Posts

Showing posts from January, 2021

The new kinsman-warrior

 Ethnic warriors have never been far off the Nigerian political space, plying causes that typically locate them at odds with the law but simultaneously in warm embrace of whatever kindred group they are championing its interest. Thus, the kinsman-warrior poses a constant dilemma: under strict legal framework and from the prism of the establishment, he is an outlaw who should be harshly repressed or altogether taken out of circulation; but to those whose cause he champions, he is a hero and rallying point of group emancipation. It is typically like walking a tightrope seeking to contain the ethnic warrior without upsetting the fragile tolerance of his kindred group for the challenged status quo.  Some ethnic warriors commit mission suicide by overreaching themselves in aggression and alienating moderates in the group they hold the banner for; and where those moderates are in the majority, the mission gets effectively disavowed and the warrior isolated. That, for instance, is the fate of

America’s day: Lessons in power

‘It’s a new day in America.’ That was the first tweet sent out by Joe Biden as the incoming President of the United States (POTUS) moments before he took the oath of office and shortly after his predecessor, Donald Trump, left Washington area for the last time as president. Later in his inauguration address at the US Capitol, Biden described the transition as “democracy’s day, a day of history and hope, of renewal and resolve.” He declared: “America has been tested anew, and America has risen to the challenge,” adding: “The will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded.” Biden’s advent in office effectively pulled the curtain on nearly the most roguish era of American presidency that the Trump years marked. The former leader had by his personality tendencies energised the demons of racial supremacy and ultra-nationalism and rolled back the liberal multiculturalism that historically characterised America, leaving the country in its most disunited state sin