Systems & Society
Columns on Nigerian institutions, infrastructure, democracy, energy and government.
24 essays
THE National Assembly has taken significant steps toward the creation of state police. The House of Representatives has passed the constitutional amendment bill, while the Senate has advanced it through second reading and referred it for public hearings and further scrutiny.
Thank you for the rescues • Now answer the questions NIGERIA’s unrelenting insecurity demands a societal response. That response begins with citizens asking difficult questions. But before we do, we must express gratitude to the Nigerian military for rescuing 360 captives in Borno State, and to the Nigeria Police Force for rescuing the younger sister […]
LAST Wednesday, on our way to his summer camp, my eight-year-old son asked me a troubling question: “Daddy, have the 39 schoolchildren and their 7 teachers kidnapped from the Ahoro-Esinele and Yawota communities in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State been released?” I told him no. The federal government says it is working on […]
GLOBALLY, teaching is associated with building state capacity, modest livelihoods, and peace of mind. Teachers shape civilization. Teachers and students in rural Nigeria are now casualties of social collapse. Rural schools are no longer merely underfunded; they are exposed frontlines of national insecurity. The Federal Government recently exempted intending teachers from JAMB examinations. Yet a […]
A deliberately spare act of public mourning that centres lives lost to insecurity rather than allowing routine political commentary to continue around them.
The killing of a teacher in Oyo is examined as a failure of security, local intelligence and the state’s obligation to protect ordinary citizens.
IN Part I of this series, published on February 9, 2026, I posed a simple but uncomfortable question: what would a regionally coordinated mineral value-chain system actually look like under Nigeria’s existing constitutional order? Since then, developments within Nigeria’s solid minerals sector have reinforced those concerns. At the Africa Commodities Conference and Exhibition held in […]
If indeed 60 percent of a nation’s university students are involved in crime, then the implications go far beyond campus misconduct. It means future political leaders, business executives, academics, civil servants, and professionals may increasingly emerge from a culture shaped by fraud, bribery, and illegality. And the future is between five and 15 years away. […]
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, was established in 1960 at the Baghdad Conference by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to coordinate oil production and protect the interests of producing nations. The United Arab Emirates joined in 1967, becoming part of a system that shaped the modern oil order through collective […]
THE departure of Adebayo Adelabu as Minister of Power presents an opportunity for structural reset in a sector long managed through incremental adjustment rather than deliberate redesign. The word “Penkelemesi”—“peculiar mess”—popularized by Adelabu’s grandfather—aptly describes Nigeria’s power sector. From recurring grid collapses to chronic underperformance, it remains a study in systemic dysfunction. From recommendation to […]
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