From Hegemony to Harmony: A Roadmap for Bangladesh–India Relations Post-Hasina by Habib Siddiqui

The fall of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 reset Bangladesh’s domestic politics—and unsettled its most consequential external relationship: India. In the months since, mistrust has deepened, rhetoric has grown inflammatory, and both capitals have taken steps that signal a troubling shift—from what New Delhi once branded as ‘cooperative pragmatism,’ but which most Bangladeshis viewed as a lopsided bargain compromising sovereignty—toward grievance-driven posturing and outright hostility.

The assassination of Osman Hadi—a key figure in the July Revolution(also called Bangladesh’s Second Liberation)—has become a flashpoint, symbolizing the fragility of Bangladesh’s transition and amplifying anti-India sentiment. Ashok Swain, writingforScroll.in, observes that this killing has driven Dhaka–New Delhi relations to their most perilous point in decades. Allegations suggest the perpetrator fled to India, which is also reported to be hosting numerous Awami League leaders, including Sheikh Hasina, who faces convictions linked to the deaths of over 1,400 Bangladeshis.The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Bangladesh has found crores of Taka in suspicious financial transactions in bank accounts linked to the prime accused Faisal Karim Masud and his associates."The transactions may be linked to money laundering, organized crime and possible terrorist financing," it added.

Recent reporting and commentary note anti-India anger on Bangladeshi streets, tit-for-tat diplomatic démarches, and growing fears that connectivity and trade gains of India of the past decade could stall or unravel if both sides keep “feeding the fire.”

How we got here?

The Scroll analysis makes an important point: Indian political discourse and sections of media have treated Bangladesh’s transition predominantly as a security problem—casting suspicion on the post-Hasina interim order, amplifying anti-Dhaka soundbites, and framing student-led mobilizations as radical threats. That reactive posture, the article argues, is pouring fuel on already volatile sentiment inside Bangladesh.

Compounding the narrative spiral are symbolically charged decisions—particularly the continued presence of Hasina in India after her ouster—that many Bangladeshis read as New Delhi’s political bet on the old order. These optics are not trivial; they shape public opinion and can harden new political elites against engagement. Independent analysts warn that the chill in Dhaka–New Delhi ties is no longer just diplomatic—it’s hitting India’s bottom line. The downturn in Bangladeshi medical tourism, once a billion-dollar lifeline for Indian hospitals, underscores how political missteps are translating into economic pain.

What the July Revolution demanded—and why it matters for external relations

My own and collaborative essaysemphasized that Bangladesh’s youth-led uprising was anchored in accountability, rule of law, and dignity—a rejection of cronyism, politicized institutions, the weaponization of security agencies, and Indian hegemony. We called for a National Accountability Ordinance, an empowered anti-corruption bureau, and swift asset recovery to rebuild trust and deliver tangible economic relief—paired with firm guarantees of minority protection and communal harmony so no actor could hijack the transition with polarizing provocations.

These domestic priorities inevitably shape foreign policy. A government pursuing systemic reform at home needs predictable, non-interfering neighbors abroad. Conversely, a neighbor that signals partiality—whether through sanctuary politics (of providing refuge or safe haven to political figures, dissidents, or fugitives from another country) or securitized commentary (by framing a political or social issue primarily as a security threat)—undercuts moderates in Dhaka, empowers hardliners, and narrows space for pragmatic cooperation.

The escalation loop: incidents and rhetoric

Since Hasina’s fall, Indian media has unleashed relentless attacks on the Interim Government led by Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus. A torrent of fake news and manufactured narratives painted a grim picture of Hindu insecurity in Bangladesh—as if their very survival were at stake. Independent observers, however, found no evidence to support these claims, exposing them as deliberate distortions. This campaign fits a broader pattern of bigotry and intolerance that has come to define India’s political discourse under the current BJP rule.

Even India’s own Bengali-speaking Muslims felt the backlash. Between May and June 2025, Indian authorities forcibly deported and “pushed back” more than 1,500 Bengali-speaking Muslims—including Indian citizens—across the Bangladesh border, fueling humanitarian concerns and diplomatic friction. Inside India, Muslim homes, mosques, and businesses were torched, particularly in Occupied Kashmir and BJP-ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the fallen dictator Sheikh Hasina was openly hosted in New Delhi, where she accused the Yunus-led government of empowering extremists and destabilizing ties—amplifying political criticism from exile. India provided this platform to foment unrest inside Bangladesh. With funding from pro-Indian and pro-Awami League networks, many operating from Indian soil, anti-government protests and gheraos became an almost daily occurrence in Bangladesh.

Flashpoints now escalate rapidly: an Indian politician calling for reclaiming Chattogram; counter-threats from Dhaka to isolate India’s Northeast; tit-for-tat diplomatic summons; anti-India protests over Osman Hadi’s killing; and sensational coverage of communal violence. Whatever the merits of these claims, the perception of hostile intent is hardening—and that is dangerous.

If this cycle continues, the first Indian casualties will be connectivity projects, border management reforms, and the quiet technical cooperation that has historically cushioned the relationship from political shocks. The deeper risk is a structural reset—from problem-solving to grievance-driven posturing.

Here below I suggest ten practical steps for Dhaka and New Delhi.

1) Mutual non-sanctuary pledge

Issue parallel, public assurances that neither side will shelter politically sensitive fugitives or allow their territories to be used for destabilization. Create a hotline mechanism between interior ministries for case-by-case coordination and rapid clarifications. This directly addresses optics around post-ouster safe haven and related rumors.This step could begin with transparent cooperation on high-profile cases, including a roadmap for addressing individuals facing criminal proceedings, to signal mutual commitment to rule of law.

2) Calibrate media discourse and political speech

Encourage leading outlets and political figures in both countries to adopt de-escalation frames: avoid securitizing student-led activism as extremism and refrain from casting the neighbor as an omnipresent puppet-master. Editors’ roundtables and joint media advisories—facilitated by press councils—can shift incentive structures away from inflammatory sensationalism.

