The Speech Buhari Didn’t Make, By Reuben Abati

Nigerians were left speechless on May 29 when after taking the oaths of office and allegiance, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo left the Eagle Square, the venue of the Presidential Inauguration ceremony without uttering a word. The President had nothing to say to Nigerians. He simply went back into his car and […]

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Aisha Buhari’s Politics and May 29 Blues, By Reuben Abati

In the lead up to the May 29, 2019 Inauguration Day, after the general elections in Nigeria – the end of a four-year term (2015 – 2019) and the beginning of another cycle of four years – as constitutionally prescribed -certain notable developments have occurred in the last few days, involving places, events and personalities […]

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Promises and the future: Sanwo-Olu and other Governors-elect, By Reuben Abati

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the Lagos State governor-elect and some of the other governors-elect across the country have been busy making promises and beating their chests out of what seems like an epileptic fit of triumphalism. I urge caution. The new wife is always tempted to put down the old wife – that is what African tradition […]

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The Next Buhari Cabinet: Some Suggestions, By Reuben Abati

President Muhammadu Buhari is under obligation to announce a new Federal cabinet. The tenure of his present team of aides, including Ministers, Special Advisers, Senior Special Assistants and Special Assistants automatically expires on May 29, 2019. Whereas the President took six months to announce many of these appointments in 2015, the convention and the law […]

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A ‘Private Visit’ to Her Majesty the Queen, By Reuben Abati

“You look dull. I hope you are good” “What else can the son of man do, with all the problems on someone’s head in this country?” “What happened? Your team messed up in the Premier League? Is your problem David De Gea?” “No” “May be the Arsenal coach then, because that match Arsenal played against […]

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The People’s Revolt in Algeria and Sudan, By Reuben Abati

Young people are leading a people’s revolution in Algeria and Sudan, both developments remind us forcefully of the wages of mis-governance, the power of the people to seize control of their own destiny, and the role that the youth can play in a country’s development process. It is encouraging to see that in both countries, […]

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Nigeria and the Misery Index: Not a Miserable Country, By Reuben Abati

In a Report titled The Misery Index 2018 authored by Dr. Steve Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Nigerians have been labelled the sixth most miserable people in the world. The misery index was introduced in the 1970s by Arthur Okun, an American economist, author of the seminal work, Equality and Efficiency: […]

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Nigeria 2019: Have we learnt any lessons?, By Reuben Abati

The 2019 general election in Nigeria has been described by international and local observers, stakeholders, direct participants and the electorate themselves as a “disappointment”, “ a bad day for democracy”, “a step back from whatever Nigeria may have achieved since the return to civilian rule,”, “a shameful exercise”, “below par”, “an affront on international standards […]

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Nigeria 2019: Notes from the Field, By Reuben Abati

Whoever came up with the wise saying that Nigerian politics is dirty deserves an award for perspicacity. I have just returned from that dirtied, muddled up, confused, uncertain, unpredictable zone of Nigerian life and society with truck loads of stories in my head and enough impressions in my mind to last me another life-time. As […]

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INEC: The Election Postponement Challenge, By Reuben Abati

Ordinarily, the postponement by a week of Nigeria’s 2019 general election should not have generated as much outrage as it has done, but the protest that the postponement has attracted is positive proof of the fact that the Nigerian electorate do not trust the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In 2011, the country’s elections were […]

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