It was different 16 years ago. Very different. At that time, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was relatively new and walking where angels feared to tread. That was unusual for a government institution, especially a law enforcement agency. So unusual that one of Nigeria’s most courageous social crusaders, Gani Fawehinmi, a thorn in government’s side, joined forces with the commission in the fight against corruption even when the man he loved to hate, Olusegun Obasanjo, was president. But you couldn’t blame Gani. The first decade after transitioning to civilian rule in 1999 was an “enough moment” for Nigeria.…

In 1989, the call of duty and pull of family necessitated that I travel from my London partial base to New York. I was checked in on a British Airways flight from London to New York. We were set to leave Heathrow shortly after the usual pre-departure rituals. I was seated on an aisle seat on row 2 in the First Class cabin courtesy of my employers then. I noticed that on both sides of the aisle in my front, the two seats on each row were unoccupied. It was a bit curious. I reckoned it was either a VIP…

Yoruba people have a proverb that translates, “When a youth stumbles, they look ahead; when an elderly stumbles, they look backwards.” As a child, I thought the proverb was talking about how children and elders contrarily process the embarrassment of falling in public. I assumed that an elder looks backwards when they fall because it would be too shameful to look elsewhere. Growing older helped me appreciate the wisdom the proverb encodes. The youth and the elderly look in opposite directions when they miss their footing to draw upon sources of wisdom available to them. Foundering during one’s youth is…

Nigeria was last week swept up in a wave of emotions as a video emerged in South Africa of President Bola Tinubu appearing to be on the receiving end of an embarrassing snub by the South Africa leader at his inauguration. But Nigerians who are looking at that video are at the wrong political campaign venue. They should be studying videos of how Tinubu views them. According to Sahara Reporters, Tinubu arrived in Pretoria on a private jet belonging to Gilbert Chagoury, his business partner and a man whose Hitech Construction Company he has trusted with the controversial N15 trillion,…