Economic theory does not provide a clear answer regarding the overall impact of technological progress on jobs. And even if automation has traditionally been beneficial in the long run, policymakers should never ignore its disruptive short-term effects on workers. While Brexit captures the headlines in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the silent march of automation continues. Most economists view this trend favorably: technology, they say, may destroy jobs in the short run, but it creates new and better jobs in the longer term. The destruction of jobs is clear and direct: a firm automates a conveyor belt, supermarket checkout, or…

Again, the paternity of the Nigerian state came up for consideration last week. Who exactly owns Nigeria? Is it the exclusive preserve of politicians, their kith and kin, their hangers-on or Nigerians? Put differently, because politicians compete for offices that become vacant in the process of nationhood, are those offices, by that very fact, strictly their birthrights, to the exclusion of any other Nigerian? If those interrogations do not capture this ownership issue appropriately, the question can be put in another context thus: Who owns non-elective political offices? Are they spoils of politics, mechanism for developing the nation or rewards…

I admit that it’s always ill-advised to use the word “never” when you prognosticate the outcome of a future event. The vagaries of life can throw a wrench to the works of the most auspicious auguries. I know that. Nevertheless, I am prepared to go out on a limb and proclaim that in spite of his feverishly desperate, frenzied, backstabbing machinations, Mr Bola Tinubu can never be Nigeria’s president. Here’s why. Tinubu isn’t electable in any region of Nigeria outside the Southwest, his natal region. Even in Southwest, his political capital has suffered incalculable diminution over the years, particularly because…

Now South Africa has apologised for the xenophobic attacks that saw to the death of many African compatriots in the hands of South African mobs, have we seen the end of a sad chapter in the history of Black Africa? Nigeria was one of many African countries caught in the xenophobic web that the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, sent special envoys to apologise for earlier in the week as well as give assurances that all is now well – or, more appropriately – that all will be well. Can we take his assurances for it? Cyril himself was a…