Tag: APC

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The Barrister Who Never Went to Law School: Adams Oshiomhole and the Art of Speaking from Both Sides of the Mouth by Lawson Akhigbe

Adams Oshiomhole is that rare Nigerian political specimen who managed to climb from factory floor to labour presidency, state house, party chairmanship and the red chamber without the inconvenience of a published higher educational attainment. Self-taught, they say. One imagines him in some dimly lit corner of history, devouring political manuals by candlelight while the rest of his compatriots were busy collecting certificates that later proved about as useful as a raincoat in the Sahara.

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Impunity Is Not a Personality Trait: On the Architecture of Nigerian Elite Immunity by Lawson Akhigbe

There is a comfortable explanation for why Nigerian officials behave as though accountability is an imported eccentricity, like fondue or the metric system. The explanation runs roughly like this: Nigerians have an authoritarian political culture, inherited from precolonial kingship and reinforced by military rule, and this culture manufactures leaders who cannot be shamed because shame requires a moral vocabulary the culture never built.

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Was there a ledger to square: Britain’s rule in Nigeria by Lawson Akhigbe

The late Sam Mbakwe, first civilian governor of Imo State and a man whose impatience with mediocrity remains legendary, once declared that he would gladly invite the British back to rule Nigeria for another fifty years. Other politicians have echoed the sentiment over the decades, usually after another round of epileptic power, collapsed roads, or the discovery that the latest “transformation agenda” had transformed mainly the bank balances of its authors. The quip is usually delivered with a sigh, half-joke, half-confession: better the colonial taskmaster who at least kept the trains roughly on time than the indigenous ones who treat the national timetable as optional reading.

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Rewritten from 2017: The Fine Art of the Birthday Bill-Board: Why the Governor Doesn’t Get the Joke by Lawson Akhigbe

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State was turning 58, and he has a shocking, counter-cultural request for his inner circle: Please, stop spending millions to paste my face on the front page of the newspapers.
According to a poignant statement from his Chief Press Secretary, John Mayaki, the Governor was deeply worried about the plight of vulnerable street children. To fix this, he wanted his well-wishers to take the massive budgets usually reserved for full-page birthday spreads and donate them to the WeCare Trust orphanage.

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Nigeria’s judicial budget

Nigeria’s judicial budget is a complex, contentious issue at the intersection of constitutional design, fiscal federalism, political power dynamics, and the practical realities of justice delivery. While the 1999 Constitution (as amended) enshrines judicial independence including financial autonomy the implementation reveals deep gaps between legal provisions and on-ground realities.

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