Forty years ago today, in the district of Colombia, the American Supreme Court passed a law that guarantees the right of American women to legal medical abortion. Roe V. Wade made access to sexual reproductive health a right that cannot be denied for American women. Since then, the conservative faction of that government has been looking for ways of denying [...]

Ondo State, three years ago had the highest maternal mortality rates in the southwest region of Nigeria. At the time, the landscape of the country was littered with mothers bleeding to their death and countless burials of little children. Olusegun Mimiko was elected and his government made the reduction of maternal mortality and child mortality its main goal. As someone [...]

2011 started with a bang in Nigeria, Jos was on fire and everyone was on edge. Nothing has changed so far. The country is plagued with constant traumas and general unrest. But with all of these things going on, Nigeria still had important moments of grace. In this column we will attempt to review the good and the bad. We [...]

Horror has come to stay in Nigeria. Or perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps this new phenomenon of horrific afternoons wondering why so many must die has been a fabric of Nigerian lives for a long time; we are only starting to pay attention.  After all, the Nigerian road systems claims more life in a year than Boko Haram has claimed [...]

  ONE: Time Magazine declared this week that the 2011’s person of the year is the protester. Not to be left out, Lagosians took to the street on Saturday to protest the their state’s terrible infliction of pain and injustice by forcing them to pay toll fees when using the newly completed Eti-Osa -Lekki Expressway. It was not clear what [...]

ONE: It is time for that great tradition of setting priorities for the upcoming year. This year promises to be filled with intrigue as the president and his team gets set to present to the Nigerian people his vision for the country for the upcoming year. We already have an inkling of what is to come. The Coordinating Minister for [...]

ONE: The Nigerian Legislature made into law a bill that criminalizes homosexual marriage, activity, activism and association. The bill had been in the senate for a while and we covered it on this column. One is not aware of an epidemic of homosexual marriages warranting such a confusing, ill thought out, and punitive law. More surprising is the hate filled [...]

ONE: 136 people were killed yesterday when Boko Haram led a siege on the Nigerian Northeast. Roadside bombs, suicide attackers and gunmen ransacked the cities of Damaturu, Maiduguri and Potiskum just days ago. The group claimed responsibility for the attacks and the senseless deaths. Churches were burnt, police stations were bombed and a country was shocked, in a raid that [...]

  ONE: A total number of 71,135 ghosts and ghouls have invaded the Nigerian Federal Civil Service and the government has been paying these non-people regularly to the annual tune of N28 billion. To make room for the ghost workers, 44,320 real pensioners were dumped out of the system by the administrations of the scheme. A biometric exercise administered by the [...]

ONE: The US Supreme Court decided last week to hear a case that accuses Shell of engaging in extensive human rights abuses in Nigeria. The plaintiff claims that Shell was complicit in the brutal execution of Ken Saro Wiwa and 7 other Ogoni men by then military government of Sani Abacha. The case is on behalf of the dead men [...]