A publication of the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity
Ideas and Insights for the Public Good.
If Nigeria is to break this destructive cycle, we must transition from what Nietzsche termed “reactive” history to a critical history — a deliberate practice that scrutinises past structural failures, disarms historical grievances, and prioritises civic nation-building over score-settling…
The loss of 37 lives in state custody is a grave indictment of public safety standards. Setting up a panel is not an achievement. The measure of true leadership lies in unyielding structural reform, state level accountability, and uncompromising prosecution.
In modern statecraft, health security is national security. Professor Adeyeye’s courageous exposure of these internal bottlenecks must serve as a turning point. She needs all the support and for the country to stand behind her in her quest to bring sanity.
A multi-dimensional assessment of the governance, fiscal accountability, procurement systems and human rights compliance of the Ministry of Defence finds structural reform proceeding alongside persistent weaknesses in financial transparency, procurement integrity and personnel administration.
Pouring endless funds into an unoptimised framework is not a long-term strategy. It has become critically urgent to fundamentally restructure our security apparatus.
For the Nigeria Police to truly fulfil its mandate, it is essential to create an environment in which merit and professionalism are consistently rewarded, rather than allowing patronage and favouritism to dictate advancement and responsibility.
A public official should be legally and physically bound to the nation s/he is serving. The knowledge that one cannot simply escape to a second home in the event of legal scrutiny serves as a powerful deterrent against malpractice.
Serious governance cannot coexist with such superficiality when there are real problems to solve. It is high time we weaned ourselves of useless colonial and bureaucratic practices that add no value to the country.
We currently have no binding, AI-specific statute. While the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 exists, it governs what happens to data, not what complex AI systems do with it.
My vote will go to the candidate who commits to delivering at least 70 per cent of the following blueprint reform within a strict five-year tenure.
Social and technological advancement are inevitably intertwined for the advancement of human development.
We are indeed losing precious lives, but we are losing them to terrorism, banditry, and communal conflicts fuelled by poor governance, not a coherent government-backed campaign to wipe out one religion.
Until the impact of corruption outweighs concerns around national interest, countries are unlikely to take serious measures on it. So what do we do?
The narrative we must embrace is simple, clear, and unyielding: the final victory, cemented by the UK Supreme Court’s ruling, belongs squarely to the EFCC, led by the determined Magu, and ably supported by dedicated officers like Sanga, Babangida, Abba…
It is right, and just, to fight for workers’ rights. But the legitimacy of that fight is inextricably linked to the integrity of those who are fighting. Nigerians are looking at the fighters and seeing their past.
The fixation on military solutions, while sometimes necessary in the short term, risks treating the symptoms rather than the underlying disease. We are about 14 years into insurgency and decades in terms of other security challenges.
To break the cycle of insecurity that plagues our nation, we must depoliticise our security system and appoint people with the requisite expertise and skills, who citizens can trust, into crucial roles in the system.
This tide of illicit wealth washing through Abuja’s real estate demands that the relevant agencies resist the insidious embrace of ‘capture’ that renders them impotent.
Now what should a responsible state do when it is threatened to this level? All the malevolent actors involved should be tagged as agents of treason, and the state should treat them as such, by every legal means available.