Reporting News and Opinions
In the grand theatre of Nigerian politics, where truth occasionally stumbles onto the stage like an uninvited guest who has had one too many, Alwan Hassan has just delivered a masterclass in accidental honesty.
The Oputa Panel’s report remains one of Nigeria’s most thorough official indictments of its own recent past and one of its most thoroughly ignored. After receiving more than 10,000 petitions and hearing only about 150 of them in public, the commission delivered a seven-volume catalogue of institutional failure that still reads like a national audit of impunity.
Remember six months ago when the Edo State government decided it was moonlight-and-magic time for law enforcement? With the flourish of a decree and a fanfare that probably woke up the entire length of Akpakpava Road, officials announced that every single business in Benin City must install closed-circuit television (CCTV).
In journalism, the oldest truism is that "dog bites man" isn’t news. A dog is supposed to bite. If a dog bites a postman, you don’t stop the printing presses; you only call the front desk if the postman bites the dog back
Every so often a state government invents a policy so novel that the law has not yet had time to catch up with it. Zamfara has done this and, with admirable efficiency, skipped the part where anyone checks whether the law would permit it.
