A lack of quality, people-oriented leadership has been the single most identified challenge to development in Nigeria. Over the years, since its independence from Britain in 1960, the quest for good (dedicated) leadership has seen Nigeria(ns) suffer through a series of upheavals—including several (sometimes brutal) military coups, a civil war, and decades of political suppression—and other developmental setbacks. Consequently, when, in 1999, the country was returned to democratic rule, which was celebrated as an ideal government model capable of delivering public goods to the masses, many were optimistic for a new dawn. True to the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians,…

In 2003, the literary critic Fredric Jameson famously observed that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” For the first time in two centuries, he noted, capitalism was viewed as both destructive and irreversible. Waning faith in the possibility of a post-capitalist future has nurtured deep pessimism. This prevailing despair evokes John Maynard Keynes’s 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” in which he warned against the “two opposed errors of pessimism.” The first was the pessimism “of the revolutionaries who think that things are so bad that nothing can save us…

Western deception has been with Africa forever. 1493: Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull, Inter Caetera, proclaiming the right of Spain and Portugal to enslave Africans and own the land. They were subjects. They stole your people and your land. 1885: Africa was a Dark Continent. It required colonisation to become civilised. Europe would bring change and civilise Africans. They stole your raw materials and truncated your self-development. 1940: When over a million Africans fought in Europe, North Africa and the Far East during the Second World War, the West convinced them they were dying for freedom and democracy.…

Curses and magical beliefs are woven together in African politics. A study found out that virtually all African leaders come to power emboldened by beliefs in local magical spells. Francisco Macias Nguema, first president of Equatorial Guinea from the time of the country’s independence in 1968, till 1979 when he was overthrown, was a perfect fit of this. A strongman and one of the most brutal dictators in human history, Nguema reportedly killed between 20,000, to 80,000 out of the total Guinea population of about 200,000 to 300,000 people. This led to his country being nicknamed the Dachau of Africa.…