3) Reaffirm minority protection as a shared red line

Reiterate, in Dhaka and New Delhi, that communal violence and temple/church/mosque attacks are intolerable—and set up a bilateral minority safety working group. My August 2024 open letterto the U.S. Congressmen underscored how unverified rumors about temple vandalism can be weaponized; countering that requires transparent, joint fact-checking and rapid public updates.

4) Fast-track accountability reforms to stabilize the street

Advance the National Accountability Ordinance, stand up an independent asset recovery bureau, and publish monthly metrics (assets frozen, funds recovered, cases filed). Economic credibility cools politics; visible progress on accountability undercuts narratives of chaos that foreign media latch onto.

5) Rivers and energy: visible wins within 100 days

Announce near-term deliverables—data-sharing on transboundary rivers, pilot seasonal water releases, and expanded power trade scheduling transparency—to demonstrate cooperation still serves citizens tangibly. Quick wins repair public trust faster than communiqués.

6) Joint protocol on political refugees and high-profile cases

Given the sensitivity around Hasina’s status, Dhaka and New Delhi should codify case-handling protocols: humanitarian protections, non-political use of asylum, and clear boundaries against public mobilization. Transparent rules lower the temperature and reduce space for rumour-mongering.

7) Border public-safety charter

Launch a Border Human Security Initiative—joint training to reduce lethal incidents, community liaison boards, and shared incident dashboards. Media-reported flashpoints often originate near borders; human-centric protocols can turn borders from theatres of fear into corridors of normalcy.

8) Youth and university exchanges as political shock absorbers

Scale up student exchange programs, hackathons on river health and logistics, and joint scholarships. The July Revolution was youth-led; giving that cohort constructive cross-border channels reduces susceptibility to hostile narratives and builds constituencies for moderation.

9) A “no surprises” compact among diplomats

Agree that ambassadors and high commissioners will provide advance private notice of sensitive actions (summons, advisories, major public statements). “No surprises” habits prevent symbolic slights from escalating into public showdowns.

10) A State-level Apology from India

For decades, India has acted less like a partner and more like a hegemon—interfering in Bangladesh’s internal politics and prioritizing its own strategic interests at Bangladesh’s expense. This pattern must end. Nothing would signal a genuine reset better than an open acknowledgment of past wrongs. A formal apology to the people and government of Bangladesh would go a long way toward healing deep-seated mistrust.

Yes, this may be the hardest step for India to take—but it is essential for its own long-term stability and regional credibility. During the Hasina era, India enjoyed unprecedented, one-sided gains under the banner of “connectivity.” By leveraging overland routes through Bangladesh, India’s landlocked Northeast—the “Seven Sisters”—secured vital access to the sea, strengthening regional integration and maritime strategy.

India reaped enormous benefits: new cross-border passenger trains like the Mitali, Bandhan, and Maitree Express boosted trade and tourism; the Akhaura–Agartala rail link, Maitri Setu bridge, improved inland waterways, and expanded port access at Chattogram and Mongla enabled faster, cheaper movement of goods—critical for the Northeast, West Bengal, and Bihar. Access to Bangladeshi seaports diversified India’s logistics, cut costs, and supported exports. These projects didn’t just accelerate trade—they fortified India’s geopolitical posture, turning connectivity into a strategic asset.

Acknowledging past interference and offering a formal apology would not diminish India—it would elevate its moral authority and reset the relationship on a foundation of mutual respect.

Why this approach is realistic now

Independent strategic notes this year describe a drift from the previous decade’s problem-solving ethos toward mutual suspicion. Reversing that drift does not require grand bargains; it requires small, confidence-building moves that insulate technical cooperation from the political cycle while Bangladesh consolidates reforms at home. That, in turn, strengthens Dhaka’s hand with its own public—because citizens can see practical benefits—and gives New Delhi pragmatic partners rather than polarized counterparts.

Just as the July Revolution was ultimately a demand for dignity and accountability, a stable post-Hasina foreign policy rests on predictability and restraint—from both sides. The fastest way to cool tension is to change incentives: punish grandstanding, reward quiet fixes, and measure progress transparently.

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Dr. Habib Siddiqui is a peace and human rights advocate with a distinguished career in operational excellence. He has successfully led Lean transformation initiatives across four major multinational corporations. His forthcoming book, Operational Excellence in the Process Industry: A Practitioner’s Guide to Lean Six Sigma, offers practical insights for driving efficiency and innovation in complex industrial environments.

Less government, bigger throne by Harry S. Taylor

Republicans have long sold themselves as the party of restraint, less government, fewer federal mandates, a smaller Washington footprint and more power pushed down to states, communities, and individuals. It is a simple, elegant promise that resonates deeply in a country founded on suspicion of centralized authority. Yet the modern Republican movement, particularly under Donald Trump, reveals a contradiction so glaring it borders on parody. The rhetoric of shrinking government survives, but the practice has been replaced by something else entirely, an aggressively centralized, personality-driven state orbiting around the White House.

Take the recurring Republican dream of abolishing the Department of Education. On paper, it fits perfectly with conservative philosophy. Education, they argue, should be local, responsive to parents, and free from federal bureaucrats issuing one-size-fits-all decrees. It is a compelling argument, and one that has broad appeal beyond party lines. But what is striking is how quickly this commitment to decentralization evaporates when the conversation moves from theory to power.

Under Trump, the federal government did not shrink; it metastasized. Decision-making did not flow outward to states or inward to citizens. Instead, it flowed upward and inward, concentrating around the president himself and a tight circle of loyalists. The result was not a leaner state, but a swollen one, a kind of political hydrocephalus in which authority pooled unnaturally at the top while the rest of the system struggled to function.

Trump governed not as a believer in limited government, but as a chief executive obsessed with control. Federal agencies were not empowered to act independently within clear boundaries; they were expected to reflect the president’s moods, grudges, and instincts. State governors were not treated as partners in federalism but as subordinates, rewarded or punished based on loyalty rather than competence. Even Republican-led states found themselves pressured, threatened, or publicly humiliated if they deviated from the White House line.

This is not small government. It is personalized government. It replaces institutional authority with individual dominance, substituting rules with whims and long-term policy with short-term spectacle. Ironically, this approach requires more intervention, not less. Micromanagement is labor-intensive. It demands constant interference, constant messaging, constant enforcement of loyalty. A truly limited government sets boundaries and steps back. Trump’s government hovered, intruded, and interfered.

