By OBIARAERI, Nnaemeka Onyeka FOR too long, the South East has blamed “external forces” for its lack of a functioning river port, a massive international airport, and industrial transformation. But the truth is uncomfortable: no one is stopping us—except ourselves. Our failure lies not in geography or federal neglect, but in a toxic mix of […]
By ANITA KNIGHT WHAT does it take to build a fairer world order? For decades, Africa has asked this question while struggling under global systems designed without its voice. Now, with China’s launch of the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), the conversation has returned with urgency — and Nigeria is uniquely placed to answer. At the […]
By ANITA KNIGHT Introduction LATE last year, reports emerged that Russia was recruiting hundreds of young African women, mostly aged 18–22, to work in drone production at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, 1,000 km east of Moscow. Promising attractive salaries and skills training, the programme—known as Alabuga Start—has instead left many recruits facing dangerous working […]
By AUGUSTINA McSOLOMON-OGHAKPERUO IN Edo State, a quiet revolution is unfolding at the Home for the Needy (HfN) IDP Camp in Uhogua, where survivors of Boko Haram insurgency and herder-farmer violence are turning displacement into opportunity. Once founded in 1992 for orphans, the camp now shelters over 3,000 internally displaced persons, offering them food, healthcare, […]
By EMMANUELLA NDUONOFIT THE death of dictators has always carried with it a strange relief, like a soothing balm on a festering wound. Their demise often feels like a long-awaited exhale for those who lived under their cruelty. Take Saddam Hussein. His death sentence stirred outrage from some quarters—Syria denounced it, Hamas called it political, […]
SOMEONE once told me some people are born without feeling — “spies of humanity,” they called them — those who live off others with smiles that hide greed. Think of the faces who run pension treasuries, who siphon what should keep the old and infirm secure. If such people are the ones vying to lead […]
By HALIMA TAKWAS TEN years after Boko Haram’s mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State, at least 91 girls remain missing or in captivity, according to a damning new report by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The committee’s findings, released after a confidential two-week mission to Nigeria […]
By OBI DAVIES NIGERIA’S banking sector is grappling with a major shake-up as the country’s fuel imports fall sharply, wiping out a significant source of profit for lenders that have long dominated petroleum trade financing. Fresh data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that mineral fuel imports plunged to ₦4.4 trillion in the […]
FROM Paris to Kathmandu to Washington, a troubling pattern has emerged: citizens rising against governments they no longer trust. The anger is global, the grievances familiar—economic hardship, political arrogance, widening inequality, and leadership failures. For African leaders, these events are not distant crises but urgent warnings. A World on EdgeFrance, the land of revolutions, is […]
By HALIMA TAKWAS MARYAM Ibrahim, a 32-year-old mother from Madagali, endured abduction, violence, and forced labour in Boko Haram’s Sambisa Forest before making a daring escape. Taken with 49 other women, Maryam was subjected to daily abuse, starvation, and forced to clean weapons for fighters. She survived on stolen food and endured psychological torment, losing […]