The current leadership of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) deserves commendation for being alive to its responsibilities in catalysing discussions on issues of global relevance to Nigeria. Precisely on July 13, it hosted a seminar, most appropriately themed, “Nigeria’s Foreign Policy under President Bola Tinubu: Which way forward?” It was my privilege to speak, albeit virtually, on “President Bola Tinubu, Nigerian Foreign Policy and the Expansion of Democracy in Africa,” at the well-attended event. As expected, the directions in which the panelists felt Nigeria should be headed under the Tinubu presidency were fully explored. My interrogation of its…

When, on 26th July, soldiers from the presidential guard deposed and detained Niger’s president Mohamed Bazoum, it became part of a concerning narrative about the growing frequency of coups in African countries in recent years. Since 2020, there have been coups in Chad, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Sudan and now Niger. When you peel a little under the surface, you begin to unpack a telling pattern. The first is that all of the listed countries, except Sudan, are “former” French colonies. Except that they are quite “former”. The so-called Francophone countries are routinely among the least developed countries on the…

Given all the uncertainty in the world economy today, we have been reminded that for all the authority economics commands, it is still a social science. Many major developments over the past year have departed from the consensus forecast, exposing the limitations of our understanding. Most notably, many experts and forecasters predicted a recession in the United States this year. But not only have we avoided that (so far); the latest inflation figures have led many sell-side forecasters to write down the probability of a recession happening at all. Suddenly, financial markets are entertaining the idea that policymakers can indeed…

When Pakistani medical student, Salman Ahmad, stood up to twiddle his guitar, to the delight of all, at a student talent show event in a Lahore hotel in 1980, he was oblivious of the raging silent war between religion, music and sports. As he sang, a Pakistani fanatic dashed to the stage, snatched Ahmad's Gibson Les Paul guitar from around his neck and smashed it into smithereens. Nothing happened. The fanatic could not understand Ahmad’s temerity of playing rock music or music in general which Arabs potentates of the Islamic religion once referred to as “a prompting of the Devil” …