Point One

President Donald Trump in his pushback against Michael Wolff’s damaging book, Fire and Fury , touted himself ‘a very stable genius.’ He truly must be. Because with just another of his famously unguarded weigh-ins, he has elevated a hitherto unprintable obscenity into a pervasive print word. That must surely count for a streak of genius! And it wasn’t that he did anything outside of character when he cast his latest slur on those axes of the world he’s negatively fixated with; he had never been reputed for moderating his xenophobic hubris. The United States leader was lately reported labelling African nations and the southern American states of Haiti and El Salvador “shithole countries.” That, he allegedly did, during a parley on immigration at the White House with a bipartisan group of senators penultimate week. Although he offered tame denials, saying the language he used at the meeting “was tough, but this (‘shithole’) was not the language used,” the remark fitted so well with his...

If you cared to visit the official website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), you would find conspicuously displayed a timer counting down by the seconds to the opening of polling units nationwide for the 2019 general election. That timer is, perhaps, meant by the election management body to help with its own readiness for the crucial outing. But it should by all means be of more relevance. The timer should put every Nigerian on readiness alert and sensitise all stakeholders to respective responsibility towards ensuring the triumph of true democracy at the impending poll. After all, the commission has always said elections succeed by way of collective commitment and input from all stakeholders, and not by its exertions alone. INEC last week primed the nation deeper into election mode with its announcement of schedules of activities leading up to the national poll on February 16 th , next year, and the state poll on March 2 nd . And with the expiration of the te...