dare Babarinsa

On Saturday October 19, Mr Yakubu Gowon, retired army general and former Head of State, celebrated his 85th birthday. In the not so distant past, that event would have been marked with something akin to a public holiday. The Brigade of Guards would have organized an honour parade and speeches would have been made. Now power has moved on to new suitors but the truth is that Gowon remains a towering figure in contemporary Nigerian history. He is perhaps the most influential figure of post-independence Nigeria. All the military officers who later played major roles in our history – Murtala…

Thursday, 31 October 2019 05:34

From Hong Kong to Chile, 2019 is the year of the street protester. But why? - Jackson Diehl

By last week it was undeniable: 2019 has become the year of the street protester. As hundreds of thousands marched in Hong Kong and Santiago, Lebanon and London, what has become a global explosion of people power was prompting panic among a host of governments — and raising some interesting questions about how and why it was all happening. Of course, the phenomenon is not new, even in modern times. Since the late 1980s, when people took to the streets in the Philippines and South Korea, and then in the captive nations of Eastern Europe, mass movements of people have…

Tuesday, 29 October 2019 06:03

Al-Baghdadi is dead. The story doesn’t end here - Thomas L. Friedman

The killing of the founder and leader of the Islamic State by United States commandos operating in Syria should certainly further weaken the most vile and deadly Islamist movement to emerge in the Middle East in the modern era. The world is certainly a better place with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead and a measure of justice meted out on behalf of all the women ISIS raped, all the journalists ISIS beheaded and the tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis it abused. Good for President Trump for ordering it, for the intelligence agents who set it up, for the allies…

Tuesday, 29 October 2019 06:02

Middle East’s dangerous new hegemonic confrontation - Joschka Fischer

Although Yemen's Houthi rebels have claimed credit for the sophisticated nighttime strike on Saudi oil facilities last month, the attack was almost certainly launched by Iran. By giving Iran no other option but to demonstrate its military prowess, US President Donald Trump has exposed himself and his Saudi allies as paper tigers. In the old Middle East, a single overarching conflict – between Israel and the Arab countries – had many fronts, and it was the West’s prerogative to protect the flow of oil to the global economy. In the new Middle East, the defining conflict is a broader struggle…

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