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Introduction “Iheọma adịghị onye ọsọ,” meaning “No one rejects goodness.” It is one of the simplest truths in Igbo philosophy: a truth sung, danced, and passed from generation to generation. This truth was immortalized by The Oriental Brothers International Band , the legendary highlife group that emerged in the early 1970s, just after the Nigerian‑Biafran War. Their music became a cultural balm for a people rebuilding from trauma. Through rhythm, proverbs, and communal storytelling, they reminded the Igbo nation, and Nigeria at large, that dignity, hope, and goodness were still worth striving for. In their song, they proclaim: Toyota Motor: who would reject it? Mercedes Benz: who would refuse it? Honda 175: who would say no? If your father were a king: would you dislike it? If your brother prospered: would you not rejoice? The message is simple and universal: Goodness is desirable. Goodness is human. Goodness is for everyone. Yet in today’...

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 ...