Every state is an engine of power. To prevent that engine from careening off the road, democracies install sophisticated systems of restraint. We learn about them in school: the Constitution, the supreme law that delineates authority. Then, the external guardrails—the checks and balances between the executive, legislative, and judiciary. Each branch is meant to watch, …
Dr N B Azikiwe When the flags were lowered, anthems changed and colonial administrators sailed home, Africa stood at the dawn of independence with history-shaking promise. A continent rich in culture, people, resources and ingenuity finally had the keys to its own house. But instead of redesigning the structure, we simply changed the gatekeepers. The …
Continue reading "Africa After Independence: Free But Still Not Free by Lawson Akhigbe"
What would you do if you won the lottery? The flight of fancy is the fun of the lottery rather than the accidental winning because more money more problems. In the flight I will take off from my abode and go to my ancestral homes and uplift all and pave the roads, provide electricity, water …
The Kingsley Moghalu's article on X is serious, sober and correct—which in Nigeria automatically makes it suspicious. It diagnoses Nigeria’s problem as the capture of power by a political elite obsessed with “primitive accumulation.” I disagree slightly. What we have is not primitive accumulation; it is advanced, sophisticated, PhD-level accumulation. These people have turned looting …
Because as things stand, most Nigerians who stumble into positions of power do not go there to govern; they go there to harvest. Corruption in Nigeria has no borders, no brakes and no shame. It has moved from simmering to boiling point. Public office has become a fast-track investment scheme: enter poor, exit outrageously wealthy. …
Centre for Nigeria Progress 