Straight Talk with Chukwudi Obi

On a busy Tuesday morning at a public university, Mrs. Okafor, a senior administrative officer, arrived at her office to find a long queue of students stretching down the corridor. Some needed course registration clearance, others had issues with results, hostel allocation, or fee reconciliation. By midday, her desk was piled with files, her email inbox flooded, and the queue had barely moved. A younger colleague leaned over and said, “Madam, if the system could just flag these issues automatically, most of this stress would disappear.” That simple comment captured a growing reality: university administration, once driven almost entirely by paperwork and manual processes, is standing at the threshold of an AI-powered transformation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant concept reserved for science labs or tech companies. It is steadily reshaping how universities are managed, how decisions are made, and how administrators support teaching, learning, and research. For univ...

On a humid Monday morning in Aba, Chinedu arrived at the small garment factory where he had worked for eight years. The rhythmic hum of sewing machines—once the soundtrack of his daily routine—had changed. New automated cutting machines sat where three tailoring tables used to be. During the tea break, whispers spread: production would increase, but fewer hands would be needed. By Friday, management announced a “restructuring.” Some workers would be retrained to operate the machines; others would be let go. The factory’s union chairperson called an emergency meeting, not to stop technology, but to negotiate dignity, fairness, and a future for the workers. This scene, familiar across workshops, banks, farms, and offices, captures the central tension of our time. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming how work is done, while labour unions—longstanding guardians of workers’ rights—are redefining their role. The question is not whether AI will change work, but whether workers will sh...

Oguta has a way of arriving quietly in the heart. It does not announce itself with skyscrapers or traffic horns; it breathes through water, palms, and the patient rhythm of boats cutting across the lake. I arrived on a harmattan-soft morning, when the sky looked rinsed and the air carried the smell of wet earth. Oguta Lake lay ahead, wide and reflective, its surface holding the early light like a secret. I had come for rest—at least that was the plan. Love, I believed then, was something that happened elsewhere. The lodge by the lake sat low and unassuming, shaded by coconut trees. Fishermen pushed out before dawn, their oars dipping with a practiced grace. By mid-morning, the town began to stir: women with baskets of smoked fish, children skidding barefoot along the sandy paths, the occasional motorbike coughing past with a sack of cassava flour tied to its back. I walked the shoreline, counting ripples, thinking of nothing and everything at once. That was where I met Amara. She stood...