During an interview on Channels TV on Monday, Professor Wole Soyinka responded to critics who have been taunting him to “say something” about the present administration. In the interview, he said, “People should stop trying to work on my timetable for me. I had not swallowed an alarm clock. I don’t see why I should put my alarm on and say: ‘One year has passed, now, I must make an assessment’ if there is nothing I feel like talking about and if I am busy elsewhere.” Following his earlier statement when he visited Bola Tinubu at Aso Rock in 2023, that he only criticises a government after its first year, it must be disappointing to his monitors that they cannot put their hands in his mouth and force out words. To be fair to him, Soyinka has not been exactly silent on Nigeria’s situation. He criticised Tinubu’s decision to declare a state of emergency in Rivers State, but his intervention was tame, lame, and lacking characteristic edginess. The Soyinka who once referred to President Goodluck Jonathan as “Nebuchadnezzar” because of a police siege on the National Assembly resorted to prevarications on Rivers’ state of emergency. Time truly changes everything. If Jonathan were Nebuchadnezzar, the enslaving king who lost his sanity at the height of his brutal reign, then to which biblical figure can one similarly liken Tinubu, under whose watch Nigerians have confronted a severe economic crisis and recorded an unparalleled number of human rights abuses? Rehoboam, perhaps. That was the king who ill-advisedly refused to lighten the strenuous taxes his predecessor had tolled the people, incited a public rebellion, and ended up balkanising a united kingdom. Everyone, including the critics taunting Soyinka for bringing less than the blunt edges of his sharp wit to political discourses, knows he is in an awkward situation under the present administration. He and Tinubu are friends, and their close relationship reportedly started during their NADECO days. Ordinarily, it is hard for a social critic to take down a close friend in power. It is even harder for a man like Soyinka, who has set a high bar of radical public engagement, to continue to meet his own standards now that his buddy is the President. While he has built a towering profile around being an anti-establishment figure, he is part of the political establishment now, even if he does not hold any official position in Tinubu’s administration. He can no longer maintain his previous ideological stance on political issues, and he should make that clear to the public rather than promising to speak when he finally has something to say. There is nothing he will ever have to say on any issue that has to do with Tinubu’s administration that will not be considered tainted and even cynically prejudged, so why bother? Perhaps if Soyinka had known that a day would come when Tinubu would become the President, he would have been more measured in his criticisms of previous administrations. He would not be in the awkward position where they jab him to prove his patriotic commitment to the nation by criticising an oppressive government now run by his dear friend. The past cannot be helped, but he should also be able to clearly state to the public on whose behalf he has advocated for years, why he would hang up his boxing gloves this time around. It will not be a crime, nor will it mean he has lost the patriotic zeal that pushed him into lifelong social advocacy; it would just be practical under the circumstances. It is not enough to say, “I will speak when I have something to say,” but you must also be accountable enough to the public to point out your closeness to the political subject, how it compromises you, and why you would take a pass on political commentary. Without being upfront about why you have nothing to say during an oppressive reign when you would have had more than enough to say if your friends were not involved, you damage your public image and legacy. Respecting the public enough to be honest about your limits under the circumstances means you can frame your actions as courtesy to a friend rather than leave them to be interpreted as cowardice or hypocrisy. One of the several fallouts of the ascendance of the All Progressives Congress to the national stage from being a regional party is that it forcefully retired many anti-establishment figures. Many of them cut their critical teeth railing against the Peoples Democratic Party machine that was in power for 16 years. While at it, they also fraternised with the Alliance for Democracy/APC, the political party that also defined itself against the state. Their mutual affiliation was logical for reasons ranging from ethnic sentiment to the lush funds Tinubu provided from Lagos’ purse. When the APC won the Presidency in 2015, many of them found themselves in the uncomfortable position where they could either maintain their oppositional stance (and risk offending their APC allies) or become apologists for a government that duplicated every political action for which they once attacked the PDP. Before many could figure out their roles under the dispensation, the dynamics of Nigerian political opposition changed. The old guard was replaced by a younger generation who quickly made it clear they would have nothing to do with them. Soyinka was one of those who soldiered on, although one can argue that his criticisms of the Muhammadu Buhari administration curiously coincided with the sidelining of Tinubu among the APC establishment. While I do not think he is a card-carrying member of the APC, Soyinka’s political posture since 1999 has favoured the AD/APC political class more than any other collective in Nigeria. Now that the same Tinubu has made it to the Presidency, Soyinka is in an even more complicated place. There is no winning for him under the circumstances other than acknowledging that some personal relationships necessarily compromise us. The writer E.M. Forster once said, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” This should be one of the times when choosing your friend over your country is the right thing to do. This is not the first time friendship has put Soyinka in an awkward position where he has to self-justify. In 2016, during one of the many squabbles between Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi and his successor Nyesom Wike, it was revealed that the former had spent N82m (about $165,000) to host him to a dinner. Wike’s boys pulled that detail out from official records for no other reason than to embarrass Soyinka, whose intervention in the Rivers matter was perceived as fighting Amaechi’s battles. Soyinka’s response was to deny it was his “business to probe into the catering and logistical implications of the hundreds of institutions and governments all over the world to whom I acknowledge an immense debt of unsolicited recognition over the years”. Yes, while no reasonable person expects a Nobel Prize winner to ask such questions when he is hosted at a dinner, the right thing would have been to condemn such an inordinate expense made in your name. By not calling out Amaechi’s corruption, he fell into Wike’s well-laid trap to make him choose between his friend and the strict moral principles for which he is renowned. Now he is in another situation that warrants choosing between his friend and his principles, and I suggest he chooses the former. We can borrow the immortal wisdom of Ogbuefi Ezeudu in Things Fall Apart, who told Okonkwo: “That boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death to remind him this unpleasant task needs not to involve him.” Soyinka was right that other people—the Falanas, Sowores, and the Baiyewus—are already doing a good job without him. The thing is, by looking away from his friend’s administrative shortcomings, he will also be losing the moral right to comment on any other leader after Tinubu. He should make peace with that.

