Zone of death

Also published in Daily Trust  

The title of this article was inspired by a weekly television programme, “Sina’atul-maut”, which literally means “death making” aired on the popular Dubai-based and Saudi-owned news and current affairs Arabic satellite TV channel, Al-Arabiyya.

The programme hosts intelligence analysts and experts on terrorism who address and analyze the brainwashing propaganda and combat strategies of various non-state combatants, militias and other terror gangs operating in different countries particularly in the Middles East.

The programme also highlights the “exploits” of such terror gangs in their rebellious activities against their respective governments, which underscores the formidable security challenges they pose to their countries, as it also, to some extent, exposes the failures of the notoriously ruthless (though not necessarily competent enough) military and intelligence services of those governments.

Beneficiaries of Nigeria's rebased GDP

Also published in Daily Trust  

Despite the unmistakable inconsistency between most of the so-called positive economic growth figures in Nigeria and the reality on the ground, government’s growing obsession with the generation, or rather falsification, of such figures is growing even at the expense of real and sustainable development. This is because while it takes virtually no effort to fabricate such figures, it takes honesty, leadership skills and political will to achieve real and sustainable growth.  

The recent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rebasing, which increased the size of Nigeria’s economy by almost ninety percent at once, made it the largest in Africa and the 26th in the world, followed many other so-called positive economic growth figures which have indicated that the country has been achieving impressive and steady economic growth over the past several years. Interestingly, economically speaking, the size of a country’s GDP doesn’t necessarily determine the actual quality of its people’s standard of living, especially if it (i.e. GDP) is considered in isolation from other relevant economic factors.

Missteps Buhari's handlers make

Also published in Daily Trust   

When the “military kingmakers” who had brought General Muhammad Buhari to power abruptly ended his rule in another military coup in 1985, Nigerians had already come a long way in adjusting to the new order of social discipline his regime had introduced and vigorously promoted.  

Nevertheless his overthrow was greeted with indifference, and even cheers, by a significant portion of a largely gullible populace who, having been used to the culture of chaos and social indiscipline over the decades, had regarded the new social order under Buhari/Idiagbon regime as being too harsh. Of course, the beneficiaries of the status quo among the notoriously corrupt politicians, their associates in public service and private sector, as well as their business associates, also greeted his overthrow with jubilation.