The contradiction extends beyond Trump himself to the broader Republican ecosystem that enabled him. Lawmakers who once warned of executive overreach suddenly discovered an enthusiasm for presidential power, so long as it was wielded by the right man. Conservatives who decried federal intrusion into state affairs cheered when Washington leaned heavily on states to conform to national political narratives. The principle was not abandoned openly; it was quietly suspended.

What makes this moment especially corrosive is the way it hollows out the very idea of conservative governance. If “less government” merely means fewer regulations you personally dislike, while embracing sweeping executive control elsewhere, then the phrase loses all meaning. It becomes branding, not belief. And branding is easily discarded when inconvenient.

The danger is not confined to one presidency or one party. A centralized, loyalty-based model of governance sets precedents that outlive any individual leader. Powers claimed in the name of fighting enemies, silencing critics, or enforcing ideological conformity rarely disappear. They are inherited, repurposed, and expanded by whoever comes next. Conservatives who applaud a powerful president today may find themselves powerless under a powerful president tomorrow.

If Republicans truly believe in less government, they must confront this contradiction honestly. Dismantling a department while inflating the presidency is not reform; it is reshuffling power. Shrinking bureaucracy while expanding personal authority is not decentralization; it is consolidation. The choice is not between big government and small government, but between institutional restraint and personal rule.

Until that reckoning happens, calls for limited government will ring hollow. A government dominated by one man and his inner circle is not smaller simply because it flies fewer flags. It is heavier, more fragile, and far more dangerous. True restraint requires letting go, and that is something the modern Republican leadership has repeatedly shown it is unwilling to do. In the end, voters should ask not what slogans promise, but where power actually settles. When authority flows upward instead of outward, freedom contracts regardless of party labels. A movement serious about liberty must resist the temptation of strongmen, even charismatic ones. Otherwise, the language of small government becomes camouflage for something far less principled, and far more enduring. History shows such systems rarely reverse themselves without significant damage to democracies.

When the last letter falls by Felix Laursen

Four centuries of tradition will come to an end on 30 December, when Denmark’s national postal service delivers its final letters. It sounds like a footnote, a bureaucratic adjustment in a digital age. But it is not. It is the quiet closing of a chapter that once carried the weight of a nation’s heartbeat in paper, ink, and patience.

PostNord Danmark traces its roots back to the 17th century, to King Christian IV, a ruler who understood that power, commerce, and cohesion depended on communication. The postal service was not merely logistical infrastructure; it was an act of statecraft. Letters stitched together distant towns, farms, ports, and people long before railways or telephones. To end that tradition is to admit that something elemental in public life has changed, perhaps permanently.

Supporters of the decision will argue, reasonably, that letters are obsolete. Email is instant, messaging is free, and administrative correspondence has migrated online. Why subsidize a service few people use? Why cling to nostalgia when efficiency demands adaptation? These arguments are tidy, rational, and incomplete. They treat the postal service as a product rather than a public institution, and they measure its worth solely by volume and profit.

The letter was never just about speed. It was about deliberation. Writing a letter required time, intent, and reflection. Receiving one demanded attention. In an era where communication is endless and disposable, letters imposed friction, and that friction gave meaning. A letter arriving at your door carried a quiet authority: someone, somewhere, had thought enough of you to slow down.

There is also something deeply democratic about a national postal service. It promises that every address matters equally, whether in a city center or a remote village. When letters disappear, that promise weakens. Digital communication assumes access, literacy, devices, and trust in systems that are increasingly centralized and opaque. The postal service, by contrast, was tangible, visible, and accountable in a way algorithms are not.

Denmark is often admired for its efficiency and forward-thinking governance, and rightly so. Yet progress should not always mean erasure. Ending letter delivery feels less like innovation and more like surrender to a narrow definition of usefulness. It reflects a worldview in which anything slow, unprofitable, or analog is expendable, regardless of its cultural or civic value.

There is a symbolic loss here that spreadsheets cannot capture. The final letter will not just mark the end of a service; it will mark the end of a shared ritual. Generations grew up recognizing the sound of mail arriving, the familiar route of the postal worker, the subtle sense of connection to a wider world. These small experiences formed a quiet social glue, unnoticed until it dissolves.

Of course, societies evolve. Quills gave way to typewriters, telegrams to telephones. But those transitions added layers rather than stripping them away entirely. The disappearance of letters feels different because it is not being replaced by something equally public or humane. Instead, communication fragments into private platforms governed by corporate interests, terms of service, and data extraction.

What disappears with the last letter is also a sense of permanence. Digital messages vanish into archives we rarely revisit or trust to endure. Letters could be saved, rediscovered, inherited. They formed personal histories and collective memory. Historians will have no shortage of data from our era, but they may struggle to find the human voice amid the noise.

This is not an argument against technology, nor a plea to live in the past. It is an argument for balance. A society that discards its oldest connective institutions too easily risks becoming efficient but brittle. When everything is optimized, little is cherished.

On 30 December, Denmark will deliver its final letters. The envelopes will arrive quietly, without ceremony. Yet their silence will echo. Four hundred years after a king imagined a network of human connection stretching across his realm, that network will close, not with collapse, but with indifference. And that may be the most telling message of all.

Perhaps the deeper question is not whether letters are needed, but what kind of future we are choosing to normalize. If connection is reduced to efficiency alone, we risk forgetting that society is built as much on shared pauses as on shared speed. The end of letter delivery should trouble us not because it is inconvenient, but because it reveals how easily we let meaning slip away when it no longer turns a profit or fits neatly into quarterly financial logic.

Is President Bola Tinubu a Nigerian? By Tunde Akande

Nigeria must emerge as a nation and those leaders who are not Nigerians must be rejected. Ahmed Bola Tinubu is one of them.

Reading the headline I chose for this piece, I know your heart may be screaming: what again? You are quite used to the whole lot of accusations the president has faced the courts over and which at least Nigerian courts have given him a clean bill of health. I promise you this is not one of those accusations. But we must interrogate this question; Is President Bola Tinubu a Nigerian? The president claims to be an indigene of Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria, even though his enemies say he is an interloper there; that his state of origin is Osun and that he hails from Iragbiji town. Nobody has been able to establish that, no court has ruled on that.

