There is a familiar refrain that surfaces whenever Nigerians in the diaspora are discussed, or when professionals at home are urged to “give back”. It is often delivered with a tone of moral certainty: Nigeria trained you. Nigeria made you. You owe Nigeria. It sounds persuasive. It even feels patriotic. But it is not entirely … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud There is a way Nigerians talk about insecurity. They lower their voices, to the point of whispering. They change the subject, no sooner fear kicks in. They say it will pass. They insist that Abuja is safe because it must be safe. A capital city cannot fall. The federal government cannot lose … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud The Nigerian virtual space was recently been filled with striking images. Young persons and the old, teenagers in-between. Men and women who turned up with brooms, buckets, hoes, machetes, brushes, paint, and resolve in pursuit of social good. Streets were swept. Drainages cleared. Dilapidated school walls were repainted. Public spaces long abandoned … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud There is a special kind of silence that follows power everywhere it goes. It is not the gentle quiet of the monastery or the eerie quiet of mourning. It is the awkward, accusatory silence of a phone that once overheated from devotion and now lies cool, innocent, and suddenly uninterested. Such is … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud Fresh political whispers drifting through news salons and media columns suggest that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is quietly weighing alternative running mates ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The names most frequently mentioned are not obscure. They are prominent northern Christian figures with national visibility and symbolic weight. Former Speaker of the … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud Dr. Bashir Kurfi, a former scholar in Public Administration at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and a man who refuses to bow to orthodoxy, recently observed that the southern elites should protest against the northern elites for bearing the cost of their irresponsibility. It is a bold assertion, persuasive precisely because it … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud This new year scarcely requires a seer to reveal its gravity. It stands as a decisive threshold for both Nigeria’s political class and the country itself. As the final full year before the 2027 general election, it unfolds within an atmosphere markedly defined not by open contestation but by cooptation, not by … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud The decision of the Adamawa State Governor, Rt. Hon Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri CON, to grant pardon to Sunday Jackson marks a moment of relief in a country weighed down by grief and exhaustion. The announcement, framed as part of the Christmas and New Year commemorations, carries moral weight far beyond seasonal goodwill. … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud Editor’s Note: Shortly after PACESETTER received this week’s column for publication yesterday, Sunday, December 21, 2025, the abducted students were released. We have gone ahead to publish this piece for historical and academic purposes. Four weeks ago, students of a Catholic school in Papiri in Niger State were seized along with their … [Read more…]
The photograph released by Amnesty International Nigeria of Mary Talmon, one of the women shot dead during a protest in Adamawa, confronts our country with a tragedy that demands collective introspection, if not accountability. The organisation posted her image on its X handle while calling for an impartial investigation into what it described as the … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud Nigeria has finally plunged into the depths of morass. Deep and troubling depths, difficult to climb out. The new list of ambassadorial nominees tells a familiar story. It is the story of a country that refuses to rise. A country that recycles its worst. A country that decorates failure and calls it … [Read more…]
-By Abdul Mahmud Contemporary Nigeria feels like a country pulling against itself. Every day brings shock and surprises. Every night brings deeper worries. The country moves, but it moves without directions. It is not collapse, yet it is not order. It is something in between. Something that drags Nigerians down and wears them out. It … [Read more…]