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One of my favourite Igbo proverbs says: “What a dog saw and started barking ferociously is the same thing a goat saw and merely grunted.” As young as I am, I have seen so much in this country that when people are barking over a thing, I just sigh. Yet we are reacting to the […]
Continue ReadingShe is many things to many people, different people, depending on where you are standing. In the late 80s and early 90s, to me, and many fashion and style reporters, Folorunsho Alakija was our reference point, the must-get interview. We wanted her voice on our fashion pages and the photographs of her designs definitely lifted […]
Continue ReadingThe political elites of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have chosen to regress to the stone age in matters of election at a time that Nigeria is relentlessly digitalizing in every other sphere. Banking is now almost entirely digitized, POS vendors have become ever-present fixtures in even the remotest Nigerian village, ecommerce is now […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, let me make a quick confession. If you had asked me some ten years ago about the issue of zoning in Nigerian politics, I would have told you pronto that it is not necessary. The reason was simple and straightforward. I didn’t care where the Presidents and others came from as long as […]
Continue ReadingDon’t laugh too hard at my ignorance, but until fairly recently, I used to think Bianca was an Igbo name and thought any non-Igbo person who bore the name did so out of (benign) appellative appropriation—such as many Black Americans who bear African names. Don’t blame me: the first person I ever knew to bear […]
Continue ReadingI lived in London in 2006 when the largest to date cash robbery in that country – and perhaps in the world – happened. It was the robbery of the Tonbridge, Kent facility of the Bank of England by a team of blaggers (that’s how they call thieves in Britain), which included fighter Lee Murray, […]
Continue ReadingHe was so daring early in life that nobody gave him any chance of living up to 87 years on this earth. But here we are: Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka, that is Wole Soyinka for short, is 87 today. On my small part, I did not want anything to do with schooling anymore, being much of a […]
Continue ReadingUntil Tuesday, there were two media-muzzling bills before the National Assembly: one is the Act to amend the Nigerian Press Council Act 1992, and the other is the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission Amendment Bill. Properly speaking, both should have been aptly re-labelled “Decree 4.” Sponsored by one Olusegun Odebunmi representing Surulere/Ogoluwa Federal Constituency of Oyo State, […]
Continue ReadingI doubt there is any Nigerian on WhatsApp who has not watched the 86-second video clip of four policemen rummaging through a burnt station and the emotion-laden speech of one of the officers. With his name tag and service number visible, the leader of the group said, “Good morning fellow Nigerians. See what happened to […]
Continue ReadingPolitical manoeuvres are currently at an advanced stage as the political class position themselves for power through the 2023 election. The political crisis in the country is, however, so severe that Nigeria may not reach that fatidic date in one piece. The problem, as we know, is that politicians are the most focused people on […]
Continue ReadingI had once expressed the view that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), an organisation I am a member of, needs to do more in the struggle against corruption in Nigeria. I had posited an inverse relationship between the rule of law and corruption and expressed the view that the NBA was not doing enough in fighting corruption. […]
Continue ReadingAs the country plunges deeper into chaos, Nigerians are watching Politicians and the ruling class actively causing, partaking and fuelling anarchy in Nigeria. Defections to the APC I was extremely amused when I heard President Buhari’s comment that Zamfara Governor, Dr Bello Matawalle, defected to the APC (All Regressives Congress) because of their exemplary performance […]
Continue ReadingAny day, a cow in a china shop is a recipe for disaster. Anyway, it’s also a metaphor for Nigeria. Anywhere, a cow never frolics in a china shop, except in a great-little country like ours, Nigeria, where it lounges in a china shop; lolling its big horns, swaying its brisk tail and clattering its […]
Continue ReadingIt is not often that cases before a court of law become so important that they get discussed in beer parlours, open places, other rooms and generate so much public attention beyond the court room, even after judgment has been delivered by a court of competent jurisdiction. But it happens, presenting, relative to context, the […]
Continue ReadingThe political stakes as the 2023 general election draws near are almost unimaginable – all the more so because of the overlapping and complementary vulnerabilities of the two leading political parties – accentuated by the public perception of them as essentially Siamese twins. But one is gaining ground, the other is losing. The umbrella of […]
Continue ReadingAye ti ba je! (the world has gone bad). A US dollar exchanged for N504 at the weekend. What this means is that your one million naira cannot buy two thousand dollars worth of anything. It will get worse going forward. On April 13, 2018, UNICEF released a statement in which it lamented that “since […]
Continue ReadingOn July 7, a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled that Mrs Kemi Adeosun, as of the time she was appointed a Minister in the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari, did not need an NYSC Discharge Certificate or any form of waiver to be able to hold such a high public office or contest any election […]
Continue ReadingA gun in many illegal hands is the readiest metaphor for a state consumed by insecurity. The consequence is something even more unnerving and sinister. It is the democratization of the ability to kill through uncontrolled access to arms. Indiscriminate death in the hands of random assailants is perhaps the closest you get to anarchy. […]
Continue ReadingIn ex-President Jacob Zuma’s jailing for 15 months by South Africa’s Constitutional Court, Africa and humanity in general are dragged to school by the nape of their dresses. Author of celebrated Yoruba classic, Igbi Aye Nyi – Life swivels like a wind – Chief T. A. A. Ladele, had earlier taught the world one or […]
Continue ReadingNigeria, a country of roughly 250 ethnic groups arbitrarily coupled together by the British colonialists in 1914, is mired in an “existential crisis”, probably like never before. Apart from the north, it seems every other part wants out. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has long declared its […]
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