Dear President Biden, Something remarkable happened on the morning of February 25, the day of the Nigerian presidential election. Many Nigerians went out to vote holding in their hearts a new sense of trust. Cautious trust, but still trust. Since the end of military rule in 1999, Nigerians have had little confidence in elections. To vote in a presidential election was to brace yourself for the inevitable aftermath: fraud. Elections would be rigged because elections were always rigged; the question was how badly. Sometimes voting felt like an inconsequential gesture as predetermined “winners” were announced. A law passed last year,…

Once again, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission imposed a heavy-handed fine on Channels TV, following a petition by an aide of Bola Tinubu. Ironically, the petition was based on some comment by the Labour Party vice presidential candidate Datti Baba-Ahmed who, during a live interview, said something to the effect that swearing Tinubu into office in May would “end” democracy in Nigeria. This not-so-subtle manipulation of a state agency by the aides of an incoming president signals a pattern of power abuse that will only worsen. Baba-Ahmed was wrong to the extent he assumed that swearing in the beneficiary of a…

Lagos, the most cosmopolitan and politically progressive state in Nigeria on March 18, 2023 engaged in the degenerative politics of exclusion. The debilitating disease of campaigning that a non-full-blooded native cannot be governor, is an incapacitating one. Ten days later, a different philosophy of politics evolved in Scotland where the parliament elected 38-year-old Humza Haroon Yousaf, son of first generation migrants from Punjab, Pakistan, as the country’s first minister, or de facto leader. The Scots were not interested in who Yousaf’s father is, where his wife comes from or the nationality of those he hangs out with; they simply want…

Chaos and noise,Voices lost poise,Violence unrestrained,Change obstructed. Rigging and fraud,Will of people ignored,Leadership hijacked,Future brutally sacked. Weeping people,Torn dreams, hopeless and feeble,Nonviolent change obstructed,To our shame, corrupted. INEC’s promises were once high,BVAS and IReV, systems to try,Voter fraud to stop and deny,Nigeria’s future to fortify. But alas, the political class,Had different plans to amass,Voters intimidation with no class,INEC, their ally, a conspiring farce. BVAS and IReV, just words,INEC and politicians, blurred,Truth and justice incurred,Hope of free and fair elections, absurd. Charade persists, for how long?INEC and politicians cheat,Democracy’s hopes in chaos meet,Political class corrupt and steadfast. Exploiting ethnic and religious…