Tag: democracy

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The Ancient Art of Buying Silence: How Rulers Have Always Turned Critics into Courtiers by Lawson Akhigbe

Political co-optation is not a Nigerian invention. It is one of the oldest and most elegant tools in the authoritarian toolkit far more refined than the crude business of jailing poets or shooting journalists. Why break a man’s spirit when you can simply rent it? Offer him a title, a salary, a motorcade, and watch the moral thunder turn into polite applause. History is littered with the wreckage of principles that met a well-timed appointment.

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The Obituary of American Democracy Has Been Written So Many Times It Deserves Its Own Rest Home by Lawson Akhigbe

Every generation seems to produce its own undertakers, its own mourners and its own carefully worded obituary announcing that the republic is finally approaching the end.

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Vanishing Alma Maters: Why Tinubu Refuses to Retreat by Lawson Akhigbe

In season three of The Wire, when Avon Barksdale hesitates over a gangland war sparked by flawed premises, his pragmatically ruthless lieutenant, Slim Charles, cuts through the existential noise with cold street poetry: “If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.”

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The Courtroom is Closed: Why the Case Against Tinubu Must Move to the Court of Public Opinion by Lawson Akhigbe

There is a peculiarly Nigerian brand of optimism that believes the Supreme Court exists to do the dirty work politicians were too distracted to handle during campaign season. Whenever an election outcome tastes like ash, the losing side inevitably sprints to the appellate bench clutching heavy binders, confident that the judiciary will casually unravel an entire presidential mandate on a crisp technicality.

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Tinubu and the Great Business of Winning the Next Election by Lawson Akhigbe

The Nigerian voter, having spent considerable time queueing at polling stations, arguing about PVCs, fighting over results and eventually accepting that Nigeria had chosen its president, might reasonably have expected the new administration to get on with the business of governing.

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