Reporting News and opinions
Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State was re-elected for a second term in the 15 August governorship contest. It was an off-cycle election like no other before it, in the build-up, with its eerie elements of tension, violence and resultant deaths.
There is something almost uniquely Nigerian about discovering that a government agency is fake after it has been given an office, treated as official, populated with officials, recognised by other parts of government and, in one case, even found its way into the national budget.
When Senator Oluremi Tinubu mounted the altar during the inter-denominational church service at the National Christian Centre in Abuja on the eve of the inauguration of the then president-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu and gracefully announced that she would be one of the oldest first ladies in Nigeria, not many knew she would also go down in history as one of the most influential wives of presidents.
We are told this is the silver bullet for our security paralysis. But as Nigeria stands on the precipice of altering Section 9 and dismantling Item 45 of the Exclusive Legislative List, we must ask: Are we solving a modern security crisis, or are we reawakening old ghosts that once broke the back of our democracy?
For the next century Lagos was the prize: capital of the Colony and Protectorate, then of independent Nigeria until Abuja stole the crown in 1991. Herbert Macaulay turned it into the cradle of Nigerian nationalism. The Action Group under Awolowo made it the Western Region’s intellectual and political headquarters. Meanwhile the federal government and the regions fought over whether Lagos belonged to the West or to everyone. Spoiler: everyone wanted a piece of the port, the money, and the prestige.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 