I don't believe that President Bola Tinubu does not know the implications of his warmongering stance against Niger Republic. If he did not know, at least the Realists in his team must have worked out the implications by now. It has grave religious and ethnic downside. There is a school of thought encouraging him to go on this warmongering stance. These people including the Oduduwa Republic adherents, the Biafrans, Asari Dokubo and the Ijaw nation, the Bokists, and many other inchoate splinter groups who would move 'to their tents' and declare their own nations when the Tinubu cataclysm erupts. No…

Not only are military coups becoming frighteningly frequent in West and Central Africa, virtually all of them, it appears, also speak French. For the fifth time in three years in West Africa, soldiers struck again in Niger, Nigeria’s Northern neighbour, where former President Muhammadu Buhari had teasingly longed for refuge from Nigeria’s hostile press. With the recent turn of events, however, it appears that Buhari’s speed train to Maradi, Niger’s ancient city, may have to find another destination. It’s the fifth successful military coup in that country since 1960. Apart from the worn-out reasons of “deteriorating security and poor economic…

Successive administrations in Nigeria start out by apprehending demons, or enigmatic forces, against which they will test their political strength and define the character of their government. Those forces are the factors on which all evil bedevilling the nation must necessarily be blamed. From coup speeches to inauguration addresses, each administration launches itself by stating what the others have done wrong and how they—the new government, that is—will fix it. Hell is always the previous government. For the eight years the last administration spent in power, they had a favourite demon—the whipping boy of their failures. The name they called…

The current leadership of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) deserves commendation for being alive to its responsibilities in catalysing discussions on issues of global relevance to Nigeria. Precisely on July 13, it hosted a seminar, most appropriately themed, “Nigeria’s Foreign Policy under President Bola Tinubu: Which way forward?” It was my privilege to speak, albeit virtually, on “President Bola Tinubu, Nigerian Foreign Policy and the Expansion of Democracy in Africa,” at the well-attended event. As expected, the directions in which the panelists felt Nigeria should be headed under the Tinubu presidency were fully explored. My interrogation of its…