Tag: rule of law

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The Fire Brigade That Lit the Fire: Shettima and the Great Implosion That Never Was by Lawson Akhigbe

In 2015 the APC unseated the PDP and has governed Nigeria ever since. That is eleven years, which in political terms is not so much a tenure as a tenancy with squatter's rights. Mr Tinubu spent the first eight as the party's national leader, with Osinbajo, reportedly his nominee, installed as vice president. Since 2023 he has been president, with Kashim Shettima beside him. Whoever invented the phrase "continuity of government" clearly never imagined it applied this literally.

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Who Really Owns Nigeria’s Ports? The Gate Nobody Can Enter by Historic Capital

Look at the last thing you bought: the rice, the paracetamol, the charger in your pocket. Before it reached your hand, at least six different people were paid. Not one of their names was on your receipt. You paid every single one of them, and you never knew who they were.

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When Cartels Outpace Courts: What the Ozubulu Massacre Reveals About Nigeria’s Creaking Justice System by Lawson Akhigbe

On the morning of August 6, 2017, gunmen stormed St. Philip’s Catholic Church in Ozubulu, Anambra State. When the gunfire ceased, at least a dozen worshippers lay dead on the pews, including the elderly father of the intended target.

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Impunity Is Not a Personality Trait: On the Architecture of Nigerian Elite Immunity by Lawson Akhigbe

There is a comfortable explanation for why Nigerian officials behave as though accountability is an imported eccentricity, like fondue or the metric system. The explanation runs roughly like this: Nigerians have an authoritarian political culture, inherited from precolonial kingship and reinforced by military rule, and this culture manufactures leaders who cannot be shamed because shame requires a moral vocabulary the culture never built.

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Anambra’s Local Government Law 2024: The Art of Obeying the Supreme Court While Ignoring It Completely by Lawson Akhigbe

In the grand theatre of Nigerian federalism, few performances are more impressive than watching a state government loudly applaud a Supreme Court judgment while simultaneously rewriting the script so the money still ends up in the same old pockets. Anambra’s Local Government Administration Law of 2024 is that performance, complete with standing ovation from the Governor’s Lodge and polite confusion from anyone who actually read the judgment.

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