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Opinion

Friday, 11 November 2016 15:16

The sad news of Trump’s triumph - Reuben Abati

"Democracy is tricky; it sometimes ends up as a parody of itself. When the people clamour for change, they can vote with their hearts, and prove impervious to plain sight reason, and overlook likely pitfalls. We can only hope that Donald Trump does not become the symbol of the change that Americans are seeking. That would be sad indeed for the free world.” – Reuben Abati, “Anything Can Happen in America”, The Guardian, March 6, 2016. Earlier this year, I had written a piece titled “Anything Can Happen In America”, from which the quote above is excerpted, but I had…

Friday, 11 November 2016 01:35

Lessons from the 2016 US Presidential election - Jideofor Adibe

It certainly came as a surprise to many people. Though all national polls in the USA indicated that the race was tightening in the run-up to the elections, almost all indicated a Hilary Clinton win. With 279 Electoral College Votes to Hillary’s 228, the world increasingly has to come to terms with a Donald Trump presidency. There are several lessons we can learn from the election: One, Trump’s victory could signal the ascendency and ultimate mainstreaming of right wing populism. This is a growing phenomenon in Western democracies, which is epitomized in backlashes against multiculturalism, growing anti immigration sentiments and…

Thursday, 10 November 2016 01:50

Trump Tsunami: Mirror of soul of US and grand opportunity for Africa - Babson Ajibade

That Trump would win was never in doubt, to some minds. America has lived a false reality for far too long. Make no mistake, there won’t be a spike in racism, bigotry, sexism or any other negative attitudes in the US. These decadences are at the same level they have always been in the American society. The only difference is that related incidences will be more visible, implying that they have been going on underneath and people were fooled into thinking they did not exist. Trump is not as stupid as was assumed. He spent many years and many millions…

Wednesday, 09 November 2016 02:07

Economics in a time of political instability - Michael Spence and David Brady

Over the last 35 years, Western democracies have seen a rapid rise in political instability, characterized by frequent shifts in governing parties and their programs and philosophies, driven at least partly by economic transformation and hardship. The question now is how to improve economic performance at a time when political instability is impeding effective policymaking. In a recent article, one of us (David Brady) shows the correlation between rising political instability and declining economic performance, pointing out that countries with below-average economic performance have experienced the most electoral volatility. More specifically, such instability corresponds with a decline in the share…

Tuesday, 08 November 2016 17:52

Populism for the rich - Ian Buruma

I recently joined a tour in Bucharest of the Palace of Parliament, the gigantic folly built in the 1980s on the orders of the late Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, who was executed before he could see it finished. The statistics rehearsed by our guide were staggering: the third biggest edifice in the world, 220,000 square feet of carpet, one million cubic meters of marble, 3,500 tons of crystal. The enormous marble stairways had to be rebuilt several times to match exactly the steps of the dictator, who was a small man. To construct this neoclassical monstrosity, an entire swath of…

Tuesday, 08 November 2016 01:53

Printed electoral materials: APC and the justification of nonsense - Oraye St. Franklyn

I'm sure I'm as appalled and irritated as a good number of you out there, seeing the unintelligent concoction of nonsense as justification for nonsense, in the face of a glaring act of criminality by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State in printing election result sheets on behalf of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for an election that the APC is also contesting. I mean, what could be more damning and damaging of the values of a political party and the society governed by it, to find it excusing acts of criminality and trivialising high…

Monday, 07 November 2016 15:41

The new Oyo State education policy: Ruin or legacy? - Yusuff Olayode

It saddens that education has lost its glories. A peep into the system of education in Nigeria reflects that a more efficient curriculum needs to be in place. However, every time new effect is added to Nigeria’s education policy, our people begin to politicize priorities, resulting in divided opinions that point to the fact that some are not even after the success of the country. To counter a policy, it is important one weighs the glories available from it, with the bad that may at the end emanate, giving a clean mind the opportunity to have a stand. This is…