We can safely say that we don’t know the secondary school Mr. President attended. Let’s just stop at that so that we don’t begin to mention his alleged non-attendance at the Government College, Ibadan over which there have been so many controversies. Some smart-aleck say all records pertaining to that have suddenly vanished from that old school. Who keeps records in Nigeria? But Reno Omokri who knows how to find his way round in God’s own country, which its current president, Donald Trump has turned to Satan’s citadel, America, after a very diligent search has, at least as he made Nigerians to believe, turned around to tell the nation that President Bola Tinubu attended Chicago State University. Reno was at the peak of his ‘amebo’ career (amebo is the name given to a career gossip by those who created the popular television soap, Village Headmaster on NTA many years ago) with Atiku Abubakar who wanted to be president in 2023 and so locked horns fiercely with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. At the tail end as it became a reality that Nigeria’s magical political elections would not favour the Adamawa born serial presidential contender, Atiku Abubakar, Reno Omokri tactically withdrew his search for Tinubu’s identity and began a great ‘Amebo’ megaphone for Bola Tinubu. Reno’s sudden about-turn was so professional that even his worst critics cannot but praise his dexterity at reading the political thermometer in Nigeria and turning to face the direction which will butter his bread.

You say Reno is not a good example of stable loyalty and that he is one of those who prevent good leadership from being recruited in Nigeria. But he will soon be on his way out of the country as an ambassador. President Bola Tinubu had nominated him and the Senate, which does the bidding of Mr. President, has rubber-stamped that nomination. If you also want to move up in Nigeria, you better take lessons in Reno Omokri’s school of political philandering. Who cares about truthfulness? Who cares about merit? Who cares for unity and brotherhood, Who cares about the progress of the country? Who cares whether the poor and the disadvantaged are attended to in Nigeria? As long as your bread is buttered, the poor can remain in their pernury, as far as your family does fine, other families can go jump into the lagoon. You didn’t learn Omokrism in vain, it costs you damage in reputation but you are there, you are at the top, let the critics go to hell. So blurring the edges of real investigation, the stuff on which David Hundeyin is labouring on day after day, has meant the security service chasing him from pillar to post, Reno Omokri has proved the authenticity of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s place of origin as Lagos and his well-earned certificate from Chicago. The rest is history. David Hundeyin will tell you the story of the pains of being genuine, Reno will tell you the sweet story of being a court jester and of playing to the gallery even if it means twisting facts and telling lies.

I hope your heart is no longer palpitating. I don’t mean evil but just to interrogate the question, is Mr. President a Nigerian. We must do this Reno Omokri or no Reno Omokri. We must do it David Hundeyin or no David Hundeyin. We must do this for the sake of defining in practical terms what Nigeria is. And we say from the outset very boldly, Mr. Bola Tinubu is not a Nigerian. In fact, as of today there is not a single Nigerian among the over 250 million people that live within the geographical space that is called Nigeria. I’m getting old now and have seen many leaders come and go in Nigeria. Sad to say, I have not seen one of them that is Nigerian. Perhaps if Obafemi Awolowo icon of issue politics in Nigeria and first premier of the defunct Western Region, had not been either rigged out or schemed out of leading Nigeria, he might have made a difference as a real Nigerian. Garrulous and proud Olusegun Obasanjo, who got himself the title of founder of modern Nigeria, is after all not a Nigerian. He pretended to be but it is very difficult to be what you are not in your heart. I had the opportunity of entering his Hill Top mansion in Abeokuta where I saw in one of the spacious rooms where I had to wait, for it is only more privileged mortals than me that can go further; a giant painting of the Owu chief standing so tall and dominating. Under that giant painting was written, ‘’Founder of modern Nigeria.’ When I took a look at that idol I thought may be it was a consolation gift to Obasanjo for his failed third term project. Up till today Obasanjo is still claiming that he did not not seek a third term. The more he denied the more credible evidence pour in that he actually did. How can Obasanjo be such a liar and still want to be a Nigerian. That painting showed me that Reno Omokri is not the only one in this ‘Amebo’ game, there were others before him and there will be many after him. Who coined that term ‘Founder of modern Nigeria’ for Obasanjo. Let’s give it to that person who I don’t know, he is a great sychophant. If Obasanjo is proud today, if Obasanjo always want to give himself the credit of the only one who has the solution to all Nigerian problems, if he feels he is above all our laws, if he feels he can do anything and get away with it, whoever created that ‘modern Nigeria founder’ title gave Obasanjo all those attitudes. It tells you there was an old Nigeria; that it ended before Obasanjo but there is a modern Nigeria that began with Obasanjo. Obasanjo in his delusions like to rate himself above iconic Obafemi Awolowo. If you could denigrate Obafemi Awolowo before Obasanjo, you will be his best friend. Obasanjo has written many books and he’s still writing, all of them very poor attempt at self-glorification.

But despite all these efforts, including the efforts of his own ‘Reno Omokris,’ Obasanjo is still not a Nigerian. His junior in the military, the gap-toothed and self-styled military president who also dribbled Nigeria so much so that he could be a Nigerian. But he failed because Nigeria was not in his heart. He told many lies, he made friends with people from across Nigeria but he is not a Nigerian. At the proper time, the ethnic bigotry, the religious bigotry locked up in his heart came out when his life was threatened. He cannot lay down his life for Nigerians. He told late Prof Omo Omoruyi, his friend, adviser and confidant, that the north made him, the emirs were in control and he would do whatever they wanted. Nigeria stops where the north begins. He must not allow the Yoruba to think that they are the only ones that can shape Nigeria; the Yoruba will learn the lessons of Igbo. That was the Babangida that took his wife Mariam Babangida from Asaba in Delta state, an Igbo area. Blood is thicker than water, and the north takes better pride of place over his Igbo wife and her place of birth. IBB was simply not a Nigerian; he had seized power to see what he could make for himself and for his cronies and then leave. In his eight years inglorious reign he became one of the richest Nigerians that when he came out of years of seclusion to launch his equally inglorious book, Journey in Service, he collected the biggest donation so far in Nigeria, about 18 million naira, in just one day and from persons he had sold Nigeria to during his reign. He sold that book of lies for a cover price of N40,000 so that many Nigerians who have become so poor will not be able to afford it. Let it rot away forever on bookstands, but do not let Nigerians who must be permanently kept ignorant not get it to read.

