Birds of Lagos (Broad-billed Roller - Eurystomus glaucurus).

"Andry Rajoelina, Madagascar’s president, said he was sheltering in a 'safe place'after fleeing the country. He did not reveal his location, but said that a 'group of military personnel and politicians' had planned to assassinate him." | The Economist

From The Economist's Espresso.

Where is Andry Nirina Rajoelina, the one who smiled (like the Old Lady from Riga) as he recently rode on the back of a tiger?

Once again, in Nigeria, proficiency in engineering is not a question of competence - but of "seniority". You'd be forgiven, from listening to our political engineers, if you thought Sam Altman is the oldest person at OpenAI! Nincompoops, all of us.

Let's be clear, the exercise of the presidential pardon by a Nigerian government was always going to be fraught. The Tinubu administration's list of pardoned felons is, alas, an extremely poor commentary on the country's ranking of its law-and-order priorities.

A major goal of any reforming Nigerian government would be ending our culture of impunity. Juvenal's time-worn question ("Who will watch the watchmen?") is the most immediate obstacle to the achievement of this goal. Time is the only thing the country has on its side in this regard.

"Across the world strongmen are gaining in power and prominence. The African experience offers a warning. However promising charismatic leaders may look at the start, big men eventually lead to big trouble." | The Economist

Our understanding of culture and tradition is too conservative. Most of what we take very seriously are archival material - fit for museums and art exhibits. Culture must include embrace of new things, especially when the utility of these is beyond question.

One of the finest prescriptions for social entropy that I've come across is the Yorùbá invitation: "To conduct ourselves as our forebears did, in order that our outcomes will be both familiar and acceptable to them".

CAPSAT's pivot away from the government in Madagascar marks the beginning of the end of Andry Rajoelina's tenure as the country's president.

From The Economist's Espresso.

"One study attributes 30-50% of American productivity gains between 1990 and 2010 to skilled migrants. When it shuts the door to mobile talent, America is giving up one of the main ingredients of its success." | The Economist

"The president wants to turn America into a fortress that keeps out foreign incursions. In fact, he is cutting America off from the very goods and talent that helped make its economy the envy of the world." | The Economist

"Certainly anti-Zionism can inspire antisemitic acts, but it is possible to criticise Israel without hating Jews." | The Economist

"Nightingales are put in cages because their songs give pleasure. Whoever heard of keeping a crow?" | Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

May our dead bodies not be exhumed from a more foolish man's back yard.

"On April 2nd President Donald Trump unveiled his 'Liberation Day' tariffs, holding a board covered in figures showing just how unfairly the world treated America. The numbers were nonsense..." | The Economist

In response to global warming, The Economist reports that "Chinese researchers mapped where tea plants can thrive today, and where they will be able to in the 2050s and in the 2090s". What are Nigerian researchers doing about our staples?

Just learnt that the "Lion Man's" daughter called on Cameroonians to vote for anyone but her father in today's elections.

What was Gianluigi Donnarumma thinking?

Americans ought to see that the only way the Republican's current weaponisation of the state against opposing views makes sense is through a descent to totalitarian rule. Otherwise, any change of government will have them at the receiving end of their prescriptions.

Mateo Retegui's spotkick was all show and no substance.

Time was when Sinisärgid would have thought twice about going full tilt at Gli Azzurri.

Does Herbert Macaulay's pardon mean that we once had a felon on the one naira note (1979-91 and the coin thereafter)? Or are we suggesting that the colonial administration's indictment of this "foremost nationalist" was a case of lawfare?

Birds of Lagos (Woodland Kingfisher - Halcyon senegalensis).

Birds of Lagos (Woodland Kingfisher - Halcyon senegalensis).

The game of musical chairs at the top of Peru's politics long since turned burlesque. 7 presidents in 10 years. Dina Boluarte has barely been impeached for going AWOL to get a nose job (there were those Rolex watches too), and her replacement totters on rape charges.

The arguments (in Nigeria) for a constitutional role for monarchs is neither commentary on the usefulness of our existing institutions (sub-par), nor on that of our monarchs (harmful). As William of Ockham put it, "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity".

From The Economist's Espresso.

What kind of agrarian goalkeeping was that, Stanley Bobo Nwabali?

Did the referee just stop the match to allow a substitution?

Watching The Super Eagles defend against Likuena, you'd be forgiven for thinking they are playing against La Albiceleste!

The Orange One really wanted this big beautiful Prize.

Given that Likuena are a bit lame, The Super Eagles are making heavy weather of this game.

Likuena versus The Super Eagles ought to be a gentle walk in the park for the latter.

"Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable." | T. S. Eliot

"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present." | T. S. Eliot

"Cowardice rather than incompetence is the vice of Britain’s current crop of politicians. Politicians can draw the boundary between law and politics more clearly, if they wish." | The Economist

"Every government ends up grumbling about lawyers, even if it is led by them. Perhaps a sometimes intrusive legal sector is simply the price of a successful one." | The Economist

"Debt suffers from a bad reputation. In almost every culture, lending and borrowing are maligned, with unflattering idioms common. Yet credit is the lifeblood of capitalism: the ability to lend and borrow facilitates hundreds of billions of dollars of activity every day." | The Economist

I've nothing against María Corina Machado Parisca. But having been told that on current form I don't stand a chance of obtaining a US visa (never mind that I don't have a valid passport), I'm compelled to denounce in no uncertain terms her theft of Donald's big beautiful Prize.

How did the orange-hued one not get the Nobel Peace Prize? He fixed Palestine eternally! Imposed tariffs on India that he'd threatened Russia with! Made the US greater than the Holy Roman Empire (okay, he's yet to be crowned pope, and the US's geographic reach is still...)!

Are you saying that Donald John Trump didn't win this year's Nobel Peace Prize? Time for the US to quit the Norwegian Nobel Committee (forget that it was never a member), apply the Magnitsky Act (2012) to its remaining members, and impose swingeing tariffs on Norway and Sweden.

Is Nigeria's debt-to-GDP ratio on the mend? Are we borrowing better (or less)? Or, having decided to measure GDP differently, is the denominator of this ratio simply relatively bigger?

"The challenge for Mr Trump will be to make sure that his plan does not simply end one round of fighting while sowing the seeds for the next." | The Economist

Birds of Lagos (Common Bulbul - Pycnonotus barbatus).

Birds of Lagos (Grey Plantain-eaters - Crinifer piscator).

Birds of Lagos (Grey Kestrel - Falco ardosiaceus).