Reporting News and opinions
In 2004, in the heart of Edo State, 27 people reportedly lost their lives in circumstances so horrifying that they read less like a contemporary news report and more like a medieval witch trial.
Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are? Our experiences are composite of who we are. Who are we without our experiences and what are experiences without us. Six and half a dozen.
There is a particular cruelty in a medical report. Unlike a political speech, a budget forecast, or an election manifesto all genres of creative literature to which democratic publics have made a resigned peace a medical report carries with it the residual authority of science. When a doctor speaks, we are conditioned, in some prelinguistic way, to believe them. Which is precisely why what has happened to American presidential medicine under Donald Trump is so arresting. The clinic has been converted into a theatre, the stethoscope swapped for a megaphone, and the diagnosis subordinated entirely to the demands of the narrative.
Until we start holding our 37 emperors to the same standard we hold the president, we aren't practicing democracy. We are just paying taxes to a kingdom.
There was a time when Nigeria did not wait for foreign capitals to define West African security. From the anti-apartheid struggle in Southern Africa to military interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone, Nigeria projected power, influence and diplomatic leadership. Whether one agreed with its methods or not, nobody doubted who was leading.
