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  By Teslim Oyetunji The middle class, it is believed, is the backbone of any modern capitalist economy. It is the engine because it comprises a class of men and women who provide the grit, labour, and industry needed to catalyze development. Its disappearance from any society often marks the end of a prosperous era—the beginning of decline and, in many cases, total collapse. It is against this backdrop that one must ask: what happened to the Nigerian middle class? Nigeria’s story in 2025 is an especially sad commentary on how a promising country, with a strongly emerging middle-class economy in the 1960s, could lose it all. In 1960, the country had just gained independence. Young, nascent, vibrant, and lusty, Nigeria was brimming with hope and expectations. There was a wave of economic and public investment that saw the rise of an emerging middle class. With a strong export-oriented economy, the country was chafing to produce. Universities were springing up. Many Nigerians ...

   by Teslim Oyetunji  From the beginning of what we now call modern history—stretching back roughly 2,500 years to Herodotus—the arc of human progress has been shaped more by thinkers than by those who merely attended formal schools. From Socrates to Plato, Cicero to Augustine, Plutarch to Galileo, Newton to Descartes, Voltaire, Diderot and many more, the engine of civilization has always been fired by original thought, not just institutional learning. Trailblazing intelligence, deep introspection, and the courage to ask difficult questions have always mattered more than degrees and titles. The leading lights of knowledge in Europe kindled a torch that illuminated the Western world. When the British came to Nigeria, they arrived with the full weight of that civilization—centuries of scientific, technological, and philosophical breakthroughs. They exposed our founding fathers to formal Western education and gave them the rare opportunity to drink from that fount of knowle...

   Women and Social media: “The Mirror That Lies: A Dirge for the Self-Lost ” By Teslim Oyetunji  Perhaps the most harmful effect of social media on women is the illusion of timeless beauty and the morbid obsession with self. A dangerous self-absorption—a subtle self-worship—that does not only distract but deceives. The filters, the Snapchat, the ultra-enhanced lenses have begun to reshape not just how we see ourselves, but what we believe reality should look like. Men now fall in love with illusions—an imagined version of a real copy. Women fall in love with themselves, or more accurately, with a  false  version they’ve indoctrinated themselves to accept. Beauty becomes the final refuge—what a woman clings to when all else fails. When dreams fade, when ambition wanes, when the future collapses under the weight of poverty or neglect. Beauty—or our idea of it—offers the illusion of escape. Even if that escape is a fantasy. Sadly, it is to this illusionary world t...

  The Hollow Pulpit: How Northern Nigeria's Politicised Islam Became a Tool for Subjugation Article by Teslim Oyetunji Conceptually, Islam is a beautiful and profound religion—one that enshrines the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of reflection, and the value of independent thought within a dynamic theological framework. At its intellectual core, Islam does not fear inquiry; it encourages it. The Qur’an repeatedly invites believers to ponder, to ask, to explore both the self and the universe. Historically, Islam produced thinkers, scientists, jurists, and poets whose works enriched global civilization. Given these ideals, it should be inconceivable that Islam would ever serve as a tool for political and mind suppression. Yet, in some parts of the world—most notably Northern Nigeria—Islam has been gradually stripped of its liberating essence and repackaged as a mechanism for group mind control, political manipulation, and the quiet oppression of the very masses it was meant to upl...

   A Society Without Thinkers: The Quiet Death of the Enlightened Class in Nigeria From the beginning of what we now call modern history—stretching back roughly 2,500 years to Herodotus—the arc of human progress has been shaped more by thinkers than by those who merely attended formal schools. From Socrates to Plato, Cicero to Augustine, Plutarch to Galileo, Newton to Descartes, Voltaire, Diderot and many more, the engine of civilization has always been fired by original thought, not just institutional learning. Trailblazing intelligence, deep introspection, and the courage to ask difficult questions have always mattered more than degrees and titles. The leading lights of knowledge in Europe kindled a torch that illuminated the Western world. When the British came to Nigeria, they arrived with the full weight of that civilization—centuries of scientific, technological, and philosophical breakthroughs. They exposed our founding fathers to formal Western education and gave them ...

  From Beacon to Abyss: The Moral and Intellectual Decline of Southwestern Nigeria By Teslim Oyetunji  It is a given that the Southwestern part of Nigeria was, unarguably, the most promising region in the country’s early history. It was home to some of the most brilliant minds that ever walked Nigerian soil. From Christopher Sapara Williams, Nigeria’s first indigenous lawyer, to the trailblazing Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti — the first prominent female political activist in the country — to titans like Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Herbert Macaulay, Obafemi Awolowo, and many others, the list is endless. As early as the 1890s, Lagos had developed into a thriving cosmopolitan city, propelled by its centuries-long contact with the West. By the early 1900s, the Yoruba had already distinguished themselves as a civilizationally advanced ethnic group — with established systems of governance, education, and urban organization that were miles ahead of other regions. They embraced Western...