Point One

 Brazil is currently in a battle for the soul of its democracy. The country is calling former President Jair Bolsonaro to account for alleged bid to sabotage that nascent dispensation after a bitter past under military dictatorships that she would not want reenacted. But she faces a heavy blowback from regional neighbour and supposed bastion of democracy, the United States of America, which has taken sides with Bolsonaro. Nothing could rank higher in conceptual contradiction if not understood through personality of incumbent American leader, President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro was earlier this month sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after being found guilty of plotting a military coup. A panel of five supreme court justices handed down the sentence hours after they convicted the former leader. Four of the judges held that he was guilty of leading a conspiracy aimed at staying on in power after he lost the 2022 election to his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva....

Among the Yoruba, there is a cultural awe for monarchs because they are regarded as representatives of the deities. They are esteemed above board in mortal fallibility, hence their recognition as one who is not to be questioned – ‘K’a bi o osi,’ which over the ages has been shortened into ‘Kabiyesi’. Only God is truly infallible and beyond questioning, though. It’s just that monarchs are deemed agents of the gods. But they are mortals after all, and anyone among them who strays from the hallowed ground of royal integrity gets stuck in muck like Oba Joseph Oloyede. The Alapetu of Ipetumodu, a community in Ife North council area of Osun State, recently got sentenced to jail in the United States for 56 months over fraud related to Covid-19 emergency loan for struggling businesses in that country. Oloyede holds dual citizenship of Nigeria and the U.S. And even though he was installed the Alapetu in October 2019, he is convicted and jailed for $4.2million fraud committed between 2020 and 20...