Point One

Let me hasten to clarify. United States President Donald Trump is by no means on record as even remotely contemplating a visit to Nigeria, and far less so to Ondo State. The continent of Africa, whose countries he once labelled ‘shitholes’ as revealed by his own country’s media, is evidently off the plate – at least, as yet – on the American leader’s diplomatic agenda. Pertaining to the headline, therefore, it is Trump’s peculiar touch in U.S. leadership that has found veridical expression in the southwest Nigerian state. Over the years, the global community has looked to the U.S. as the leader of the Free World and a redoubtable fortress of human and civil rights as well as insular justice. This is so much so that the country has held out a model often adopted uncritically by us in Nigeria as the global best standard. But the recent nationhood experience of that country under Mr. Trump posed a completely different paradigm: one as could make despotic pretenders to ...

One week after the official kick-off of campaigning for the 2019 presidential election, there is little action yet by most contenders known to have signified interest in the race. For an activity that the law provides a 90-day window, could it be they are yet warming up to hit the tracks? The impending poll is potentiated with a multiplicity of options, and of all presidential contests in Nigeria’s political history, there’s been none with a field so crowded. But whether the huge number holds out genuine and actionable alternatives for voters remains to be seen. Pending the publication of a definitive list of candidates, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has made known that a throng of political parties filed the particulars of flagbearers running on their respective platform. Besides President Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PD...