Monday, 07 November 2016 02:19

The consequences of a Trump shock- Simon Johnson

With the United States’ presidential election on November 8, and a series of elections and other political decisions fast approaching in Europe, now is a good time to ask whether the global economy is in good enough shape to withstand another major negative shock. The answer, unfortunately, is that growth and employment around the world look fragile. A big adverse surprise – like the election of Donald Trump in the US – would likely cause the stock market to crash and plunge the world into recession. There is always a great deal of insight in the International Monetary Fund’s semi-annual…

Sunday, 06 November 2016 15:41

My President: Hearing affliction in the Villa - Abraham Ogbodo

Your Excellency, I just want to tell you that I am very loyal. I wouldn’t know what my friends, Femi Adesina and Shehu Garba are telling you about me, but you can take it from me that I am very loyal. I want you to succeed and do far better than Obasanjo and Jonathan put together. I wouldn’t have resorted to letter writing like Apostle Paul to the early Christians if I had access to the Rock. I have been there only once in the company of other colleagues to see you. On that particular occasion, those State House photojournalists…

Friday, 04 November 2016 15:14

The dignity of an honest job - Pius Adesanmi

After completing my doctoral comprehensives and having my dissertation proposal accepted and approved by my committee in 1999, I decided I needed a break from Vancouver. I needed to go somewhere to recharge my batteries and, if possible, write the first draft of my dissertation. That needed break came in the form of a research fellowship offer from the Institut Francais de Recherche en Afrique in Johannesburg. The French Institute of South Africa offered me a six-month research stay in Johannesburg, complete with speaking and networking opportunities at Wits. My friend, Bayo Emm, and I were sharing the same flat…

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Friday, 04 November 2016 02:01

'Buhari boys', Tinubu and 'casualties' of the Ondo 'war' - Samuel Ajayi

The more you look over the Ondo State coming election, the less you see. But the intrigues go beyond what is playing out. At the centre of it is the dress rehearsal for 2019. The target remains Tinubu. Quite unfortunately, there are so many collateral casualties that the battle will consume and has actually consumed. The first was Segun Abrahams, the man supported by Tinubu for the ruling APC ticket. The next was Eyitayo Jegede while the last will be Olusola Oke. And with the way things are going, Rotimi Akeredolu might be the only candidate for the November 26…

Thursday, 03 November 2016 13:40

How Trump exposes the underbelly of American Democracy - Jideofor Adibe

The current presidential campaigns in the US has exposed the underbelly of American democracy which should force us to re-think some of the assumptions we have about ‘mature democracies’ and ‘democratising states’. The classic assumption is that in mature democracies elections truly reflect the will of the electorate, with little or no ‘hanky-panky’ or ‘mago- mago’, while in the ‘new’ or ‘democratising societies’ authoritarian impulses and manipulative tendencies prevail. American democracy is over 200 years old – whether you start counting from the country’s ratification of its constitution in 1788 or the time its first elected President George Washington took…

Thursday, 03 November 2016 01:42

Mothers in-law - Tola Adeniyi

Mothers! God bless them. Mothers are definitely the most sacred of all creatures. It does not matter what non-conformists and products of counter culture may say, there is no substitute for mothers. Mothers are God’s chosen vessels for growing the population. Even those who chose to turn tradition upside down and chose instead that man should marry man and woman marry woman still believe, [do they have a choice?] that a child must come through the blessed womb of a woman. Mothers are unique. They are specially equipped with the knowledge, art and act of caring and nurturing. They are…

Wednesday, 02 November 2016 16:30

The new generation gap - Joseph Stiglitz

Something interesting has emerged in voting patterns on both sides of the Atlantic: Young people are voting in ways that are markedly different from their elders. A great divide appears to have opened up, based not so much on income, education, or gender as on the voters’ generation. There are good reasons for this divide. The lives of both old and young, as they are now lived, are different. Their pasts are different, and so are their prospects. The Cold War, for example, was over even before some were born and while others were still children. Words like socialism do…

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