Nigerians Cry Out Against Police Brutality

ColumnsCrime & SecurityNigeriaOpinionNigerians Cry Out Against Police Brutality

PilotnewsOctober 17, 2020

In 2017, Nigerian youths adopted a campaign against brutality from the Nigeria Police Force (NPF). The objective was to catalyze mass action against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the NPF set up to respond to armed robberies. The campaign, which adopted a mix of online and offline strategies, was popularly known on social media as #EndSARS. Over ten thousand Nigerians signed a petition and submitted it to the National Assembly calling for...

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Nigerian (and American) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Finalist for WTO Director General

ColumnsOpinionWorld NewsNigerian (and American) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Finalist for WTO Director General

PilotnewsOctober 14, 2020

The two finalists for the position of director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are Yoo Myung-hee, Republic of Korea, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian and (since 2019) an American citizen. The media is portraying Yoo Myung-hee as an international trade specialist and a WTO insider, while Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala describes herself as a WTO outsider; she combines, however, exceptional political and diplomatic experience with her economic training and subsequent career. She has been twice Nigeria’s finance...

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End SARS Campaign: Beyond the Rhetoric

ColumnsCrime & SecurityOpinionEnd SARS Campaign: Beyond the Rhetoric

Ebuka Onyekwelu (Staff Writer)October 11, 2020

By Ebuka Onyekwelu There is nothing more brazenly scandalous than abuse of power and public trust. But somehow, Nigerians have been able to put up with more than enough outrageous abuses, vandalism of sorts and dehumanization of the highest level. This, to the point that most Nigerians now justify or at least rationalize these incongruities, perhaps those are part of what it takes to be a Nigerian. In public bus, once police stops a bus...

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Current regime trends stir revival of xenophobic conspiracy theorists

ColumnsDon OkoloOpinionCurrent regime trends stir revival of xenophobic conspiracy theorists

PilotnewsOctober 6, 20201

White privilege is a beast. It is an innate, naturally concocted following…it is therefore hard to extricate oneself from its snares. ―Don Okolo Man has disintegrated badly; his mind is still functional in the sense that it still wants to satisfy the musings of those like him. But the rest of him has acquired real estate in the pit of squalor where he now sits in comfort writing essays of disdain and mischievous husbandry in...

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Nigeria at 60: to be or Not to be?

ColumnsNigeriaOpinionPoliticsNigeria at 60: to be or Not to be?

PilotnewsOctober 1, 2020

Aside from the ruling class in the north, south, west, and east of the country, nobody else is benefitting from the country. ―Ebuka Onyekwelu Sixty years is too long, but apparently, too short a time within which Nigeria can decide the identity it wants to take on. For six decades after Nigeria’s independence, basic questions of nationhood remain unanswered; Nigeria is yet to resolve issues surrounding its identity. Most recently, the recurrent question remains if...

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Sharia Punishments Embarrass Nigeria

ColumnsLaw & JusticeNigeriaOpinionSharia Punishments Embarrass Nigeria

PilotnewsOctober 1, 2020

Inhumane sharia punishments, including flogging, amputations, and stoning, have long embarrassed the federal government of Nigeria. That is happening now, with the 120-month prison sentence handed down by a Kano sharia court to a thirteen-year-old boy, Omar Farouq, and the death sentence handed down by the same court, again for blasphemy, on a twenty-two-year-old musician, Yahaya Sharif, for a song he shared on social media. A third, Mubarak Bala, a self-proclaimed atheist, has disappeared in police custody....

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What Nigerian Voters Must Learn from Edo Voters

ColumnsOpinionPoliticsWhat Nigerian Voters Must Learn from Edo Voters

PilotnewsSeptember 25, 2020

It could have been minority’s win because of the absence of majority participation. ―Ebuka Onyekwelu The just-concluded governorship election in Edo state was a clash of powerful political forces and no doubt part of the buildup to the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria. But most importantly, the victory in that election belongs to the people of Edo. The less than six hundred thousand Edo voters, who matched their words with action, went out to cast...

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Movie Theaters Are on Life Support – How Will the Film Industry Adapt?

EntertainmentFilm & TVNewsOpinionMovie Theaters Are on Life Support – How Will the Film Industry Adapt?

PilotnewsSeptember 23, 2020

Since the start of the pandemic, the film industry has been in free fall. As deaths have continued to climb, so have studio losses, with crowded theaters – once a source of collective entertainment and escapism – now seen as petri dishes for the virus. Familiar blockbuster franchises whose summer releases studios banked on to balance bleeding ledgers have been barred from shuttered theaters. The 25th James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” the 7th “Mission Impossible,”...

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Why Foreign Countries are Scrambling to Set Up Bases in Africa

Foreign PolicyMilitaryOpinionWhy Foreign Countries are Scrambling to Set Up Bases in Africa

PilotnewsSeptember 23, 2020

Recent media reports claim that a covert Kenyan paramilitary team is responsible for the unconstitutional killing of terror suspects in nighttime raids. The reports are based on interviews with US and Kenyan diplomatic and intelligence officials. The team was trained, armed and supported by US and British intelligence officers. It has been reported that since 2004, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programme has been operational in Kenya without public scrutiny. For its part, the British...

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Boko Haram Arms Stockpiling Indicates Long-Term Threat

ColumnsCrime & SecurityOpinionWest AfricaBoko Haram Arms Stockpiling Indicates Long-Term Threat

PilotnewsSeptember 19, 2020

On September 2, Boko Haram (ISWA) militants reportedly killed 10 Nigerian soldiers in Borno state. Such bloodshed has become so commonplace that it often fails to garner much interest. International news outlets spilled little ink to report the incident. Nevertheless, the failures of the region’s militaries—as well as the Lake Chad Basin Commission’s Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF)—to combat Boko Haram merit greater attention from policymakers and the international community. The widespread and persistent human rights abuses...

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