Tag: politics

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Kemi Badenoch’s maiden speech in the Commons 

I am also burdened by the weight of expectation. You see, Madam Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden has not had a maiden speech since Rab Butler’s in 1929. He held three of the great offices of state, but I am most proud that, as a Conservative Minister, he introduced the Education Act 1944, which gave every British child a statutory right to free secondary education.

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The Invisible Invasion: Britain’s Immigration Panic and the Arithmetic It Cannot Face By Lawson Akhigbe

Black people account for roughly four percent of the population of England and Wales. More of them are in the EastEnders cast than are arriving on the asylum route in any given year. Yet Britain has contrived to make this the defining political question of the age. We should talk about that.

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