Reporting News and opinions
Every generation seems to produce its own undertakers, its own mourners and its own carefully worded obituary announcing that the republic is finally approaching the end.
Ah, the internet has done it again. While the rest of us are busy arguing over pineapple on pizza or whether socks with sandals constitute a war crime, some genius has distilled centuries of ideological garbage into one glorious, four-panel roast. Behold the meme that slaps you harder than your uncle at Thanksgiving: "Same Shit, Different Hat."
There is a peculiar habit that appears with remarkable frequency in American and British political commentary. Whenever an issue is said to concern black communities, a familiar chorus emerges from television studios, newspaper columns and social media platforms.
In 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar rode into Aso Rock together, a presidential double act that Nigerians assumed would age like most political marriages: quietly, then not at all. They survived one term. They won a second in 2003. Then, somewhere in that second term, Obasanjo discovered a constitutional itch that the 1999 Constitution's two term, eight year ceiling on the presidency simply would not scratch. He wanted a third term. Atiku, nursing a presidential ambition of his own and possessed of the inconvenient habit of reading the Constitution literally, said so publicly. The friendship ended there.
It has no postcode. It does not appear on Google Maps. There are no street signs pointing towards it. Yet, whenever one of its inhabitants is caught saying something outrageous or doing something politically or legally questionable, suddenly we are told that the offending words or conduct belonged there.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 