Maarten Freriks

Seventeen Arrests in Alkaleri: What a Witchcraft Accusation Looks Like in 2026 At approximately 1:00 am on Sunday, 18 October 2026, an armed mob breached a family compound in Gobirawa village, Gwana District, […]

From Volunteers to a Law: How Hisbah Became a State Institution, and the Question Nobody Has Answered On 30 May 2003, approximately twenty Hisbah personnel entered a private wedding reception in Kano. Declaring the event an “immoral […]

From ₦1,049 to ₦1,400: The Rising Cost of Living and the Crisis of Governance in Nigeria In December 2025, the average pump price of petrol in Nigeria stood at approximately ₦1,049 per litre. Ten months later, s […]

99 Days: What the Numbers, the New Law and the Calendar Mean for Nigerian Voters Nigeria votes in fewer than 100 days. On Saturday, 16 January 2027, eligible voters will head to the polls to elect a president and […]

One Constitution, Three Kinds of Court: How Common Law and Sharia Came to Share Northern Nigeria Nigeria operates under a single supreme constitution, yet at least three distinct legal traditions run simultaneously beneath it. As […]

Help a freethinker survive for any amount pr month Is there a legal way to flee? It sounds so reasonable. Stop illegal migration. Help refugees in their own region. Let people apply […]

Make a new friend: meet a freethinker from the other side of the world Somewhere right now, a freethinker in Kampala is reading the same article as someone in Toronto. A humanist in Colombo shares your love […]

Dolly found safety, now she needs online work. Will you give her the chance? Graphic design, Website design, Video Editing, Logo design, Illustrations, Medical billing Some of you already know Dolly. She is a […]

Child Brides of the North: The Law That Exists, The States That Refuse It, and the Girls Caught Between In Jigawa State, 63 percent of girls are married before they turn 18. In Zamfara, 63 percent. In Sokoto, 61 percent. In Katsina, 61 […]

Blood and Ballots: How Nigeria's Political Class Has Weaponised Religion Since 1960 In the early 2000s, Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have urged Muslims to support candidates who would uphold Islamic and traditional […]

The Lost Hospitals: How Northern Nigeria Was Left Without Healthcare — And Who Left It There In Bauchi State, where I live, only 10.9 percent of surveyed health facilities had at least one medical doctor, according to a 2022 […]

The Sharia Experiment: What Really Happened When Twelve Northern States Adopted Islamic Law On October 27, 1999, Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima of Zamfara State launched the state’s new Sharia legal system at a major public rally […]

How Colonial Education Created Two Nigerias — And Why We Are Still Living in Both of Them The divisions were already visible in the colonial record. By the early twentieth century, British rule had produced a widening […]

The Girls Who Never Came Back: Northern Nigeria's Other Education Crisis In November 2025, armed men stormed a girls’ boarding school in Maga, Kebbi State, at 4am. They shot the vice principal. They took 25 […]

The Fish Under the Chair: Four Boys Are Dead, and We Need to Talk About Why Their names were Abdulfatah Mohammed, 15. Yusuf Nuhu, 16. Buhari Iliyasu, 14. Ibrahim Muhammad, 22. On Sunday night, August 16, […]