Reporting News and opinions
Whether the subject is healthcare, trade, infrastructure, peace in the Middle East or now Iran, there is a familiar rhythm. An announcement. A flourish. A declaration that success is “very close.” Then another announcement. Then another. Like a magician whose favourite trick is promising that the rabbit will appear in just one more hat.
The Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration appears to have forgotten that rule in its handling of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) controversy. In its determination to destroy the credibility of one man, Prince Adeniyi Matthew Adeyemi, it may have inflicted collateral damage on something far more valuable: the credibility of official government documentation itself.
In the southern forests, priests and priestesses of the goddesses in the rivers that run through them, are known to demand bottles of Fanta to open consultations or before any water infrastructure project commences. In the northern forests, gangs of bandits - usually ethnic Fulani - who use them as operational bases, crave bottles of Fanta as well.
The uncomfortable reality is that kidnapping in Nigeria increasingly resembles a functioning market. In this market, fear is the currency, human beings are the commodities, and safety has become a product available only to those who can afford to buy it.
Despite Nigeria's assessment, the emerging consensus was that Lakurawa was not a unified entity but rather an umbrella term, and that attacks attributed to the group were likely perpetrated by a mix of Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP). JNIM, bandits. and potentially a separate new group operating under the label without claiming responsibility.
