Playing with Fire

Also published in Daily Trust

Even though it hardly if at all makes any appreciable progress in tackling the current insurgency and general insecurity in the country, Nigeria, among some other West African countries, has been literally herded by France and its western allies into the increasingly precarious terrain of northern Mali. The mission is to fight a proxy war without realizing its security implications on its own already fragile security situation.

Not Yet Ready for a Change

Also published in Daily Trust

Sometimes I wonder if the average Nigerian has moral right to criticize the ruling elite, in view of his equally active contribution to the general mess in the country, after all I even highlighted the elements of hypocrisy inherent in his attitude in a piece titled “Our Collective Hypocrisy” {Daily Trust, 23 Sept 2011} Yet, among all the challenges facing Nigeria, nothing, including corruption and incompetence of the ruling elite, nearly makes me lose hope more than the average Nigerian’s apparent unwillingness to adjust to the new realities necessarily associated with the change he often craves. This is quite obvious in the way he resists any initiative aimed at creating some measure of social orderliness in the largely chaotic society.