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Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said in his press statement today that former INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has been appointed an ambassador by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But the list of newly appointed ambassadors circulating on social media names a “Mahmud Yakubu” from Ekiti State. If that list is accurate, two issues stand out. First, […]
Continue ReadingThe events and atmospherics of the past few days in Nigeria feel eerily and frighteningly familiar. They are redolent of the disabling instability and helplessness (and more) of 2014 and 2015 when Goodluck Jonathan was president. Three crises are unfolding in near synchrony. One, there’s a resurgence of Boko Haram activities. Two, there’s an alarming […]
Continue ReadingAtanda Fatayi Williams, the fourth Chief Justice of post-colonial Nigeria (CJN), has not always received the kind of credit that he probably should for a judicial career of impact. Few judicial careers in Nigerian history can compete with that of this grand-son of an Ijebu merchant in terms of both legacy and luminosity. Sworn in […]
Continue Reading“There were many famous warriors in the village during the pillaging by the Fulani and yet the village was swept off almost completely by the invading warriors. This was not because they (the enemies) were stronger but due to their trickery, the people of Eruku became susceptible (vulnerable). When the invaders came, they would besiege […]
Continue ReadingIn the words of an anonymous author, “I love politics. It’s politicians I can’t stand.” Alas, there can’t be politics without politicians. I have watched, in horror, the conduct of Nigerian politicians in the last 26 years and I have been thoroughly appalled at the way they play dirty politics with everything under the sun. […]
Continue ReadingIn Nigeria, elite oppression and callousness are often mostly abstract. Most people at the lower end of the social scale think and feel that many people in positions of power, comfortably ensconced in their sinecures, are haughty, self-impressed, and possessed of ice-cold disdain for them. But it is FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, more than anyone […]
Continue ReadingAn unlikely coincidence of elections in over a period of 45 days period from the middle of September to the end of October 2025 has cast a new light on the state of democratic governance in Africa and now threatens to unscramble the ritual hollowness that has become the fate of elections on the continent […]
Continue ReadingUnlike Professor Wole Soyinka’s Idi Amin caricature, my image of President Donald Trump is very much like Robert Holt’s portrayal of Henry V111, “who started with everything and squandered it all, who had the physical and mental fortitude to endure a lifetime of gratified greed. We recognise in him an archetype, one of the champions […]
Continue Reading“You taught me language, and my profit on it / Is, I know how to curse” (William Shakespeare: ‘The Tempest’). The Nigerian government and the Nigerian Academy of Letters are fighting over which language to use in training our kids. In a recent decision, the government cancelled the language policy which said the first six […]
Continue ReadingA lot happens in Nigeria that, if you did not witness it yourself, you would swear it was impossible. Some events are so bizarre, so grotesque in their violation of common sense and morality, that even D.O. Fágúnwà’s magical adventures in Ìrìnkèrindò Nínú Igbo Elegbeje pale beside them. Yet these are not tales from another […]
Continue ReadingThe crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came to a head over the weekend that just passed, 15 -16 November, when a group of PDP elders – they refuse to be called a faction but that is what they look like – decided against the background of fierce legal battles, to hold the party’s […]
Continue ReadingIt is Soyinka in his dreadful play, “Madmen and Specialists”, who insisted that “Even poison has its uses… You can use it either to kill or to cure.” In a sense, US President, Donald Trump, has fed Nigerians a big dose of Hemlock. It is now up to us to die or live by his […]
Continue ReadingWhen I saw the video of Chief Nyesom Wike, minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), engaging a soldier in a shouting match, my mind raced back to an experience I had some time in 2010. Fuel tankers used to block the road in front of THISDAY offices at Creek Road, Apapa, Lagos state, making […]
Continue ReadingOn 8th April 2012, Boko Haram suicide bombers drove explosive-laden vehicles into two popular churches in Kaduna, killing at least 38 people. They also left dozens of others injured in a terror attack that shook the nation. Exactly 18 days later, another suicide bomber drove into THISDAY premises in Abuja in a deadly attack that I was only lucky to […]
Continue ReadingWe have truly degenerated in Nigeria. Can you imagine a Shehu Shagari as minister in the First Republic behaving this way? Or a Richard Akinjide in the Second? Or Chief Bola Ige in the Third? Public life in Nigeria has lost its dignity. The solemnity once associated with leadership has been replaced by swagger, arrogance, […]
Continue ReadingMany are outraged that President Donald Trump called Nigeria a “disgraced country.” I am too. But my anger is not against Trump. I am angry with President Bola Tinubu who brought this insult on us. The only reason why Trump would disparage this country of over 200 million people is because Tinubu has damaged our collective […]
Continue ReadingSheikh Abubakar Mahmud Gumi (1924 –1992) was shocked when he got to Mecca for the first time in 1955 and discovered that the city had no streetlights. Sheikh Gumi was an Islamic scholar and Grand Khadi of the Northern Region from 1962 to 1967. He was the father of Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, the man […]
Continue ReadingAlthough marriages between partners of different generations often challenge social norms and face criticism, the potential difficulties arise from the fact that these couples may confront unique challenges at various stages of their lives. Differences in individual life experiences, values, and goals can create moments of tension or misunderstanding, requiring patience, adaptability, and effective communication […]
Continue ReadingUS President Donald Trump has finally created space for Nigeria in his busy schedule. “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who […]
Continue ReadingThere are intense discussions going on in Nigeria. Is the United States of America, USA preparing to attack? If it is, what are the targets? A Government increasingly incapable of securing lives and property? The people, so terrified that they self-impose movement restrictions? Terrorists roaming around the country? Bandits, building empires and imposing peace conditions […]
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