7,000 Stranded Nigerians, NIDCOM And Worth Of A Nigerian Life

 By Magnus Onyibe

The recent revelation by Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), that more than 7,000 Nigerians are currently stranded in Libya, inspired this intervention. Her statement revived painful memories that moved me, eight years ago in March 2017, to publish an article lamenting the surge of illegal migration by our young men and women in search of greener pastures abroad.

That desperate pursuit often ended tragically, as countless Nigerians lost their lives attempting to cross the Sahara Desert on foot via Libya into Europe or navigating the Mediterranean Sea in rickety wooden boats into the Lampedusa islands, Italy.

UK General Election: British Democracy Shames Nigerian Ineptocracy

 By Olu Fasan

Trust Nigerians, some will scoff at any comparison between Britain’s democracy and what Nigeria calls democracy. But if democracy is, as Abraham Lincoln famously defined it, “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, then Nigeria must be held to universal standards.

*UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer

The critical electoral link between the government and the governed must not be severed, and democracy must not become ineptocracy, a system run by inept people. In any representative democracy, the irreducible core is the will of the people freely expressed in credible elections. That’s why last week’s UK general election offers some lessons.