Existing as a Nigerian in Nigeria requires the acceptance that we are all living on a prayer in a country currently condemned to hell.
The police is everything but your friend. Your continued health could quite literally, be in your hands and those of kind strangers on the internet with banking apps. Your business is one government regulation away from being shut down. Your most basic rights are 100% negotiable. Court orders are for suckers. This government makes sure of it.

It is why in a ‘democracy’, Nigeria can have something as hateful as a hate speech bill. A proposed legislation as misanthropic as a social media bill and why, with a SAN as vice-president, this government can support the continued detention of a citizen – Omoyele Sowore, in spite of court orders mandating his release. 

It is why on December 6th, the SSS, a government security agency operating within this administration, could break the very laws establishing it — using force to interfere with the execution of judicial powers. 

Even for the most complacent Nigerians, this was one step too far. We all got our twitter fingers up, lent our voices out and loudly decried it.

But with the onslaught of egg kebabs, Waakye sponsored diarrhoea and riveting Instagram inquiries into sources of wealth — this gross infringement of human rights was on the path to be forgotten in the annals of Nigerian memory. Then The PUNCH did a thing. 

While our fingers were getting tired, The PUNCH balled its many publications (including its famed daily paper) into a fist and gave the Nigerian government a much-needed jab of the truth. Rather than resorting to name-calling or euphemisms like most Nigerians would, it kept things simple, labelling this administration for what it really is ⁠— a dictatorship.


They drew lines between the 1984 and 2019 regimes of Muhammadu Buhari.

They made links between the presidency and state government’s use of security agents for tyrannical purposes.

They even left a lifeline for the President to amend his ways.


You can read the full article here.

To say this move is ballsy is putting things mildly. This is a country where the SA to the president is trying to make fantasy the alternate opium to the masses. Just look at this:

Beyond affecting their bottom line, a factor enough to sway anyone’s idea of right and wrong ⁠— this move could very easily put an end to The PUNCH as a business entirely.

We can’t thank The PUNCH enough for throwing their neck out for a country whose deservedness of sacrifice is still in debate. To support the PUNCH, read their articles, click on Google Ads in their online media and share their stories.

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