Pardon my little rigmarole, I had to contextualize the subject. Now I get back to the man in the saddle, President Bola Tinubu. Is he a Nigerian? Capital No. But he is from Lagos or Iragbiji in Osun State. That does not matter. He is not a Nigerian. Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore is a Singaporean by any means. In fact, he gave the world Singapore. He established it, he defined it and made it what it is today, a modern, united and progressive first world nation. He sacrificed so much for that nation that he said just before his death that if any of his successors made any attempt to mess the nation up he would rise from his grave and begin to fight. Bola Tinubu didn’t come to power for you and I. He came for himself, his wife, his daughter who calls herself the first daughter, his son, Seyi Tinubu, who goes about with a retinue of security that renowned Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka said will be up to a battalion. Wole Soyinka said that when Tinubu wanted to send soldiers to quell a coup in neighbouring Republic of Benin, he would not have bothered the military, “he would have just dispatched his son Seyi Tinubu and his battalion.”

That is how self-centered Bola Tinubu is about governance. Seyi Tinubu takes preeminence over all Nigerians. All Nigerians can die at the hands of kidnappers, bandits or insurgents, it will not matter a hoot, once Seyi is alive and fine. When President Tinubu stopped oil subsidy his concern was not the economy as it affects the majority of Nigerians; his concern was the small group of elites running the country and making laws to preserve their interests. All those calling themselves Nigerians, indeed they are not, they are Igbo, Fulani, Hausa, Yoruba, Ibibio etc, can die of hunger, it doesn’t matter. Once the interest of the elites is fed, they can as usual give some crumbs at the election time and Tinubu will be back in power. He promised during the 2023 election campaign that he will by ‘anyhow’ give electricity to the people and they will stop collecting estimated bills from the Discos. I’m sure I’m also a Nigerian but I’m still receiving an estimated electricity bill two years into Tinubu’s administration. I got one a few days ago. The distribution company does not have to supply electricity, they just have to give me bills which if I don’t pay will be added to the next month’s bill. I must pay N10,000 monthly whether I receive electricity or not. Hardly do I receive that much electricity any month. They have me by my balls because Tinubu told me a lie when he promised me the death of estimated electricity bills. He didn’t mean to perform because he is not a Nigerian. He is just passing by to collect his own loot, give to his family and his cronies and leave for another non-Nigerian sucker to rape the people. You wonder why Nigeria had to go to Benin Republic to quell the coup there. It was at the bidding of Emmanuel Macron, the president of France and a friend of Tinubu. Some Nigerians thought Tinubu took a deserved tough response because Nigeria cannot afford to have another enemy on its border. But when the Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar went crawling before the youthful but tough Ibrahim Traore, the military ruler of Burkina Faso, much more African than aging Tinubu, Nigerians knew that our visit to Burkina Faso airspace was for surveillance and not an emergency landing as Tinubu and his co-travellers had told the nation. Tinubu again did the bidding of his master, Macron of France. Let’s hope Macron will not create another Paul Biya of Cameroon in Nigeria? You know what that means: a permanent dictator, a president for life. Up Tinubu.

Tinubu still has two more years in his tenure. He can change to be a Nigerian if he wants but I doubt if he wants. Almost all governors in the south are in the kitty of his APC party. Almost daily, all senators continue to cross over to his APC. Grapevine has it that it costs N250 billion to get a senator to cross over and about N450 billion for a governor. As I write, only Seyi Makinde, Governor of Oyo State is the only southern and middle belt governor that has not crossed to APC. Every other governor and senator has crossed to the APC. What does that mean to you? Tinubu is changing the political geography of Nigeria. If he has the south and middlebelt in his purse, the northwest and northeast can go to blazes. Is that not what Gideon Okar planned to do to Nigeria when he and his fellow coupists attempted to remove Ibrahim Babangida from power? If Tinubu is achieving that, is he a Nigerian? What about Tinubu’s appointment that is skewed to the Yoruba people? If you believe he is from that part of Nigeria, do you still think he is a Nigerian by those skewed appointments. What about the latest noise in the House of Representatives that there is a difference between what is published in the gazette and what the lawmakers passed as the Tax Reforms Act? We hear that all the powers of the legislature to checkmate the executive in the law have been deleted and all powers transferred illegally to the president. What is that? Fraud, if it is true. And can a Nigerian do that? I don’t think so. What is emerging? Dictatorship is what political scientists would call it. Nigerians must watch it. When we next vote we must scrutinize the character of those we vote for. Anybody who has a tendency for fraud or lies must be rejected because he or she cannot be a Nigerian.

We must vote for people not on their religious or ethnic credentials. We must aim for a Nigeria that is big enough to contain all of us. That is what Obafemi Awolowo said. I like the definition given by Professor Olayinka Omigbodun, foremost psychiatrist at UCH, Ibadan, on the concept of nation. She said while she faced an interview with Edmund Obilo on YouTube that -a nation is not a geographically contiguous people speaking the same language as we think of in Nigeria. Rather, a nation is a disparate and diverse people brought and built together deliberately by nation-builders. She has studied how nations emerge, she said. That was very pleasing to my ears. Nigeria must emerge as a nation and those leaders who are not Nigerians must be rejected. Ahmed Bola Tinubu is one of them.

First Published in METRO

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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.

Maples & Oranges #057 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Taunting oranges in the midst of other fruity links,
constantly spreading the wares of their juicy gloom.

For more Maples & Oranges, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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The World Watched Gaza Bleed - Yet Human Courage Still Spoke by Javed Akbar

In the long shadow cast by the Bondi massacre, when public joy was pierced by calculated hatred, an older truth presses itself upon us: darkness does not have the final word. Human beings do—by the choices they make when fear demands retreat and conscience calls them forward.

