Olu Fasan, Author at Businessday NG

Fascistic? Point the finger at Buhari, Tinubu and their party

Olu Fasan — Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:18:15 +0000

As a creative writing scholar at Oxford University, I have been reviewing the legendary literature Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka’s latest book, Chronicles from the land of the happiest people on earth. A political novel, albeit verisimilitude, the book fictionalises social and political corruption in Nigeria. Ben Okri, the famous Nigerian-British writer, and winner of […]

Election petitions: Can the judiciary save Nigeria’s fragile democracy?

Olu Fasan — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 23:59:09 +0000

The judiciary always has the final say on Nigeria’s elections because Nigeria’s elections always end up in court. As a result, many governors and legislators have been chosen by judges, not the people. To stem this tide of judicial encroachment in elections, the Electoral Act of 2022 introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, a […]

Sham polls: Nigeria’s pseudo democracy fuels crisis of legitimacy

Olu Fasan — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 23:06:13 +0000

President Muhammadu Buhari recently said that this year’s general elections showed that “Nigeria’s democracy has truly matured.” However, that contrasts sharply with the view of Barry Andrews, Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission to Nigeria, who said on Arise TV: “It’s difficult to point to progress being made in How can Nigeria […]

Nigeria’s 2023 polls: The toxic misjudgements of Soludo, el-Rufai

Olu Fasan — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 23:29:27 +0000

Someday, when the dust has long settled, chroniclers of history will tell the stories of the 2023 general elections, the worst in Nigeria’s recent history. They will narrate the noble and ignoble roles played, respectively, by heroes and villains of the elections. Of the latter, many abound among the political class. Two of them are […]

INEC: Nigeria’s malfunctioning institutions prove its fragility

Olu Fasan — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 02:27:26 +0000

Every nation fails or succeeds on the quality of its institutions. But every institution is as strong as the quality of its personnel, their competence and professionalism, their values and norms. Unfortunately, Nigeria is a country where state institutions are utterly malfunctioning , bereft of any sense of responsibility, and where public officials have perverse […]