There is a brutally efficient African proverb that cuts through political spin faster than a devaluation memo: When the wind blows, the chicken’s anus is exposed.
The High Wind and the Bare Hen: A Masterclass in Federal Disrobing by Lawson Akhigbe
The Monumental Ego: How Trump and Tinubu Turn Public Infrastructure Into Personal Billboards By Lawson Akhigbe
There was a time when nations had the decency to wait until a leader was safely six feet under or at the very least, out of office before plastering their name across state infrastructure. The unspoken rule of public memorials used to be simple: let history render its verdict first. If your legacy survived the passage of time without decaying into scandal, perhaps the state would name a secondary school or a modest bypass after you.
A Tale of Two Locations and One Citizenship by Lawson Akhigbe
Passports are supposed to be the great equalizers of national identity. If two people carry the green-backed book stamped with the Nigerian coat of arms, the constitution insists they share the exact same claim to fundamental dignity and justice. But citizenship, like roaming data on a prepaid SIM, appears to depend entirely on which borders your passport happens to cross.
The Ancient Art of Buying Silence: How Rulers Have Always Turned Critics into Courtiers by Lawson Akhigbe
Political co-optation is not a Nigerian invention. It is one of the oldest and most elegant tools in the authoritarian toolkit far more refined than the crude business of jailing poets or shooting journalists. Why break a man’s spirit when you can simply rent it? Offer him a title, a salary, a motorcade, and watch the moral thunder turn into polite applause. History is littered with the wreckage of principles that met a well-timed appointment.
Vanishing Alma Maters: Why Tinubu Refuses to Retreat by Lawson Akhigbe
In season three of The Wire, when Avon Barksdale hesitates over a gangland war sparked by flawed premises, his pragmatically ruthless lieutenant, Slim Charles, cuts through the existential noise with cold street poetry: “If it’s a lie, then we fight on that lie. But we gotta fight.”
