OP

  By Pa Louis Sambou      If one reels together the pitiful state of affairs of our post dictatorship transition, one realises that its essence is no longer what marshals the delivery of what was supposed to be ‘the reform agenda’, something which has since mutated so much overtime, every party has their own unique  strain  of what ‘the reform agenda’ is. What an enigmatic pathogen! Perhaps the uniqueness of this strange enigma explains the choice of mediator, Mr Goodluck Jonathan who was so unique a political breed, he  united a divided and chaotic opposition and, Northern and Southern elites against him and repelled his natural political allies and as if that’s not bad enough an indictment, he went on to lose an election which could you believe was ironically rigged in his favour . So effectively, the mediator’s relevance past his sell by date is coincidentally an enigma in itself which perhaps must have been the sole criteria upon which his appointm...

  By Pa Louis Sambou    A key objective behind the design and concept of republican governance is, to prevent a total autonomy of any of the three arms of government (the Legislature, the Executive or the Judiciary) from the other or the rest of the State edifice at the expense of the State and hence the existence of checks and balances as a countermeasure to tame any excesses. Historically, in our case that is, it is the Executive (the President and Cabinet) which has the infamous reputation of being the naughty partners out of the trio — usually transgressing, stretching and testing boundaries of acceptable conduct as well as allowances of their lawful authority, an adventure which the current administration hasn’t had the luxury to excel in thanks to unprecedented legislative scrutiny by this 5 th  National Assembly.    Whilst there’s little to fault in this 5 th  Assembly’s exercise of its oversight functions in comparison to previous ones, the sam...

By Pa Louis Sambou   Commissioned to “ create an impartial historical record of violations and abuses of human rights from July 1994 to January 2017..., establish and make known the fate or whereabouts of disappeared victims, provide victims an opportunity to relate their own accounts of the violations and abuses suffered and, grant reparations to victims...”,  the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) carries an enormously heavy burden on its shoulders. With a duty so fundamentally salient, it isn’t controversial at all to say that it is one which must be discharged with due care and skill and with a degree of moderation which doesn’t give the impression of a deviation from the TRRC’s raison d’être — whether perceived or real. It’ll be hard to disagree that the TRRC’s reaffirmation of the orthodox briefed wisdom in relation to Coup d’tats is in harmonious sync with this statutory duty and expectation. However, this isn’t to say that such orthodoxy isn’t due a ...