Point One

Indications emerged last week that the official universe of the United States had finally come to terms with the win by former Vice President Joe Biden in the 3rd November presidential election in that country and the inevitability of his taking over power on 20th January, 2021 from President Donald Trump.  Since Biden won the election three weeks earlier, Trump had – unlike what was known of American electoral culture – refused to concede the poll and allow formal transition to Biden White House. He plied conspiracy theories that the election was fraught with fraud and pursued multiple lawsuits across U.S. states to overturn results announced in favour of Biden. As at late last week, he had lost more than three dozens of those suits while many key states had certified Biden’s victory, even after some obliged vote recounts. In effect, the president-elect held comfortably to his 306 electoral votes over Trump’s 232 (270 are needed to win the presidency) and an edge of more than 6mil...

After some respite apparently occasioned by restive temper in the citizenry, we are back in Nigeria on the stretch racks of periodic hikes in the cost of petrol that government believes citizens will sooner than later come to terms with. But there are indications the idea isn’t flying that easily. All is thankfully calm for now, but another blowout may well be brewing. Recent experience teaches that the trigger could come so gratuitously and improbably that it might not even seem connected with the issue of fuel price and concomitant economic hardships. Seething exasperation over hardships disposes citizens to any stray trigger, just the way it takes only a slight pinch to unleash hot air from an inflated balloon. Government, penultimate week, announced a new price regime by which the ex-depot price of petrol was raised to N155.17 – thereby nudging marketers to sell at between N165 and N173 per litre to consumers. The move followed from the policy since March 2020 to deregulate the dow...

Ever since they stepped into the frame of the #EndSars protests, hoodlums defaced the protests and made the entire venture deeply galling – not just for government, but also law-abiding Nigerians. From a largely civil composure of peaceful protests by youths to end police brutality, hoodlums substituted an orgy of violence that nearly tipped the country over into a state of anarchy. They forced peaceful protesters onto the sidelines and headed up a reign of lawlessness that incurred security crackdown, which more adversely affected civil protesters than the thugs as in the controversial 20th October Lekki tollgate shootings in Lagos widely regarded as a watershed in the protests. Even after the crackdown, hoodlums got fiercer, raiding and wantonly setting ablaze public and private assets. Not the least affected were police offices where criminals looted ammunitions and lynched police personnel in most gory patterns. A fest of looting soon kicked in – arrowheaded by hoodlums but as well...