"Nigeria Village Square" and Unforced Error - Part Two

First of all, I want to thank the Nigeria Village Square for publishing my essay, titled “Debating the Rule of Law: Why I Stand with President Buhari”, which appeared on their website on February 01, 2016. As I stated in the concluding sentence of the earlier version of this story published on the same date, I want to reiterate that I do not have cause to suspect foul play on the part of the management of the Nigeria Village Square for the difficulties myself and others have encountered while trying to open the essay from the very front page of their website. You can open all the recently published essays on their site, you cannot open "Debating the Rule of Law: Why I stand with President Buhari" as it comes up. 

When you click on the essay, after much delay, a "404" error message would pop up, stating "Article not found." I gave them the benefit of the doubt, stating: "At this point in time, I cannot infer anything unsavory to explain the development, other than technical hitches." However, around evening time of the same day, I was able to open the article through other means. When I did, to my greatest amazement, the essay was already gathering steady hits and someone has written a lengthy review about it. So, this morning, I am reporting good news, in spite of everything.

• 
  

To be able to read the essay on their website, you would have to click on Forum and then click on Articles & Commentaries for a breakdown of the entire published articles on the site. My essay, "Debating the Rule of Law: Why I Stand with President Buhari", is right there - still maintaining the lead as the most read essay on the site. As at the time of this update (7 am, February 04, 2016), though the technical hitch is yet to be fixed, the essay has garnered the most hits - exceedingly ahead of all the articles published along with it, as well as, those published weeks earlier. And that is a record. 

The only problem: you cannot share the essay the regular way. Besides, when I went to their Timeline on Facebook, it was worse; my essay didn't even make it there. But all the articles preceding it on their website as well as those ahead of it were on their Facebook Timeline, but not mine.  

The global audience knows the quality content when they see one. In spite of everything, I still remain thankful to the Nigeria Village Square for providing me with a platform to once again, gauge the quality of my work alongside those of other commentators in the public domain. 

Today, just as we have opportunists politicians, without the faintest idea of governance and public service, dominating our leadership cadre, the same way we have highly favored writers without genuine ideas populating the social media scene, with puerile and indecipherable opinion articles. 

By the way, I sent the article under discussion to the Premium Times Nigeria, twice, but they did not publish it. Not at all surprising to me, it has outperformed - by a very wide margin - all the articles on their platform that are also presently available at the Nigeria Village Square in terms of readership. That's Nigeria for you; it is not only our government that needs to reform itself, but all our institutions also do. Talk of a disturbing reality!