Tag: culture

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Edo’s Chop-Chop Chief: Dan Orbih and the Politics of Convenient Grief by Lawson Akhigbe

Chief Daniel Osi Orbih is dead, and Edo State’s political class has responded the way it always does when one of its own departs: with a grief so generous it retroactively forgives everything the man ever did. Orbih passed away on Monday, 31 August 2026, at the age of 64, and within hours the condolences arrived in a queue, each one more magnanimous than the last, as though the deceased had spent his career building roads rather than blocking them.

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WHEN THE FINE OUTLASTS THE SENTENCE: NIGERIA’S DIPLOMACY OF THE UNCOMPELLED By Lawson Akhigbe

Ambassador Yakubu Gambo did Nigeria the rare courtesy of telling the truth in public, which in the diplomatic trade counts as a small scandal in itself. Standing before Abike Dabiri-Erewa at NiDCOM’s Abuja headquarters, he confirmed what families of the detained have known for years without an official ever saying it plainly: Nigerians who have finished serving their Saudi jail terms remain locked up anyway, held hostage to fines they cannot pay and a government that has not worked out how to pay them either. He framed it as a welfare concern, a matter for coordination and consolidation of diaspora associations under one umbrella. It is, more accurately, a description of a state that has run out of leverage and is calling the shortfall a strategy.

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May You Live in Interesting Times: The Era of the Unshakeable Political Disruptor by Lawson Akhigbe

If you had told a political scientist thirty years ago that a lineup featuring Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu would simultaneously dictate the fortunes, policies, and discourse of major world democracies, they would have recommended you take a quiet walk and a cold shower. Yet here we are, sitting in the front row of a geopolitical comedy-drama where the plot is made up and the rules don't seem to matter.

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The Ultimate Resume Flex: “Hi, I Have Absolutely No Idea What I’m Doing” by Lawson Akhigbe

You would rip out your IV lines, jump off the table, and run out of the building still wearing that drafty hospital gown.
And yet, when it comes to the complex, high-stakes machinery of running a society, this has become the ultimate campaign calling card. Across the globe, prospective elected officials are handing out political resumes where the biggest, boldest, most capitalized bullet point is: Not a politician

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The Ghost Who Keeps Signing by Lawson Akhigbe

The Land Use Act of 1978 vested radical title to land in the state governor. Customary authorities were meant to operate within that framework, not around it. Yet when the formal system becomes a source of frustration rather than facilitation, human ingenuity finds other routes. Enter the late Oba. His name carries historical weight. The palace, however, maintains no functional modern archive capable of systematic verification. Oral history is the dominant method, and most of the original participants are no longer available for cross-examination. The result is a paper trail that is difficult to audit and easy to exploit.

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