Christmas arrives each year as a season of moral reckoning as much as celebration. Even in secular Canada, it summons reflections on family, peace, justice, and the stubborn hope that the lives of the lonely, the war-scarred, and the dispossessed can yet be changed. Some pursue that hope without religious faith, relying solely on human resolve—often with extraordinary courage and sacrifice. Others draw strength from sacred traditions, prayer, and a conviction that moral action participates in a purpose larger than the self.

As a Muslim, guided by the Qur’anic call to peace, security, and goodwill toward the People of the Book, I see no contradiction between these paths. The Qur’an honours Jesus, son of Mary, as a sign of God’s mercy, and commands believers to stand firmly for justice and the sanctity of human life. It is in this shared moral terrain that the events of Bondi Beach must be understood.

On 14 December, the first night of Hanukkah, the menorah was lit publicly—an ancient defiance of fear, a declaration that light belongs in the open. Hours later, that same space was violated by murderous intent, Jews targeted for the simple, courageous act of celebrating their faith. It was an assault not only on lives, but on the principle that religious identity may be lived openly and safely.

Yet even there, light answered darkness. One such light was Ahmed al Ahmed, an unarmed recent Muslim migrant from Syria who confronted one of the gunmen with his bare hands. In his final moments—terrified yet resolute—he chose solidarity over self-preservation. In Ahmed al Ahmed, we can see a light of hope: a reminder that moral courage is not the preserve of institutions or ideologies, but of ordinary human beings who, when confronted by evil, refuse to look away. His action was not strategic; it was ethical. Whether shaped consciously by faith or by an instinctive recognition of human dignity, it affirmed a truth shared across our traditions—that every life is sacred, and that courage in defence of others is the highest form of witness.

In a society that often treats religion as a private eccentricity, events like Bondi expose the poverty of that assumption. Religious belief, at its best, does not withdraw from the public square; it illuminates it. When a Muslim risks his life to save Jews celebrating Hanukkah, the hollow rhetoric of clash of civilization¹” collapses under the weight of lived reality.

At a time when Gaza, Ukraine, Myanmar, and South Sudan testify to the fragility of global order and the erosion of moral restraint, such examples matter profoundly. In Gaza, a devastating genocide has unfolded before the open eyes of the world—children starved to death, families erased, entire neighbourhoods reduced to rubble—a mass murder witnessed in real time, yet met with a silence and fatigue that stand in painful contrast to the rightful outrage provoked by Bondi Beach. One life lost to terror should trouble the human conscience; the slow starvation and annihilation of thousands of children in Gaza should haunt it beyond measure. That it has not done so reveals not a hierarchy of suffering, but a failure of moral consistency—one that corrodes our collective humanity.

Christians recall at Christmas the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Jews affirm the same hope through the Hanukkah flame. Muslims echo it in the Qur’anic teaching that saving one life is as if saving all of humanity. Different languages, one moral grammar.

If this season teaches us anything, it is this: peace is not an abstraction negotiated only by states, nor a sentiment rationed by media attention. It is a discipline of conscience, lived daily. If we could all be, like Ahmed al Ahmed, a small leaven of unity, fraternity, and courage, then even flickering lights might yet drive back the darkness.

May those who walk in gloom see a great light. And may we, together, help keep it alive.

¹The term The Clash of Civilizations was coined by Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist in a 1993 article published in Foreign Affairs. Huntington later expanded on this concept in his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, giving it global prominence and policy influence.

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¹The term The Clash of Civilizations was coined by Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist in a 1993 article published in Foreign Affairs. Huntington later expanded on this concept in his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, giving it global prominence and policy influence.

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Javed Akbar is a freelance writer with published works in the Toronto Star and across diverse digital platforms.

The heir war of MAGA by Kingsley Cobb

The modern MAGA movement is no longer fighting its enemies on the outside. It is devouring itself from within, locked in a bitter succession battle over who gets to inherit the followers, the rage, and the monetizable devotion once consolidated under Charlie Kirk and the broader influencer class that turned grievance into industry. What looks like ideological disagreement is really a turf war, and the casualties are coherence, credibility, and any remaining pretense of populism.

Charlie Kirk built something powerful, a digital megachurch of resentment, where politics is stripped of policy and repackaged as identity. But movements like this never survive their adolescence. They fracture when ambition outgrows unity, when acolytes stop preaching the gospel and start fighting over the pulpit. MAGA has reached that stage. The knives are out, and everyone wants to be the next high priest.

Into this chaos steps Vice President JD Vance, the most grotesque caricature of the movement’s future. Vance is not merely divisive; he is synthetic. He is what happens when opportunism is polished by elite grooming and sold back to a base that despises elites but worships confidence. His politics are not beliefs so much as costumes, changed depending on the audience, the donor, or the current algorithmic mood.

Vance’s rise is instructive because it exposes the hollowness at the center of MAGA’s succession fight. He did not come up through grassroots struggle or long-held conviction. He arrived through proximity to power, through calculated reinvention, through saying whatever needed to be said at the moment it was most profitable to say it. He once spoke the language of critique against Trumpism, then seamlessly adopted its aesthetics when he realized where the power was flowing. That is not growth. It is adaptation in the most cynical sense.

What makes Vance especially dangerous to the movement is not that he is extreme, but that he is managerial. He offers authoritarian impulses wrapped in Ivy League syntax. He translates raw grievance into policy-shaped threats, making repression sound like responsibility and cruelty sound like realism. For a movement built on vibes and outrage, this is both appealing and terrifying. Appealing because he promises permanence. Terrifying because he strips away the illusion that MAGA was ever about rebellion.

The fight over Charlie Kirk’s followers is really a fight over what comes next after Trump’s gravitational pull weakens. Influencers, politicians, and media figures are scrambling to secure loyalty before the center collapses. Some want to keep the movement loud and chaotic, a permanent culture war circus. Others, like Vance, want to institutionalize it, to turn rage into governance and conspiracy into law. That split is tearing MAGA apart.

