By PAULINA NZERUBE IN Nigeria’s long history of state creation, maps have never been mere geography. Each new state is a reordering of power, a redistribution of resources, and a chance to correct political and social imbalances. From the 1967 restructuring that birthed 12 states to the 1996 exercise that gave us Bayelsa and Ebonyi, […]
By HAUWA MAGANA WHEN the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Prize for Literature announced SANYA by Oyin Olugbile as its 2025 winner, it did more than honour a novel — it celebrated a voice that has given new meaning to silence, womanhood, and memory in African fiction. The $100,000 award — Africa’s most prestigious literary […]
By STELLA JOHNSON OGBOVOVEH EVERY basket of tomatoes, every bag of rice, and every tuber of yam that reaches Nigerian markets carries an invisible tax — a toll extracted not by law, but by corruption. Across the nation’s highways, truck drivers ferrying food items are bled dry at countless checkpoints manned by police, soldiers, road […]
By DIANA CHUKWUKA ON a humid Lagos afternoon, E.O. Obanor sits on the veranda of his one-room apartment, watching his children play. Three years ago, he was a bakery supervisor earning ₦220,000 monthly. Today, he’s unemployed, battling debt, and fighting thoughts that frighten him. “I never thought I’d come this low,” he says quietly. “When […]
By ANDERSON (ANDY) CLIFF MARIA Corina Machado, a leading figure in Venezuela’s fight for democracy, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Her win is not just a personal honor — it is a message of hope for millions in Venezuela and around the world who seek freedom and justice. A Lifelong Advocate for […]
By HAUWA MAGANA NIGERIA’S latest ranking as the country with the lowest life expectancy in the world is not just another statistic — it is a national indictment. The 2025 United Nations global health report places the nation’s average life expectancy at 54.9 years, a figure that underscores decades of policy failure, systemic neglect, and […]
By TAYO TAIWO (T.T.) OLUWOLE FOR Nigerian football fans, the countdown to 2026 isn’t just about the next World Cup — it’s about a season of action, transformation, and opportunity. From the NPFL’s renewed energy to a reinvented Champions League and the much-anticipated AFCON in Morocco, the coming months promise to be a rare convergence […]
By TIMOTHY HAGGERTY-NWOKOLO IN international politics, nothing ever “just happens.” Every conflict, coup, and crisis often fits into a well-worn pattern — one that begins with a problem, escalates into chaos, and ends with a “solution” that benefits everyone except the people on the ground. Across Africa, that script appears to be replaying itself once […]
By DAVID JOHN-FLUKE ON a breezy Saturday in Abuja, Nkechi’s gold lace shimmered under the wedding lights as she watched her childhood friend walk down the aisle. But behind her forced smile lay heartbreak — her own fiancé had ended their long-distance engagement from Canada just a week earlier. “Life is moving fast here. I’ve […]
By MELVIN KOFFA ACROSS Nigeria, governors are facing growing public anger and scrutiny — not because of a lack of funds, but because of what analysts describe as a lack of vision, accountability, and willpower to translate the ongoing revenue windfall into real progress. Over the past year, allocations to states from the Federation Account […]