Life Imitates Ball

Student unions in public universities played a significant role in Nigeria’s struggles for independence and democracy. Today, however, as godfatherism, repression and declining participation reshape campus politics, student unionism has become a microcosm of the very Nigerian political culture it once sought to challenge.

Since 2006, Nigeria has not conducted a nationwide population census. In the digital age, can we build a functional country without knowing how many people we actually are?

Decades of failed governance, banditry and economic collapse are driving young men from northern Nigeria across the Sahara in search of gold, dignity and a version of manhood Nigeria no longer offers them.

Audience Lead at The Republic, Tomi Olugbemi, talks with Nigerian mixed-media artist and sculptor, Dennis Osadebe, about his new public installation, This is Lagos.