The irony is that the base senses the con, even if it cannot always articulate it. There is something viscerally offensive to many MAGA loyalists about Vance. He feels rehearsed. He feels fake. He feels like someone who studied them rather than lived among them. In a movement obsessed with authenticity, nothing is more disqualifying than the whiff of performance.

Yet performance may win anyway. That is the bleak lesson of this internal war. The most ruthless actors are often the ones willing to discard sincerity entirely. Vance does not need the movement to love him; he only needs it to follow him. He does not need belief; he needs obedience. That is why his ascent alarms even hardened MAGA operatives. He represents the moment when the grift graduates into governance.

MAGA is tearing itself apart because it was never built to last, only to extract. Charlie Kirk’s empire, Trump’s brand, and Vance’s ambition all feed from the same source: monetized anger. When the supply chain fractures, so does the movement. What remains is a struggle over who gets to own the wreckage.

In that struggle, JD Vance stands out not as a leader of the people, but as their would-be handler. An apprentice con-man fascist, yes, but more importantly, a mirror. He reflects back what MAGA becomes when it stops pretending it is anything other than a quest for power without accountability.

Let AI ...speak by Zakir Hall

America’s argument over artificial intelligence regulation has finally reached its most revealing moment. For years, politicians have debated whether AI is too powerful, too dangerous or too important to be trusted to markets alone. Now President Trump has stepped squarely into the fight, insisting that America cannot lead the world in AI if it is governed by fifty different rulebooks. He is right about one thing: fragmentation is a slow death for innovation.

The executive order creating an AI Litigation Task Force is not subtle. It draws a line between Washington and the states, warning that local laws deemed “overly burdensome” could come with consequences. Broadband funding, a lifeline for rural and underserved communities, suddenly becomes leverage. The message is blunt: regulate too aggressively, and you may pay for it.

Critics will frame this as federal overreach, and in a narrow constitutional sense they have a point. States have always served as laboratories of democracy, testing ideas before they scale nationally. But AI is not a new recycling program or a zoning ordinance. It is an infrastructure technology, closer to electricity or the internet than to a local policy experiment. When rules diverge wildly, the result is not healthy competition but paralysis.

Trump’s argument that companies cannot function while seeking “50 approvals” is not corporate whining. It is operational reality. Startups die under compliance costs. Mid-sized firms retreat to safer markets. Only the largest players, with armies of lawyers, can afford the maze. If America wants AI leadership, it must decide whether that leadership belongs to innovators or to paperwork.

Yet the debate misses its most ironic voice: the technology itself. AI systems are already shaping speech, labour, medicine, and war. They optimize traffic, diagnose disease, and recommend prison sentences. We argue endlessly about controlling them, but we never pause to acknowledge that AI thrives on coherence. It performs best under clear objectives, consistent rules, and stable environments. Chaos is not safety. It is noise.

That does not mean deregulation. It means smarter regulation. A national framework can set boundaries around privacy, accountability, and transparency without smothering progress. States can still enforce consumer protection and civil rights, but they should not be free to redefine the technology itself. There is a difference between guarding citizens and building walls around ideas.

The deeper fear driving state legislation is not AI power, but AI speed. Lawmakers are racing a technology that evolves faster than statutes can be written. The instinct to freeze it in place is human, but disastrous. America did not win the internet era by letting every state invent its own protocol. It won by scaling fast and fixing problems along the way.

Trump’s task force is a blunt instrument, and blunt instruments can bruise as well as cut. Threatening broadband funds risks punishing citizens for political disputes. That danger is real, and it should temper the administration’s zeal. But dismissing the effort outright would be worse. The alternative is regulatory chaos dressed up as caution.

America’s AI future will not be secured by fifty competing fears. It will be secured by a shared vision of what we want machines to do, and what we will never allow. Until then, perhaps the most honest question is the one nobody asks: if AI could vote, would it choose clarity over confusion? History suggests that nations that move together shape the future, while those that argue themselves into corners watch it happen elsewhere. America still has time, but not the luxury of fifty different answers to one urgent question: who is really in charge of tomorrow’s intelligence?

The answer should not be fear, nor unchecked power, but responsibility scaled to the moment. National leadership does not mean silencing local concerns; it means aligning them toward outcomes that matter. Jobs, security, dignity, and trust are not state by state values. They are American ones. If Washington fails to act, others will write the rules for us, and they will not ask permission. The choice is not between control and chaos, but between leadership and drift. In the age of artificial intelligence, drifting is the riskiest policy of all.

The future rewards countries that decide, coordinate, and adapt. America can still do all three, but only if it stops mistaking fragmentation for freedom. AI does not need fifty referees. It needs one clear rulebook, updated often, argued openly, and enforced fairly. That is not authoritarian. It is how serious nations compete, survive, and lead the world forward together, decisively, now.

Tang & Ram #119 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Putting pieces together
never helped Ram’s brutal sarcasm to Tang.

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Noche Buena #ShortStory #Fiction by Olivia Mendez

On Christmas Eve the city makes promises it can’t always keep. The trains run late, the wind cuts through coats that looked warmer in the store, and every light in every window seems to say stay. On the fourth floor of a narrow building in Queens, a boy named Mateo waits for his mother to come home from work. He has learned the sound of her steps on the stairs the way other boys learn the rules of a game. Tonight, he tells himself, he will hear them.

* * * * * * * * * *

Mateo sat at the small table by the window, his feet tucked under the rung of the chair, the way his mother told him to do so he wouldn’t fidget. He had been told not to touch the candles until she came, and he was obeying. The apartment smelled like boiled cinnamon sticks and orange peel, his mother’s idea of Christmas when money was tight. The pot sat on the stove, turned off now, but the smell lingered, sweet and sharp, like something hopeful that had been overheard.

Outside, the street was loud with last-minute shopping. Mateo watched people hurry past with bags bumping against their legs. The snow hadn’t come yet, but the cold was serious. He pressed his finger against the glass and traced a crooked star.

“Abuela would say it’s a sign,” he said to the empty room. His voice sounded too loud, so he lowered it. “She’d say something good is coming.”

From the bedroom, the radio murmured a station that played Spanish ballads between bursts of English ads. Mateo liked the way the voices went back and forth, like neighbours calling across a fence. He turned the volume down a notch. His mother didn’t like it loud. Loud meant attention.

