The Learner

By Muhsin Ibrahim Decades after gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria remains a complex country in every sense. It is a nation of abundance and poverty, exceptional brilliance and widespread illiteracy, and much more. With a population of over 220 million people of diverse characteristics and backgrounds, Nigerians are found across the globe. Nigeria has the good, the bad and the ugly. Wole Soyinka, the first African Nobel laureate, recently celebrated his 90th birthday. Aliko Dangote, also from Nigeria, has been the wealthiest black man for over a decade. However, Nigeria is also known for having some of the most wanted fraudsters on the FBI list. The country also overtook India as the so-called capital poverty of the world, with 71 million people living in extreme poverty today. Like many countries with petrodollar economies, Nigeria has had to contend with a plethora of socio-political crises occasioned by long years of corruption, social neglect, prebendal politics, political exclu...

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Without digging deeper into the history lane in the Nigerian politics, many people know that last-hour relinquishment, nay betrayal, by swayers in a political journey often results to the success or failure of a particular candidate. For instance, Kano people saw that in 1999 when a comparatively more popular Engr. Magaji Abdullahi lost governorship election to Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso. There was a similar scenario in 2011 at the presidential election. General Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) entered into an ill-advised alliance with Action Congress of Nigeria  (ACN) at the last minute of the eleventh hour . It didn’t work as feared. ACN and its south-western supporters dumped CPC and the party’s candidate, too, Nuhu Ribadu for President Goodluck Jonathan (and his party, PDP). Yesterday, a well-informed Yoruba friend of mine posted on Facebook that an experienced friend of his feared that opposition might yet again giv...