iPostThisWeek

Introduction In the early 1980s, Nigeria’s children encountered a small but powerful book in their secondary school curriculum: Eze Goes to School , written by Onuora Nzekwu and Michael Crowder. It was more than a story; it was a mirror of a nation’s aspirations. Education was a treasure: rare, dignified, and transformative. To be a student was to be a prince or princess in your own right. Teachers commanded respect. Boarding schools felt like foreign missions. Every child yearned to move from primary to secondary school, and then to the university. Education was the ladder out of poverty, the passport to dignity, and the promise of a better tomorrow. Today, that ladder is broken. The promise has been betrayed. And the shame is not hidden; it is exported. Eze’s World: Hope, Hunger, and Honour To say the least, the authors of Eze goes to School presented Eze’s worldview. Eze Adi is a brilliant, curious boy from a poor rural family. His parents, though struggling farmers, believe...

Introduction Every society carries a mirror, sometimes polished, sometimes cracked, reflecting what it is, what it fears, and what it hopes to become. For Nigeria, that mirror increasingly resembles 18th‑century France: a nation swollen with inequality, governed by elites insulated from the suffering of the masses, and drifting toward a breaking point that history has already documented in painful detail. Yet, in a twist of irony, Nigeria’s leaders frequently travel to France, a country whose stability, rule of law, and social discipline were purchased through revolution, while presiding over a homeland where those very foundations are eroding. The contrast is not just symbolic; it is diagnostic. Lessons From the French Revolution: When Inequality Becomes a Political Time Bomb The French Revolution did not erupt suddenly. It simmered for decades under conditions that feel eerily familiar to Nigerians today: Crushing inequality France’s ancien régime was built on a rigid hi...

How a Nation Expecting Rational Stewards Ended Up Ruled by the Very Creatures Swift Warned Us About Introduction When Jonathan Swift introduced the world to the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos in Gulliver’s Travels , he wasn’t merely crafting fantasy, he was holding up a mirror to human society. The Houyhnhnms, noble and rational, embodied the ideal of enlightened leadership. The Yahoos, brutish and insatiably greedy, represented the worst impulses of humankind. Today, Nigeria finds itself trapped in a Swiftian paradox: a nation that yearned for Houyhnhnm‑like leaders but instead watches its political class re‑incarnate the very vices of the Yahoos. The result is a country spinning in dysfunction, where corruption, incompetence, and moral decay have turned governance into a grotesque satire of what it should be. The Houyhnhnm Ideal: What Leadership Should Look Like In Swift’s world, the Houyhnhnms governed through: reason restraint communal responsibility moral clarity a ...

Introduction Ivan Karamazov’s haunting provocation: “If God does not exist, everything is permitted” was never meant as a simple denial of faith. It was a moral warning: without divine accountability, human beings may act without restraint. In Nigeria, this paradox has taken on a peculiar parody. Politicians loudly profess faith, whether Christian or Muslim, invoking God at rallies, quoting scripture in speeches, and embarking on pilgrimages. Yet their governance betrays a worldview where God’s existence has no binding consequence. Power itself becomes god, and accountability evaporates. The irony is stark. A few days ago, the president ordered that police escorts protecting elites be withdrawn so officers could be redeployed to fight insecurity. Suddenly, politicians scrambled, fearful for their lives, lamenting exposure to danger. Yet ordinary Nigerians have lived exposed for decades: kidnapped on highways, massacred in villages, displaced from homes, and abandoned in camps. Cit...