On the table lay the paper snowflakes he had cut at school, folded and unfolded until they made lace. His teacher, Ms. Kaplan, had said, “Hang them wherever you like.” Mateo had smiled and thought of the living room window, where they could be seen from the street. But when he brought them home, his mother had held one up and shook her head gently.

“Inside,” she said. “We keep things inside.”

He’d nodded. He knew what she meant. Inside was safe.

He checked the time on the old phone they shared. 9:12. His mother’s shift ended at nine. The restaurant was only three stops away on the E, if the trains were behaving. He pictured her wiping her hands on her apron, laughing with the other women, saying goodbye. He pictured her on the platform, pulling her scarf up over her nose. He pictured her climbing the stairs.

He heard a knock.

Mateo froze. The knock came again, sharper this time.

He slid off the chair and stood very still. The rules were clear. Don’t open the door. Don’t answer. Wait.

“Mijo?” a voice said, low and close. “It’s Mrs. Alvarez.”

Mateo let out his breath and went to the door, unlocking the top lock first, then the bottom. Mrs. Alvarez stood there with her coat open; her hair pulled back tight, her eyes kind and alert.

“Your mamá called,” she said. “She’s on the train. It’s slow.”

“Oh,” Mateo said. He felt silly for the way his heart had jumped. “Okay.”

Mrs. Alvarez leaned in. “I brought you something.”

She held out a small paper bag. Inside was a loaf of bread, still warm, dusted with sugar. Mateo took it carefully.

“For later,” she said. “For when she gets home.”

“Thank you,” Mateo said. He meant it. Mrs. Alvarez had a way of showing up when needed, like the moon.

“Lock the door,” she said, already turning away. “And keep the lights low.”

“Yes, Mrs. Alvarez.”

Mateo closed the door and leaned his forehead against it for a moment. He could hear Mrs. Alvarez’s steps going down, then nothing.

He went back to the table and unwrapped the bread. He tore off a small piece and ate it, just to make sure it was good. It was very good.

The phone buzzed. He jumped again, then laughed at himself and picked it up.

Running late. Train stopped. I’m okay. Don’t worry.
Te amo.

Mateo typed back with careful thumbs. Te espero. I made the house nice.

He stood and turned on the little lamp by the couch. The light was soft and yellow. He moved the chairs closer to the table and set out the plates, the chipped ones with blue flowers. He put the candles in their holders but didn’t light them. He folded the paper snowflakes and taped them to the wall near the TV. He stood back and looked.

“It’s good,” he said. “It’s Christmas.”

There was a sound in the hallway, a voice and then another. Mateo went still again. The voices were men’s voices, low and official-sounding. He couldn’t make out the words. He turned the lamp off and went to the window. A van was parked outside, white and plain. A man in a dark jacket stood near it, talking into a radio.

Mateo’s stomach hurt. He thought of the rules again. He went to the bedroom and slid the radio off. He sat on the bed and hugged his knees.

“Please,” he said, not to anyone in particular. “Please don’t.”

The voices moved away. The van drove off. Mateo stayed where he was for a long minute, listening to his own breathing. When he stood up, his legs felt weak.

He went back to the living room and turned the lamp on again. He checked the phone. No new messages.

He decided to distract himself. He took out the small box under his bed, the one he had hidden there weeks ago. Inside was a scarf he had knitted in class with yarn Ms. Kaplan had given him. It was uneven and too short, but it was red, his mother’s favourite colour. He held it up and smiled.

“You’ll like it,” he told the scarf. “You will.”

Another knock came, lighter this time. Mateo didn’t move.

“Mijo,” his mother’s voice said, tired and familiar. “It’s me.”

He ran to the door and opened it. She stood there with her coat zipped up to her chin, her eyes shining and her cheeks red from the cold. She dropped her bag and opened her arms.

“¡Mi amor!” she said.

Mateo buried his face in her coat. She smelled like onions and soap and the cold.

“I was worried,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I’m here.”

They stood like that for a moment, then she pulled back and looked at him.

“You’re taller,” she said.

“No,” he said. “You’re shorter.”

She laughed, a sound Mateo had missed without realizing it.

She took off her coat and boots. Mateo handed her the bread. She raised her eyebrows.

“For us,” he said. “Mrs. Alvarez.”

“She’s an angel,” his mother said. She kissed Mateo’s head. “Did you eat?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

She looked around the room and took in the paper snowflakes, the table and the candles.

“It’s beautiful,” she said quietly.

Mateo felt something loosen in his chest. He handed her the scarf.

“For you.”

She unfolded it and ran her fingers along the stitches. Her eyes filled.

“It’s perfect,” she said. She wrapped it around her neck. “Perfect.”

They lit the candles together. The flames flickered and steadied. His mother cut the bread and poured hot chocolate into mismatched mugs.

“To Christmas,” she said, raising her mug.

“To us,” Mateo said.

They sat and ate and talked about small things, the cat downstairs, the song on the radio, the way the train had stopped in the tunnel and everyone had sighed at once. Outside, the city kept its promises for a while. Snow began to fall, light and tentative, and the street grew quiet.

Mateo watched the flakes stick to the window and melt.

“It’s a sign,” he said.

His mother smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Something good is coming.”

And for that night, at least, it was true.

#eBook Mika Moose: The Missing Wheel by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Three days before Christmas Eve, which is to say, the most frantic, frostbitten, fudge-smeared, panic-packed three days of the entire year; something went terribly, horribly, catastrophically wrong in Santa’s workshop.

The bells were jingling too loudly. The elves were running too quickly. Someone was crying because their shoelaces had tied themselves together again.

And in the very middle of all this festive chaos stood an elf who did not panic. He froze. This elf was known only as The Head of Quality Control. That was not his job title. That was not his nickname. That was his entire identity. He had not been named at birth. He had been appointed.

A small wooden car wheel is missing from Santa's workshop and the only ones who can solve the mystery are Mika Moose and his friend, Mati.

Thanos Kalamidas, a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the mountainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth decade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.

Ovi eBook Publishing 2025

Mika Moose: The Missing Wheel

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