A Time to Be Born

If Nigeria survives long enough from the current battering of the country’s ruling class, variants of what was attempted on 5 August may be attempted again and again until a spark leads to a national conflagration or a successful popular revolution resulting from a better conceived, planned and e

About the middle of 1985, the tendency to which I belonged in Nigeria’s Marxist Left met somewhere on the campus of the former University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife.

We therefore begin these notes with five simple facts whose combined significance—as important as it is—should, however, not be mystified or distorted. They do not explain everything; but to refuse or miss to be actively guided by them is to leave the road to comprehension.

The lessons of Nigeria’s Elections 2019 to which I refer here are not abstract lessons-in-general or lessons-for-all-time, but concrete lessons that emerged for the use of political forces on the Nigerian Left that see the urgent need of re-dedication to the great cause and arduous task of buildi

First, a confession. I am Igbo, whatever that means! I was born in 1966, a year before the Nigerian Civil War that lasted for 30 months, from July 1967 to January 1970.

In rationalising his suspension of the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court, President Muhammadu Buhari stated without explanation, “This is an existential policy”. What is the “this” referring to?

In this New Year 2019 we should take some time to restate some of the basic points on the current movement for Igbo independence from Nigeria.

This angle and this perspective, I believe, coincide with and describe the general position of the Nigerian Left. By “general position”, I mean an ideological – political position to which every tendency of the movement, which considers itself both Left and Nigerian ought to subscribe.

“When copies of the Kinyarwanda editions of my children’s books were delivered from Kigali recently, I counted the books and realised that it was the 50th language on the shelf.