Author: Osmond Agbo

For evil triumphs not merely through violence, but through the preachers who defend it and a governments that looks the other way. In the great city of Kaduna, Northern Nigeria’s political capital, there is a man who, though trained as a doctor, is better known as a Sheikh. He hails from a long line of Islamic scholars, and his father was even a Grand Khadi. He preaches from the pulpit, prays with the pious, and to the faithful, he appears a voice of reason. He wears rich, flowing robes whiter than snow. Yet, when the echoes of terror rose from…

….if this new pressure from abroad forces the Nigerian government to take the fight against insurgency seriously, to finally follow the money and prosecute those who fund and shield terrorists, perhaps we should welcome it, cautiously. Because let’s be honest: our government has failed us. At best, it’s complicit. At worst, it’s aiding and abetting. In the last 24 hours, President Donald Trump has intensified his rhetoric on Christian persecution in Nigeria, warning the Nigerian government to act swiftly against the growing insurgency. He even directed the Department of War to prepare for possible military action, boasting that any U.S.…

The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown-Albert Camus Aso Rock may continue to dismiss rumors of a coup, but the stench of panic hangs thick in the air. First came the sudden cancellation of the Independence Day parade. Then, a flurry of forced retirements and reshuffles swept through the military’s top ranks. And now, reports emerge of security operatives storming the Abuja home of Buhari’ petroleum minister and hauling his brother into custody. It’s all hauntingly reminiscent of Obasanjo’s third-term fiasco, where every denial only confirmed what we already knew. Once again, power…

What Sowore has done is to reframe the issue, stripping it of its ethnic garb and presenting it for what it is: a question of justice and equality before the law. His defiance is not for the Igbo cause alone but for the soul of a nation that has made selective justice its moral compass. At the crack of dawn on Monday, October 20, the usually bustling arteries of Abuja were transformed into a fortress. By 6:00 a.m., combined contingents of soldiers, police officers, and operatives of the Department of State Services had fanned out across the city center, sealing…

That tragedy was not an isolated episode but part of a broader pattern, a deliberate effort to push the narrative that Blacks just can’t do it, that we are not good enough. The same psychology that incinerated Greenwood reverberated across the Atlantic, in Haiti. In this magnificent world we inhabit, the Black man is reminiscent of that child with profound autism, whose mother grows uneasy whenever he throws a tantrum in public. To shield herself from humiliation, she might sequester him in a group home, out of sight and out of mind. Little consideration is given to the possibility that…

In a world that once idolized opulence, a fascinating reversal has taken hold. The new elite no longer flaunt their status through gold watches or fleets of luxury cars. They assert distinction through restraint,  through what they decline to consume. Thus emerges the paradox of conspicuous non-consumption, the modern language of quiet supremacy. You notice them wherever they go. The new titans of industry dressed like college students on their way to class. A recent photograph of Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, taken during a visit to Kenya, shows him in a plain cotton T-shirt and nerdy trousers. With…

If Pakistan, Nigeria, or any nation wishes to escape this cycle, leaders must abandon the illusion of clever deals with extremists. Real security lies not in proxy wars or militant allies but in building just societies, resilient institutions, and inclusive politics that deny extremists the grievances they exploit. Anything less is sowing seeds for future catastrophe. In the jagged mountain ranges straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan, a resurgent Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (T.T.P.), are ratcheting up a relentless and deadly guerrilla war against Pakistani security forces as I write this piece. Roads clogged with convoys of battered trucks, overloaded…

Sixty-five candles, yet the flame gutters in the wind, smoke curling over a nation that learned to crawl backward. Independence, they said but what freedom lies in a land independent but totally dependent, a giant bound by its own chains? Broken roads, broken homes, broken people trudging through the wreckage of dashed hopes. We speak of the dead, the dying, the better dead, the long gone— our roll call of grief longer than any anthem. Mega-churches swell with hymns, while empty classrooms echo with silence. Masjid al-Haram finds its mirror in the scattered prayers of almajiri, children of dust…

There’s an image I can’t shake when I think of Nigeria’s young people: a baby impala dropped into the savannah, wobbling on fragile legs as its mother disappears into the tall grass. In those first moments, the calf either finds its feet or is eaten by predators. That is the Nigerian youth story in miniature. A friend of mine visited from Nigeria not too long ago. He runs an oil servicing company back home and arrived in Houston with the usual armour of his tribe; a MacBook, headphones, and a half-dozen Slack channels humming with activities. On the second day,…

I dusted off my dad’s pet name for me, Mondus, and paired it with his own name, Fidelis. Voilà, Osmund Agbo became Mondus Fidelis. It sounded classy, almost like a Roman senator or a luxury brand of whatever. I hadn’t heard of Dauda Kahutu Rarara until my friend Farooq Kperogi wrote about him on Facebook. Apparently, he’s a highlife maestro whose music has captivated northern Nigeria and earned him a massive following. But Farooq wasn’t writing about “Aisha,” or any of the singer’s big hits, which has racked up millions of views and streams across platforms. Instead, he was zeroing…