Beyond the protests, there are a number of issues the government should pay attention to: One, though the protesters might have different motives, they seem all united by alienation from the government and even the state system. Rather than use blackmail and strong arm tactics, the government should use credible opinion polls to articulate and aggregate the various grievances against it and the state – and then evolve sustainable strategies on how to address as many of them as it can. Boxing shadows or creating enemies where they do not exist will only exacerbate the legitimacy crisis around the government.…

In 1853, under orders from President Millard Fillmore, US Navy Commodore Matthew Perry led four warships on a mission to persuade Japan to end its 200-year-old isolationist policy. When he arrived at what is now Tokyo Bay, Perry delivered an ultimatum to the Tokugawa shogunate: open up to trade with the United States or face the consequences. The arrival of these “black ships” (so named for the dark smoke emitted by their coal-fueled steam engines) was a pivotal moment. Confronted with this impressive display of technological prowess – which exemplified the industrial power that had already enabled the British Empire…

Amid the greatest crisis of judicial authority since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on 23 August 2024 swore in an Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). For the new Chief Justice, this challenge is also an opportunity to articulate an agenda for reform that can restore public trust in the judiciary. Such an agenda must address the following: ensuring merit-based judicial appointments; addressing the problem of abuse of interim injunctions, ex-parteorders, and conflicting judgments; enhancing judicial discipline and accountability; addressing the crisis of political cases, election petitions, and judicialization of politics; and reform of the Supreme Court.…

Have you ever read Heidi Holland’s Dinner With Mugabe? It was published in 2012 by a Zimbabwean journalist and columnist who worked with Illustrated Life Rhodesia magazine. The book is a very penetrating portraiture of Robert Mugabe. It is a psychobiography of a freedom fighter, liberal lawyer and revolutionary who later became, first Prime Minister and later, President of Zimbabwe. The book’s title was a product of a 1975 sudden call from a Holland friend. He wanted her to arrange dinner and meeting with a friend she had no idea who he was, in her home in Salisbury, now Harare,…