An urgent threat hovers over Nigeria’s democracy. It is not just the spectre of bad elections or the predominance of atrocious politicians. It is instead the rise and increasing numbers of authoritarian governors all over the country. Though enthroned by our often murky democratic process, an increasing number of...
Chidi Amuta
The distance between political campaign promises and their fulfilment is an infinity. Between when these promises are made and the end of the tenure of those who usually promise paradise and deliver hell, people are often too dazed to remember. As it were, empty promises seem to be part...
The crowds of power wear amorphous but identical faces. It does not matter whether they are the Roman plebeians, renegade factions of the Athenian metropole, or the rough racist hounds that accompanied Donald Trump to defile the US Capitol on 6th January 2021. They are all roughly the same....
Tyrants and mad men suffer a common ailment: they are condemned to a feeling of loneliness and a routine of endless wandering in search of what they alone understand. No other world leader at the present time better illustrates this ancient folk wisdom than Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Mr. Putin...
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) expects victory in the 2023 election almost as an entitlement. This is for one reason only: it is the incumbent party in national power. President Buhari and core party leaders are carrying on in a manner that suggests that electoral victory is a...
The race for the 2023 presidency is looking more like a tripartite sprint among unequal parties. In that race, the advantage of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should ordinarily have been defined by two factors: age and a minus sign. It is the oldest of the three...
The reign of terrorists is not without its own sardonic humour. Soon after storming Kuje prison in Abuja to free their comrades in arms, ISWAP terrorists indicated an interest in two pricey trophies: President Muhammadu Buhari and, my friend and brother, Nasir El Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State. While...
ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta The cry is getting louder that the Nigerian state is about to fail. In the attractive parlance of some foreign reporter, the pessimists insist that the Nigerian house is about to fall. Not quite, I say. The note of perennial pessimism is merely a way of...
On the matter of ensuring national security by all means necessary, I accept being called a hawk. But on the concomitant cautious fear that bad things could happen to the nation if our defenses are lax, I will accept the title of coward. In short, a nation is entitled...
The period between now and May 2023 is Nigeria’s season of expectations and grave anxiety. Nigerians are expectant that the forthcoming general election will enable them as an electorate to renew our national leadership through the ritual of voting. On the other hand, the perilous state of the state...
ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta The recent presidential nomination primaries of the two big parties and the just concluded Ekiti state governorship elections are united by a paradox. In both, Nigerian democracy recorded some dubious progress. An orderly and fairly credible electoral processes seems to have finally evolved. Correspondingly, however, the monetization...
ENGAGEMENTS by Chidi Amuta The outcome of our presidential nominations season has produced a new landscape of mixed blessings. The two major parties have produced rival contestants straight from the dark recesses of Africa’s political past. Atiku Abubakar and Bola Tinubu are in many ways a throwback to the...
ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta Shortly before the outcome of the recent PDP primaries, a video clip of Atiku Abubakar dancing in casual outfit hit the social media. It did not seem like a recent video. But it gathered traction and went even more viral once Mr. Atiku was proclaimed the presidential...
ENGAGEMENTS BY Chidi Amuta Democracy was never intended to amuse nor was politics meant to offend. The ritual of periodic leadership renewal through elections was instead meant to be a serious business to guarantee the health of the polis. The Athenian and Roman senates were collections of people of knowledge...