A nation in tears: Celebrating while its future are in chains By Lai Gidado At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, sleep fled my eyes as I wrestled with grim thoughts of the Oriire Local Government schoolchildren abduction and the horrifying killing of a mathematics teacher who was beheaded. Without realising, I began to mutter…
LESSONS FROM NASIR EL RUFA’I POLITICAL DEBACLE By M K Ilyasu (FBDFM) I am one admirer of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, whose strides in our political space was momentous and a pride to our ambitious youth seeking to bring in new ideas and energy into the polity. This is because, additionally, I believed that Mallam Nasir…
Bad leaders, worse followership: A citizen’s call on government to fix electricity, security, welfare. By Lai Gidado Often, I find myself arguing with friends that Nigeria’s problem is not only bad leadership. While we have been unfortunate with poor leaders, we have also been terribly unfortunate as poor followers. How well do we obey…
Nigeria Customs tariff immorality and national embarrassment. By Lai Gidado Every organisation and government agency operates under rules that guide its responsibilities. The Nigeria Customs Service plays a crucial role in the nation’s maritime and blue economy. The agency is responsible for collecting revenue on goods entering the country through land borders, seaports and airports….
When crime goes unpunished, impunity, chaos become the culture By Lai Gidado When wrongdoing goes unpunished, it gradually becomes normalised. A society that fails to enforce consequences for crime inevitably creates fertile ground for lawlessness. This is the unfortunate reality Nigeria is grappling with today. I recall vividly in December 1970 when my grandmother…
Mosaic Defence: Iran’s Strategy of Survival By Olaitan Adesina By the standards of conventional military power, the Islamic Republic of Iran should be strategically vulnerable. It faces powerful adversaries, most notably United States and Israel, both possessing vastly superior air power, advanced intelligence networks, and cutting-edge weapons systems. Yet Iran has spent decades preparing for…
A HOLE WITHIN THE WHOLE: “How US exploit the International System”. By M K Ilyasu It is the historic and enduring nature of international law that it supports the International order of structural violence so frequently depicted (Johan Galtyng: Structural Theory of Imperialism) and (Asborn Eide: Int Law, Dominace and the Use of Force). We…
Middle East Inferno and the Myth of Democratic Intervention By Olaitan Adesina The latest confrontation involving United States, Israel and Iran has once again exposed the moral inconsistency at the heart of global power politics. Washington speaks the language of democracy with conviction, yet its closest partners in the region include unelected monarchies such as…
AN EVALUATION OF THE DOMINANT HYPOTHESIS IN US FOREIGN RELATIONS. By M K ILYASU INTRODUCTION US might be thinking of bringing into being a new alliance linking North America and Europe to Japan and the Persian Gulf. Such a grand alliance would serve the objective of its dominance. “Monroe Doctrine” is where US dominance is…
Oluremi Tinubu’s Impactful Presence at Trump’s Prayer Breakfast Marks a New Dawn for Nigeria-US Relations Olukayode Ajulo, OON, SAN In a venerated hall of Washington, D.C., where the realms of power and prayer beautifully converge, a monumental event took place on February 5, 2026. This was not merely a day on the calendar; it was…
