Punocracy

… where sa-tyres never go flat

From Our Allies

LAW 101: Introduction to being an ideal law student

The first thing you should learn in the faculty are legal maxims. Maxims are usually in Latin. An example is ‘Nemo dat quod non habet’. In law, maxims can be likened to the proverbial palm oil with which words are eaten. You need not understand nor know the meaning of the maxims. Spice your words with them, especially when you are in the midst of non-law students. Make sure to keep them in the dark during conversations with them. This is to guarantee and increase their respects for you.

Read more
Unseriously Serious

How to get away with (extrajudicial) murder in Nigeria: A beginner’s guide

How fortunate one must feel to be a Nigerian, to come from a country where absolute freedom is not a myth and impunity reigns supreme. When a great man (we are not sure which one) famously proclaimed that “your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins,” he certainly had not heard about the wonderful country called Nigeria. He, especially, betrayed his ignorance of that special creature known as the Nigerian Policeman or the Nigerian Soldier for whom the liberty to swing their fists ends wherever the fists end. Full stop.

Read more
The Village People's Dictionary

The VP’s Dictionary: Activist, constituted authority, corruption, and 22 other words

Collins Dictionary, for instance, defines a road as “a long piece of hard ground which is built between two places so that people can drive or ride easily from one place to the other”. That’s correct you know—but only as long as you don’t import that understanding to Nigeria. Things are much different here… So different we’d need the entire dictionary rewritten to suit our realities. Here, a road would be more appropriately defined as “a warzone where potholes are mines, shock absorbers are shields, curses are bullets—and from which every soldier returns home a casualty”.

Read more