Philanthropy, Public Grants, and the Law: Decoding the Mechanics of the Dangote Refinery IPO Partnership by Lawson Akhigbe

When major corporate milestones unfold, they often bring complex legal questions in their wake. Recently, discussion has swirled around whether public-private partnerships involving state governments and philanthropic foundations to buy shares in the historic Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Initial Public Offering (IPO) run afoul of corporate laws—specifically regarding a company financing its own shares.

Tinubu’s extended absence by Punch Editorial Board

NIGERIA has a disturbing habit of allowing those in power to treat constitutional restraints as inconveniences rather than obligations. Once again, the country is confronted with questions over presidential absence, constitutional compliance and the willingness of its institutions to hold the powerful to account.

The Mirage Government: How Nigeria Governs Without Knowing What It Knows by Lawson Akhigbe

It issues pronouncements, launches programmes, commissions projects, publishes budgets, announces reforms and produces an endless supply of political speeches. Ministers hold press conferences. Governors commission flyovers. Presidents announce ambitious economic transformations. Political parties publish manifestos promising a better Nigeria.

When Shell Companies, Bribes and Billion-Dollar Fantasies Meet Nigerian Bureaucracy: Lessons from P&ID (and a Cheer for Mambilla) by Lawson Akhigbe

In the grand theatre of Nigerian public life, where contracts are signed with the solemnity of wedding vows and then abandoned with the enthusiasm of a jilted lover, few dramas have rivalled the Federal Republic of Nigeria v Process & Industrial Developments Ltd saga. The 2020 English High Court decision ([2020] EWHC 2379 (Comm)) was merely the intermission. The full production, complete with bribes, perjury and a near-$11 billion bill, only reached its denouement years later. Yet that September 2020 judgment by Sir Ross Cranston remains the pivotal moment when Nigeria was allowed, against all the usual arbitration orthodoxy of finality and speed, to drag the whole rotten affair into the light.

NOT ON SEAT: When the Nigerian State Goes Home Because the Man Who Runs It Is Away by Lawson Akhigbe

You arrive at a government office because you need a service. You have your documents. You have paid the required fees. You have probably taken three days off work and spent half your morning fighting traffic.