Author: Chidi Amuta
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Buhari’s Long Farewell – By Chidi Amuta
In recent weeks, President Muhammadu Buhari has been unusually busy. In addition to his normal routines in the line of duty, the president has been making the most of the last lap of his rather unflattering tenure. Through a series of farewell utterances and gestures that will last from now till May, he has been…
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Pope Obasanjo’s message – By Chidi Amuta
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has once again done what he is reputed for. He has cast a big stone into Nigeria’s brackish political pool. The splash is all over the place. Like a papal encyclical, Obasanjo’s new year day’s endorsement of Labour Party’s Mr. Peter Obi for the imminent presidential election has hit the political…
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2023: Of polls, projections and partisanship – By Chidi Amuta
Nigerians are a very impatient people. Our hunger for instant outcomes should have made us the nation that invented the microwave oven. But our impatience is directed at other ends. We can at least content ourselves with the many unusual things that we have reinvented and perfected our instincts in, namely, politics and religion.
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Christmas in the Age of ‘Delete’ – By Chidi Amuta
Christian clergy and congregations all over the world will today flock and dance all the way to the altar in an ancient commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Joy to the world and food in abundance to those who can afford it are emblematic of a season of goodwill and peace to all of…
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Democracy and its Discontents – By Chidi Amuta
In his most recent book, Liberalism and its Discontents, leading American political philosopher, Francis Fukuyama, throws light on the imminent crisis of democracy. The historical logic of democracy’s development is leading liberal democracy in particular towards a disastrous unraveling worldwide. But the unfolding catastrophe of democracy will impact nations according to the stage at which…
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Education: From Bumbling to Babel – By Chidi Amuta
President Buhari’s Minister of Education, Mr. Adamu Adamu, is a man who likes to take himself seriously. In ordinary circumstances, he should pass as one of the islands of some enlightenment in the arid cabinet of the outgoing administration.
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Playing Games with Poverty – By Chidi Amuta
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has stirred an unnecessary storm and in the process may have scored an inconsequential victory. Last week, the NBS revised the definition of poverty by shifting from the now proverbial living on $2 a day to something called “multidimensional poverty”. This has unsettled our politicians.
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Campaigning Amidst the Carnage – By Chidi Amuta
The current landscape of Nigeria is somewhere between a violent crime scene and the ruin of an imperfect edifice. It is like ‘the day after’ a great holocaust, an atomic upheaval or some other man made disaster. Those who left here seven years ago can no longer easily recognize familiar places. The highways are dangerous just…
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2023: What if Machiavelli votes? – By Chidi Amuta
Ordinarily, the hidden hands of an ancient Italian devious thinker should have no relevance to Nigeria’s 2023 election. But Machiavelli lived in a bad time and in a treacherous political terrain pretty much like the Nigeria of 2022. Like in the Florentine city state, our politics has been reduced to seasonal undeclared civil wars moderated…
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Enemy at the Door – By Chidi Amuta
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 to deploy maximum force to ensure…