Point One

 You could say we are running rings. Gun-toting bandits strike under the cover of darkness in a remote residential secondary school and herd away rattled pupils seeking the golden fleece into the leaden night. Oftentimes collateral victims get caught in the fray, as it happens to school security guards who get killed by the assailants and other residents of an attacked school who may be abducted alongside the pupils as was the case in Kagara, Niger State, last week. On the heels of the incident, government springs out a statement dripping with pump action – condemning the attack as cowardly and ordering security agents to remedy anyhow and rescue the victims. Heavy weather is made of government doing all within its power to secure lives and property, as if that were a benevolent endeavour and not its primary constitutional obligation. Nothing gets said about why attacks are recurrent and why they recurrently succeed, and what must be done to prevent further recurrence; only a gener...

Even with the crushing effects of Covid-19 on humanity, Nigeria has not lacked in shiny spots of large-heartedness embodied by personal and corporate givers who take out from their abundance to help other citizens wade through and ultimately overcome the ravages of the pandemic. Whatever may be underlying self-interested motivations (if there are) for their munificence, these givers are voluntary agents who could have chosen to look after their own narrow conveniences; that they rather exert themselves on others’ wellbeing is noble and dictates that they be appreciated for the altruism amidst deluging distress. Donors are nevertheless humans and not angels, and they have their own petty battles as played out last week within the Coalition Against Covid-19 (CACOVID), a private sector task force superintended by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to pool financial, technical and operational resources in aid of Nigeria’s efforts to fight the pandemic. During the first wave of Covid-19 pand...