Tag: Benin city

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Life Imprisonment for Child Sexual Assault: Legal Basis and Constitutional Considerations by Lawson Akhigbe

The primary statutory authority for this sentence is Section 260 of the Kebbi State Penal Code Law, 2021, which criminalizes "unnatural offences." While the exact wording of Kebbi State's provision isn't publicly available in full, similar provisions in northern Nigerian penal codes typically define "unnatural offences" as carnal intercourse against the order of nature, which judicial interpretation has extended to include same-sex sexual acts and anal intercourse.

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The Double-Entry Ledger of Suffering: How Nigeria Taxes the Poor Twice and Delivers Nothing Once by Lawson Akhigbe

Reform, when it comes, will be welcomed. The question is whether the reformers are counting the same things Mama Chioma is counting. So far, the evidence suggests they are operating from entirely different ledgers and that only one of those ledgers is written in the ink of lived consequence.

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Welcome to Nigeria: Where Premium Security is a Myth and Survival is a Sport by Lawson Akhigbe

Whether you are in your living room, a classroom, a place of worship, or just trying to navigate a highway without praying for divine intervention, lives are being lost to blood-thirsty bandits. Thomas Hobbes once described life in the state of nature as "short and brutish." If he were alive today, he’d probably look at Nigeria and say, "See? I told you so."

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Edo State’s CCTV Mandate: When Government Decides Shop Owners Are the New Police Force by Lawson Akhigbe

Shops is now an extension of the state’s security infrastructure. Congratulations! You’ve been promoted from entrepreneur to unpaid auxiliary detective. Pay for the cameras, the electricity (when NEPA remembers you exist), the cloud storage or DVRs, the maintenance, and the inevitable technician who speaks only in riddles. All so the government can claim progress while the actual primary purpose of government remains… whatever it was doing before this.

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Spells vs. Supplications: How Language Decides Who is “Holy” and Who is “Voodoo”

Oba of Benin gathers his chiefs, raises a ceremonial staff, and recites a rhythmic Edo formula to combat insecurity within his domain, the Western-trained mind instinctively shifts its vocabulary. Suddenly, it’s not a prayer. It’s an incantation. It’s a spell. It’s juju. Why does one man commune with the divine while the other plays with magic? The difference isn't actually in the action; it’s in the vocabulary of power, race, and who owns the dictionary.

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