Donald Trump’s Return: Americans Put Economic Self-Interest Above Moral Values

 By Olu Fasan

There are two views of human behaviour. One is that people are primarily motivated by self-interest – what’s in it for me? The other is that people are primarily influenced by deeply ingrained moral values – what’s right and wrong? The first view comes from the rational choice or game-theoretic school, the second belongs to what scholars call constructivism.

*Trump

Now, Europeans are generally believed to privilege high principles over narrow self-interest. By contrast, Americans have long been seen as mostly self-interested, individualistic people, to whom moral values are secondary considerations. That caricature of the Americans played out powerfully last week when they overwhelmingly returned to power Donald Trump, president from January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021, notwithstanding his deeply flawed character and untoward past behaviour!

Shock Therapy? Tinubu Is insensitive To Human Suffering

 By Olu Fasan

Recently, the Financial Times interviewed me for a special report on Nigeria. The FT had interviewed me a few times before. So, when I received a call from David Pilling, the newspaper’s Africa Editor, I knew he probably wanted to interview me again. “I read your article on Tinubu’s economic reforms,” Pilling said. “I want to speak to you about it as I am writing a report on Nigeria.” We spoke. 

*Tinubu

About two weeks later, on July 10, the report titled “Tough times and tough measures” was published in the newspaper’s “Big Read” section. The FT said, rightly, that I described the economic reforms of Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president, as “half-cooked”, and criticised the excesses and profligacy of his administration. “You cannot say the economy is bad and spend money like a drunken sailor,” the FT quoted me. 

Save The President From Himself!

 By Dan Onwukwe

Nothing is normal any more in Nigeria. In both scale and scope, the ominous signs are everywhere for any discerning mind to see. The message is simple:  What leaders do while they are trying to get political power is not necessarily what they do after they have it. That, in itself, is lesson in power. Whatever former President Muhammadu Buhari made worse for Nigeria and its citizens, Tinubu presidency is striving to make breathtakingly  much worse in scope.

*Tinubu
If Buhari was, for want of a better word, a nepotistic Northern President, Tinubu is careening dangerously towards becoming, to paraphrase Olusegun Adeniyi, columnist and Chairman, Editorial Board, ThisDay newspapers, an ‘Oduduwa President’. The evidence is no longer in doubt. 

How Anambra Diaspora Can Support The Political Process At Home

 By Uche Nworah

A diaspora is a large group of people with similar heritage or homeland, who have since moved out to places all over the world. Diasporas live and work in states, regions or countries different from their country of birth, or homeland. The term has been used also to describe Itinerant Nigerians who are scattered all over the world, either as political or economic migrants.

Wherever they find themselves, Nigerian diaspora have always distinguished themselves in the professions, be it medical, academia, sports, technology, finance, business and other fields. 

In an October 2020 publication by the London-based Financial Times newspaper, quoting from 2017 data from the Migration Policy Institute, it said that, “In the United States of America, Nigerians are the most highly educated of all groups, with 61 per cent holding at least a bachelors degree compared with 31 per cent of the total foreign-born population and 32 per cent of the US-born population”. The report went on to say that, “more than half of Nigerian immigrants (54 per cent) were most likely to occupy management positions, compared with 32 per cent of the total foreign-born population and 39 per cent of the United States-born population”.