A former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has criticised Nigerians for being too passive in the face of worsening hardship. Amaechi said the country needs a bold and radical shift to bring about change. He stated this on Thursday in Abuja during the public launch of the 2025 Nigeria Social Cohesion Survey by the Africa Polling Institute. Amaechi lamented the state of the nation and blamed citizens for allowing a small group of elites to dominate the country. “The elites who are stealing Nigerian money are not up to 100,000, but you have 200 million Nigerians who can fight them. “You sit down in your house and complain and grumble. The elites know you’re not happy. But you made yourself helpless. “Nigeria is the most docile society I’ve seen in my life. Any revolution without blood is a failure,” he said. Amaechi warned that without mass involvement and real sacrifice, President Bola Tinubu would return to power in 2027. “The only way you can stop Tinubu is to run an election of Nigerians versus the bandits,” he said. The former governor of Rivers State also revealed that he had officially resigned from the ruling All Progressives Congress, adding that he had long distanced himself from the party’s activities. He also knocked the current political leadership, claiming things were better under former President Muhammadu Buhari. He said, “I left APC last night. I warned them not to invite me to any meeting again. “People want Buhari back because things were better during his time. Look at the exchange rate. Then it was about ₦460 to a dollar; now it’s over ₦1,500.” According to Amaechi, inflation and hunger are at crisis levels, and the government seems focused on consolidating power rather than helping citizens. “Any government that doesn’t consider the people is not worth it,” he added. He expressed disappointment with how labour unions and student bodies have lost their voices. He stated, “In the past, ASUU, NLC and NANS could shut down the government with coordinated protests. Now NLC can’t even mobilise. Why? Ethnicity.” Drawing on his experience as a governor, he noted that economic decline always leads to rising crime, saying, “Once robbery and kidnapping increase, I know there’s no money in circulation. Once people are paid, they spend money, and the crime rate drops.” Amaechi also admitted he considered leaving the country but was talked out of it by his wife. “I wanted to japa, but my wife said Nigeria is still lovely,” he said.

Wall Street rallies after US Treasury Secretary says trade war with China ‘unsustainable’. United States President Donald Trump has backed off his threat to fire the head of the US Federal Reserve, after his broadsides against the central bank boss prompted a plunge in the stock market and the dollar. Trump’s comments on Tuesday appeared to rule out any imminent plans to remove Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom the US president has repeatedly criticised for not moving faster to lower interest rates. “The press runs away with things. I have no intention of firing him,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates. This is the perfect time to lower interest rates. If he doesn’t, is it the end? No, it’s not.” US stock futures, which are traded outside of regular market hours, surged following Trump’s comments, with contracts linked to the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 rising more than 1.70 percent and 1.90 percent, respectively. The US dollar rose more than 1 percent against major currencies. Wall Street rallied earlier on Tuesday after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an investors conference that a trade war with China was “unsustainable” and he expected the sides to de-escalate tensions and reach a deal at some point. Following Bessent’s remarks, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration was “setting the stage for a deal with China” and “doing very well” in making progress towards an agreement. The S&P 500 closed up more than 2.5 percent, while the Nasdaq finished more than 2.7 percent higher. Asian markets opened higher on Wednesday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI up about 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively, in early trading. The US and China are locked in an effective trade embargo after Trump imposed a 145 percent tariff on most Chinese goods, and China slapped a 125 percent duty on US exports in retaliation. Trump on Tuesday acknowledged that the tariff on China was “very high” and said the rate would “come down substantially”. Trump’s repeated attacks on Powell have unnerved financial markets in light of the overwhelming economic consensus that the Federal Reserve’s independence is crucial to the health of the US economy. Wall Street suffered some of its steepest losses of the year on Monday after Trump branded Powell a “major loser” and “Mr Too Late” for not backing cuts to the benchmark interest rate, which influences borrowing costs across the economy. Trump’s comments came after he last week declared that Powell’s termination “cannot come fast enough” and his top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said the administration was studying the possibility of his removal. The Federal Reserve, which last cut the benchmark rate in December, has expressed caution about lowering borrowing costs in the near term amid concerns that Trump’s sweeping tariffs will stoke inflation. Trump has dismissed concerns that his trade war will lead to higher prices, contrary to the views of most economists, and argued that the central bank’s cautious stance risks slowing the economy. Powell, who was nominated by Trump in 2017 and tapped to serve another four-year term by former US President Joe Biden, has said he would not resign if asked and stated that he can only be dismissed for malfeasance. The heads of independent federal agencies such as the Federal Reserve can only be removed for “cause” under legal precedent set by the US Supreme Court, though the Trump administration is challenging that norm in court in a case involving the Merit Systems Protection Board and the National Labor Relations Board. Any move to remove Powell before the end of his term would likely send shockwaves through financial markets given the longstanding expectation that the Federal Reserve should make its decisions free of political considerations. “I would expect to see a dramatic fall in the stock and bond markets,” Erasmus Kersting, an economics professor at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania, told Al Jazeera. “The ‘sell USA’ strategy would become mainstream. This would also have an impact on the real economy, leading to a recession.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...