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Friday, December 26, 2014

Back to the pulpit

Also published in Daily Trust


Ever since the emirs of the now defunct Daular Usmaniyya began to delegate their responsibilities as chief imams of their respective emirates, to others and subsequently abandoned their pulpits by appointing substantive chief imams, they created a huge vacuum that can only be filled when they return back to their respective pulpits.

Besides, the value of their pulpits was hugely reduced though not necessarily because the appointed chief imams are not intellectually qualified to climb them but because the weight of the pulpits and, by implication, the impact of the message being delivered on them depend, to a large extent, on the influence and charisma of the emirs whose words carry a lot of weight and indeed outweigh that of any Islamic scholar including the chief imam for that matter.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Neutralizing the incumbency advantage

Even in advanced democracies where politics is largely issue-based and where performance determines the incumbent’s reelection chances, incumbency advantage exists and it indeed favours the incumbent, one way or another, anyway.

While this is not necessarily bad, politically speaking, after all, a particular incumbent may still be better than the other contenders vying to unseat him, it is obvious that, incumbency advantage in Nigerian politics accords the incumbent a disproportionate political advantage that easily enables him to retain his position or practically install his favoured candidate while he vies for and indeed “wins” another elective office if he can’t constitutionally run for the same position anymore.

Friday, December 5, 2014

Boko Haram: Attributions of blame

Also published in Daily Trust 


As blame game and conflicting conspiracy theories over the identities of the vested interests (if any) behind the emergence, persistence and escalation of Boko Haram crisis continue to circulate, the fact that the crisis reflects the extent of our collective failure as a country cannot be disputed.
Yet, fairness necessarily entails attributing appropriate portions of blame to the actual person(s) or party/parties responsible for each particular aspect of the crisis. This, after all, determines the nature and scope of what is expected of individuals, communities and, of course, the government in order to come up with a collective approach to end the crisis. By the way, this method is the first realistic step towards addressing all the other challenges bedevilling the country.
Anyway, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the largest portion of the blame goes to President Jonathan, particularly as it relates to the persistence and escalation of the terrorists’ attacks, since, having come to the presidency after the terror gang had already emerged, he can’t be held responsible for playing any role in its emergence.