Point One

 Nigeria has been diagnosed as a schizophrenic nationhood: it is a democracy, but needs iron hand to survive. That was the insight brought into national discourse lately by Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina. The presidential spokesman submitted that what this country needs to stay course is a benevolent fascist: a leader who whips people into line in any part whenever they misbehave, but kindly so. In his weekly commentary penultimate Friday, titled ‘I suddenly remembered why I fell in love with the President,’ he argued for the persona of the Nigerian leader being one of “iron and steel, one ready and willing to knock sense into contumacious heads, whipping everyone into line. And being kind to us in the process. A kind bully, if you like the oxymoron.” He was writing against the backdrop of the President recently alluding to the Nigerian civil war and threatening to deal harshly with troublemakers – a comment that, when it was post...

 Microblogging platform, Twitter, is one irreverent virtual potentate! It holds supra-territorial sway over the global space for free conversation and levels out the field of discussion with no regard to subscribers’ offices or social-political and economic statuses. On its platform, everyone is an equal player. And in exercising its moderating powers, it does not cringe from pulling the rug from under the powerful viewed to have crossed the line by deleting their posts or altogether tossing their accounts. On Twitter, you get the true feel of verbal democracy. But since unbridled freedom could atimes get injurious to communal health, Twitter steps in now and then to curtail its own very essence, namely free speech. It is a tight-rope walk between responsibility and self-contradiction. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari fell on the wrong side of Twitter last week when he – actually, it could be aides operating his handle – made a post alluding to the Nigerian civil war and threat...