Author: Chidi Amuta
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Mr. President, mind the gaps – By Chidi Amuta
Between an inaugural speech full of quotable nuggets and his reflex actions in just one week of presidential power, Mr. Bola Tinubu may have sketched the footprints of his presidency.
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Beyond the radiance at the square – By Chidi Amuta
The bare concrete parade ground of Eagle Square will tomorrow be animated by the symbolism of state ritual. Like most structures in Abuja’s homeless architecture, Eagle Square was originally designed by soldiers in power as a tribute to the legacy of parade grounds, a venue for rehearsing their trade. It has now become a favourite…
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Henry Kissinger at 100: Diplomatic centurion – By Chidi Amuta
His distinctive deep baritone with a heavy German inflected accent testifies to a man of world historic mission and accomplishment. Henry Alfred Kissinger has in one life time graduated from an outstanding scholar and global diplomatic icon into a foreign policy institution and veritable oracle.
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Democracy’s untidy offspring – By Chidi Amuta
The politics of democratic transition is hardly ever a beauty pageant. Oftentimes, the dazzling brilliance of campaign media displays conceal an underlying ugliness in the substance of what is on offer. It is all an ancient marketing gimmick in which the public is sold the new messiah as the product of an immaculate conception.
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Buhari: A Farewell With Benefits – By Chidi Amuta
Every tenure of power is a gallery of omissions and commissions. At the point of exit, the man of power pauses, looks back to wave goodbye amidst a confetti of both real legacies and many unfulfilled good intentions. No exit from power is totally devoid of the rituals of accountability.
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The APC on the cross – By Chidi Amuta
The ruling All Progressives Congress is entitled to roll out the drums in an orgy of triumphalism. The feverish inauguration rehearsals at national and relevant state levels are all in order given the announced outcome of the last general election. After all, democratic succession is ultimately a ritual of collective self renewal. We have an…
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From Sudan, the perils of bad manners – By Chidi Amuta
In a tragic sense, Sudan is somehow lucky. Its leading political figures, who also happen to be combatant generals, have not hidden their differences beneath a façade of mutual deceit. They have instead allowed their differences to blossom into an open bloody confrontation.
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‘OBIdients’ and the Gangster Conspiracy – By Chidi Amuta
Of all the cards that I carry around with me, none is a political party membership card. I have never and do not belong to any political party in Nigeria. Nor have I ever belonged to one or aspired to belong to any. My attitude to political party membership is pretty much the same as that towards organized religion.
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Peter Obi and the looming tyranny – By Chidi Amuta
The period between a general election and the swearing in of a successor administration ought to be filled with excited anticipation. It is usually a time of pleasant speculations on the new faces that will soon grace television screens and newspaper front pages.
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Scare tactics and interim fiction – By Chidi Amuta
Under the Buhari presidency, Nigeria’s security police, the DSS , has gradually acquired a political costume. Like all adept political masquerades, the DSS chooses its moments and sides. At one such moment during this president’s first term, the agency woke up one morning and sent out hooded goons to invade and barricade access to the…