Prof. Olanrewaju Olu-Adeyemi

Amnesty International Report on Nigeria A new Amnesty report has once again indicted Nigeria's security agencies of excessive use of force. The truth is that Nigeria's human rights record remains poor and government officials at all levels continue to commit serious abuses. Some of the serious human rights problems in Nigeria are sporadic abridgement of citizens' right to change their government, due to some election fraud and other irregularities; politically motivated and extrajudicial killings by security forces, including summary executions; security force torture, rape, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees, and criminal suspects; harsh and life-threatening prison and detention center conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary and judicial corruption; infringements on citizens' privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of speech, pr...

Assessing Obama's Reelection Chances Those desperately desirous of divining the outcome of the American presidential election might consult a 1990 book by political scientist Allan J. Lichtman and journalist Ken DeCell—Thirteen Keys to the Presidency: Prediction Without Polls. It presents a series of questions about incumbent presidents that, when analyzed, constitute a framework for predicting presidential elections. The framework is based on the supposition that presidential elections are referendums, that they turn largely on the performance of the incumbent and not on campaign minutia such as candidate gaffes, fundraising differentials and attack ads. And bear in mind that some of the thirteen keys call for subjective answers. Hence there will be room for ongoing debate as to what they actually tell us about the current incumbent. The keys were devised by Lichtman through a complex pattern of algorithms that apply to politics a mathematical technique called "pattern r...