The Tragedy of Victory is a book written by Brigadier General Alabi Isama, providing the inside knowledge and information about the separatist war in Nigeria from 1967- 1970
The Tragedy of Victory Reviewers: Alfred Ilenre
The Great Silence at JAMB’s Send-Off: When Snakes Swallow Millions and the Press Swallows Its Tongue by Lawson Akhigbe
At the recent television and press send-off for the immediate past Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, this ritual reached a high art. The man who spent a decade at the helm was rightly credited with making JAMB more technology-driven, more orderly, and less of a cash-and-carry bazaar than the one he inherited. Fair enough. Reforms happened. Remittances improved. The board stopped resembling a particularly leaky colander. One can acknowledge progress without descending into hagiography.
The Alibi of Antiquity: Tinubu, Hunger, and the Diplomacy of Shrugging by Lawson Akhigbe
Nobody disputes the premise. Hunger did, in fact, predate Bola Tinubu, in the same sense that gravity predated Isaac Newton. The trouble is what the premise is being asked to do. It is not offered as background. It is offered as an alibi, the rhetorical equivalent of a defendant telling the court that crime existed before he was born, and therefore he cannot reasonably be expected to account for the burglary. The doctrine of necessity has been stretched to cover many things in Nigerian constitutional history; this may be the first time it has been invoked to cover a grocery bill.
From Oba Drama to British Real Estate
For the next century Lagos was the prize: capital of the Colony and Protectorate, then of independent Nigeria until Abuja stole the crown in 1991. Herbert Macaulay turned it into the cradle of Nigerian nationalism. The Action Group under Awolowo made it the Western Region’s intellectual and political headquarters. Meanwhile the federal government and the regions fought over whether Lagos belonged to the West or to everyone. Spoiler: everyone wanted a piece of the port, the money, and the prestige.
On the Sartorial Decline of the Nigerian Political Class: Monday Okpebholo, Yekini Idiaye, and the Wardrobe of Impunity By Lawson Akhigbe
Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State is a man who, on the evidence of a recent photograph shaking hands with new Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly Yekini Idiaye, appears to have mistaken the office of Chief Executive for a weekend errand run. A branded baseball cap. Clothing better suited to a beer parlour than a state formal meeting. Khaki trousers that suggest safari rather than sovereignty. This is not a man dressing down to meet the people. This is a man dressing as though the people are an inconvenience he is squeezing in between other appointments.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 