Key Points Arising From The Oputa Panel

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.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Benin City Edition): The Great CCTV Ghost Town by Lawson Akhigbe

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).

The Dog Bites Man: Why the ITV Reform UK Exposé Shocks Nobody by Lawson Akhigbe

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

A Bankrupt State, a Billionaire’s IPO and a Very Quiet Appropriation Bill by Lawson Akhigbe

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.

Post-Truth, Pomp, and Private Jets: Tina Brown on the Erosion of Modern Reality by Lawson Akhigbe

If there is anyone who knows how the sausage of public perception gets made, it is Tina Brown. The legendary former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker has spent decades watching power players, monarchs, and media moguls manipulate the spotlight. At the recent Truth Tellers Summit, an event she founded to honor her …