thinkaloud.ng

In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), particularly in Bwari Area Council, an unsettling pattern has emerged involving alleged task forces enforcing commercially owned vehicle registration laws under questionable circumstances. Private vehicle owners are being stopped and coerced into paying for local government documents that either do not apply to them or that they are entirely unaware of. These actions are not only exploitative but bear a striking resemblance to a robbery experience, as citizens are compelled to part with their money under duress, often to task force personnel. I write this to explore the thin line between legitimate law enforcement and outright extortion, exposing how government officials claiming to be from the Bwari Area Council, and other parts of the FCT exploit innocent car owners under the pretence of enforcing commercial vehicle regulations. The crux of the exploitation revolves around the enforcement of Local Government Area (LGA) vehicle registration re...

  Image credits: Microsoft Copilot In a region increasingly consumed by insecurity, poverty, and disillusionment, the crisis in Northwestern Nigeria has exposed more than institutional weaknesses. It has revealed a failure of thought. While guns and policies have been deployed to manage banditry, communal violence, and economic decay, the deeper issue lies in how we think as individuals, as leaders, and as a society. The world development report (Worldbank, 2015) suggests three principles of human decision making which conforms to a very useful social science framework providing three cognitive lenses: automatic thinking, social thinking, and thinking in new mental boxes . These modes of thinking, if understood and applied, can transform how we approach the complex challenges facing the region. These are explained below with suggestions of how they can be applied to tackle these challenges. 1. Automatic Thinking Automatic thinking, also known as System 1 thinking (Kahneman,...