The discipline that makes the record a record — what we cite, what we refuse, how we correct, and how we ask to be cited in turn.
The Source Tiers
Tier 1 · Tier 2 · Tier 3 · Tier 4 · Redline
T1.Primary
Courts, gazettes, the National Archives
Judgments of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court. The Federal Government Gazette. CFRN 1999 and its Alteration Acts. Records held by the National Archives of Nigeria (Ibadan, Enugu, Kaduna). FOI Act disclosures.
Citation required
T2.Corroborating
Independent investigative outlets
OCCRP. Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International. BudgIT. Premium Times. TheCable. The Africa Report. NEITI. ICIJ. Sahara Reporters where corroborated against a primary document.
Two minimum
T3.Historical
Peer-reviewed scholarship
Monographs of the University Press of Ibadan, OAU, Ahmadu Bello, LSE African Studies, SOAS, Edinburgh African Studies. Cited for context only — never as the sole authority on a finding.
Context only
T4.Tertiary
Wikipedia, encyclopaedic aggregators — flagged, never load-bearing
Wikipedia and similar aggregators are permitted only as a tertiary reference, and only where a primary or secondary source is still being verified. Every such citation is flagged 'Tertiary' on the entry. They are never the sole authority on a finding, never used to establish disputed facts, and every entry that relies on one is open to correction the moment a Tier-1 or Tier-2 source is found.
Flagged on entry
R.Redline
Partisan blogs and unsigned aggregators are never cited
Substacks of record (signed, with an editorial standard) are treated as Tier 2 where they meet that bar. Unsigned blog posts, anonymous Telegram channels, and party-aligned 'news' sites are never cited, never used as 'a starting point', and do not appear in the link graph of the archive.
No exceptions
Editorial Rules
1.Allegations
We never assert; we cite the forum
Where a public figure has been alleged to have committed an offence, the entry records the forum in which the allegation was made, the date, and the disposition — convicted, acquitted, struck out, pending, withdrawn.
2.Money
Naira figures are nominal, with year
Sums are recorded in the currency and unit of the source document. Where comparison is useful, we provide a CBN-consistent USD equivalent at the year of the transaction, never today's rate.
3.Names
Spellings follow the gazette
Where the Federal Government Gazette and a private outlet disagree on spelling, transliteration, or honorifics, the gazette prevails. Cross-references are added for searchability.
4.Corrections
Public, dated, attributed
Every correction is published with the date, the prior text, the new text, and the source on which the change is based. Corrections are accepted within seven days of a verifiable submission.
5.Right of reply
Any named person may reply, on the entry
Any person, office or institution named in the archive is entitled to submit a reply of up to 400 words which is appended verbatim, dated and signed, to the relevant entry. The reply does not abridge the underlying entry where the entry rests on a primary document. Replies and corrections are submitted through the contact form on this site — by editorial rule, no email address is published anywhere on The Republic.
6.Living persons
Allegations are attributed to the forum, never asserted
Where the archive reports an allegation against a living person, the entry names the forum (a court, a panel of inquiry, an Auditor-General's report, a named newsroom investigation) and records the disposition: convicted, acquitted, struck out, pending, withdrawn, denied. We do not impute a criminal offence to a person whom a competent court has not so convicted. The legal terms governing publication are set out on the /legal page.
Citation, Republication & Partnerships
CC BY-NC 4.0 · contact via form
The Republic is a public archive. Read it, quote it, teach from it, print it, save it. We only ask that you cite us so the next reader can find the same record — and write to us if something is wrong.
C1.Citing us
Short form (in-text or footnote)
The Republic, "<Title of the entry>", retrieved <YYYY-MM-DD>. URL: therepublic.extrafemi.com/<path>. Long-form copy from any page of this archive automatically attaches this citation to your clipboard. Printed pages carry the same line as a footer.
Automatic
C2.Citing us
Long form (academic / journalistic)
The Republic (2026). "<Title of the entry>." The Republic — A People's Archive of Nigerian Public Life. Retrieved <YYYY-MM-DD> from https://therepublic.extrafemi.com/<path>. Cite the entry, not the homepage; every entry has a stable URL.
Stable URL
C3.Partnerships
Republication, syndication & data partnerships
We license the archive for non-commercial educational reuse without charge under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). Commercial republication, dataset licensing, and embeddable widgets are negotiated case by case. Use the contact form on this page with the intended use, audience and time horizon.
Contact via form
C4.Donations & corrections
Two ways to keep the record honest
If a date, name, sum or finding on this site is wrong, send the source with the correction through the contact form — we publish the correction with date, prior text, new text and the source on which we changed our mind. Donations support primary-source acquisition (gazette runs, court transcripts, NAN microfilm, archival scanning) and keep the archive free for every Nigerian to read. Bank and card details are sent on request through the same form.
Public corrections
C6.Editorial rule
No email address appears anywhere on this site
By standing editorial rule, no email address is published anywhere on The Republic — not on this page, not on the legal page, not in the printed-page footer, not in the copy-watermark. Every form of contact (corrections, right of reply, partnerships, donations, press) is routed through the contact form below. The form posts to a server endpoint, and the editors receive the message inbox-side. This protects readers from spam-harvesting and means there is no email address to spoof.
Form only
C5.Acknowledgements
Archivi.ng and the wider open-source archive ecosystem
Where archivi.ng (the Nigerian community archive) has been the discovery path for an entry — particularly for 19th- and 20th-century resistance figures, regional polities and post-1960 cultural episodes — it is credited on the entry's source list. We treat archivi.ng as a Tier-2 corroborating source and are grateful for its existence. We are not affiliated with it.
Tier 2 · Credited
Contact the editors
No email address · form only
Corrections, right of reply, partnerships, donations and press enquiries all use the form below. Editors respond within seven days.