Letters

Reputation is one of the most misunderstood assets in public life. Leaders often treat it as something manufactured by communications teams: a slogan unveiled, a speech polished, a logo refreshed, a flattering interview secured. Yet reputation is not what an institution says about itself. It is what people conclude after watching how that institution behaves […]

Unless President Bola Tinubu changes his mind, he will address the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Thursday. If he does, Vice-President Shettima will deliver the national statement as he has done in the past two years. Both men will be coming off a tell-tale September with Nigeria on auto-pilot: Mr Tinubu, on […]

The decision by some of Nasir El-Rufai’s former political allies to leave the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and return to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is more than another routine episode of Nigerian political defection. It is a revealing reminder of how quickly political loyalty can be tested when power changes hands. Among those reportedly […]

In many developing democracies, politicians have perfected a peculiar craft. Unable to build enough roads, create enough jobs or deliver enough public goods, they compensate by distributing illusions. A photograph here, a promise there, and occasionally, a stack of purported appointment letters waved before cheering supporters. The objective is simple: convert public institutions into private […]

“Now that the game is on, and the race has started, what do you think we should expect?” “What game is that? Which race? The Premier League? The Champions League?” “I mean the 2027 General elections in Nigeria. INEC just released the final list of candidates for the Presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for […]

A crisis does not create an organisation’s character. It reveals it.In tranquil times, almost any institution can appear competently governed. Meetings are convened, policies approved, reports circulated, and targets reviewed. Order becomes easy to mistake for resilience. Then a cyberattack cripples operations, a regulator intervenes, a supplier collapses, an industrial accident occurs, or public confidence […]

For Nasir El-Rufai, one of Nigeria’s most formidable political operators, the present season must feel particularly unforgiving. A man who once moved comfortably around the corridors of power now appears to be facing criticism from former allies, political opponents, and, increasingly, officials within the establishment he once helped build. Yet the hostility did not begin […]

Let me start with a confession that has become something of a running joke among those of us who work closely with Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), the man simply refuses to age like the rest of us. I witnessed this again, quite hilariously, […]

Peter Obi came to Benue to mourn the dead. He left after angry youths blocked his convoy.That was the extraordinary drama that unfolded in Makurdi on Tuesday. The former Anambra governor had arrived in Benue with a simple mission, according to his team: travel to Yelwata in Guma Local Government Area, meet communities devastated by […]

Sokoto State is fast becoming a new theatre of fear as armed bandits widen their grip across the state, leaving a trail of killings, mass abductions, displacement and economic paralysis. In the latest wave of attacks, at least 15 residents were reportedly killed and about 79 abducted across Rabah, Isa and Dange Shuni Local Government […]

Nigeria’s 2027 campaign is acquiring its familiar shape. Billboards will multiply. Commissioning ceremonies will assume the choreography of state occasions. Governors and ministers will present flyovers, airports and freshly paved roads as proof that government has worked. In the political marketplace, concrete photographs well: it gives achievement a shape, a price tag and a ribbon […]

A few months before the 2023 general elections, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, warned voters to reject any politician who promised an easy road. “Anybody who tells you that it is going to be easy,” he said in Kaduna in October 2022, “please, don’t vote for him. It’s either that he’s lying to you, […]