A few days ago I was calling on citizens to reflect on what has turned out, unwittingly, to be a powerfully revolutionary statement from a bus conductor on the streets of Lagos. The fellow had angrily remonstrated with a passenger asking for “change” after paying his fares. Perhaps the passenger’s face was familiar, and
Author: Hernando De Soto Transworld Publishers, 2000 276 pages “The hour of capitalism’s greatest triumph is its hour of crisis”. This is Hernando De Soto’s opening statement in what has now become a classic of property rights. He starts with a brief description of the “triumph” of capitalism and the end of the cold war.
Let me start with a story. One early morning in 2013, one of my professors at the Institute of African Studies, Professor Sola Olorunyomi called me to his office to show me an antique map of Africa which he wanted digitized at the Kenneth Dike Library in Ibadan. Together with Professor Olorunyomi, who himself had
The sorry tale of the Nigerian state is such that much, if not all, the talk about the 2015 election has been how a strong man can come and fix the corruption problem in Nigeria. The debates and discussion have been constructed in terms of agreement or disagreement with this “strong man” solution. Even ardent
One of the reasons why Nigeria is still backward is not entirely blamable to corruption. The lack of governance models. And a large swathe of the citizenry, even the supposedly educated ones do not help those in need of comprehension, in understanding that salient truth about modelling. Maybe that’s due to not having a good
Chairman Mao and the Communist party wanted to annihilate all forms of religion in their bid to build their own type of society. When they took over in 1949, there were 1 million Christians who were soon forced underground. Today, there are an estimated over 100 million Christians in China, more than the Communist Party
To share, or not to share, that is a daily question in new media environments. It is also one the architectural possibilities Web 2.0 platforms confront you with each time you are logged on to the explosion of data which makes home in virtual space. Linda Ikeji shares, much as the majority of Nigerian bloggers,
The web and media are abuzz with Ebola these days. A westerner gets infected and all media outlets provide wide coverage on all the details. But we all know the epicentre of it, Africa. According to the World Health Organization the death toll has surpassed the 4000 mark. But Ebola is nothing new is it?
In recent weeks it has become quite clear that Nigeria has succeeded in stemming the advance of the Ebola virus. The virus, recognised as one of the deadliest in the world, was first reported in 1976. The recent outbreak started in Guinea, and soon spread to Liberia and Seirra Leone, where it has claimed the
The political history of Nigeria can be divided into three- pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial phases, all of which have had manifestations that define the current state of the country. According to Thomas Hodgkin, the Nigerian past has many pasts, not one. This means Nigeria is a conglomeration of diverse histories, civilizations, cultures of peoples and