Point One

Amidst the Brexit chaos in the United Kingdom, that country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson often resorts to optics for political brace. His actions project him as a crusader for the preference of a majority of Britons – the electorate had voted 52 percent to leave the European Union against 48 percent ‘remain’ in a 2016 referendum – up against the parliamentary elite who are throwing in bricks at every turn to upend that preference. Yet, he would not be dissuaded easily. He postures as having a handle on the crisis, which otherwise seems to be spinning out of control and threatening to drown him. And he is soldering on. Last week, Johnson was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly where he marketed his vision of post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ to the world community. He had vowed to take his country out of the EU “do or die” by October 31 st , but legal roadblocks may effectively tie his hand. As the prime minister delivered his address to the UN assembly...

Recent tides in the Nigerian polity indexed some hypersensitivity against criticism and dissent – in the present circumstance, as much by supporters of the power elite as by members of the elite themselves cutting across partisan diversity of the political spectrum. Last week, Seun Onigbinde, a co-founder of civil society group, BudgIT, ducked out of his recent enlistment as Technical Adviser to Budget and National Planning Minister of State Clem Agba, in the face of intense lashback by supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who held him damnable for hitherto being a critic of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. Onigbinde’s organisation is reputed for serially exposing duplicities in national budgets – to be sure, not just that of the federal government but also the state governments. But he, in particular, is also accused of taking criticisms of Mr. Buhari quite personal, having previously posted acerbic comments about the president on ...