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I know not what qualifies me to be your choice of speaker at this maiden event but believe me, I am here with delight because my recollections of, and my interactions with the Body of Benchers fill me with nostalgia. As a young law graduate applying to the Nigerian Law School, the fear of the […]
Continue Reading“Omo, how was your weekend? I saw you wearing Aso Ebi up and down, doing and co? Public intellectual wearing aso ebi.” “Family matters. I had a rather busy week. One of my in-laws was burying his mother. There was also this Wema Bank at 80 ceremony. And then we had to attend Papa Adebanjo’s […]
Continue ReadingWhen vultures surround you, stay awake so that you do not die stupid death. Whether you are in business or you are in politics or you are anything of value, stay alive and stay alert. People shave people’s heads in their absence. In 1938, Britain was rumoured to have toyed with the idea of donating […]
Continue ReadingDr. Tunji Alausa, minister of education, made a frightening disclosure on Monday that, predictably, attracted little attention: Nigeria has a shortage of 600,000 medical doctors. Kindly read that again, this time slowly. Our attention is devoted to the 2027 presidential election, so we can be excused for missing the unhealthy piece of news. Nigerians were […]
Continue ReadingYesterday In the understanding of ‘ethnicity as the expression of solidarity and common loyalty of peoples who share among themselves a country and a culture’- Chief Obafemi Awolowo was right to commit himself to the notion and evolution of ethnic solidarity among the Yoruba. To put it in his precise phrase “I would see to it […]
Continue ReadingFrom last week, continues the statement by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, explaining why he permitted the meeting of the Western House of Assembly following the Action Group crisis and the subsequent declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region It must be on the strict understanding that there will be no police protection […]
Continue ReadingOne of the stories that struck me recently was about a young girl who gained admission the university last year but had to abandon her studies a few months later because she got pregnant. When asked who was responsible for the pregnancy, she claimed she couldn’t say for certain, as two young men were involved, […]
Continue ReadingThe ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is in a celebratory mood as more politicians defect, depleting the ranks of the rival Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. In what was like a tsunami in Delta State, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa and their political appointees, defected. However, such defections are not unexpected as the ruling […]
Continue ReadingFrom last week, the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, on May 29, 1962, summoned an emergency meeting of the Federal House of Representatives which was then the Federal Parliament in Lagos and moved a motion on the Action Group crisis The motion reads thus: “I rise to move the Resolution standing in my name […]
Continue ReadingI was abroad when the CBEX scandal broke: somehow, I tend to be out of town when Nigerians get into very serious trouble but it has been my singular misfortune, and this has happened so many times for close to four decades, to discuss other people’s misfortune. Occupational hazard, I guess. The choice I have […]
Continue ReadingIt was almost impossible not to be infected by the joy writ large on the face of the One-party state Villa-fawning group this past week. It was akin to winning a tombola. The Mauritanian-Nigerian ex-spokesperson for the Arewa Elders Forum and until of recent, Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, would […]
Continue Reading“I am a defector, my dictionary defines the act of defecting as ‘abandoning a person or a cause, apostacy, revolt, backsliding.’ Not to put too fine an edge on it, I am a traitor…” (Joseph Frolik in ‘The Frolik Defection: The Memoirs of an Intelligence Agent’). If in 2003 Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu did what […]
Continue ReadingIf economic health, social vitality, and the raw pulse of public opinion were the only indicators relied upon to prognosticate the chances of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reelection in 2027, I would say with cocksure certitude that he is condemned to be a one-term president. Not even the most hopelessly unthinking defenders of the Tinubu […]
Continue ReadingGovernor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta state has ended weeks of speculation by defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is significant: this is the first time Delta state would not be governed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since the dawn of the fourth republic in 1999. He has relocated to the APC with […]
Continue ReadingLong before the late Sergei Mavrodi arrived on the Nigerian financial scene in November 2015 with his MMM pyramid scheme, his reputation as an international fraudster preceded him. As far back as 2007, Mavrodi had been convicted in Russia for defrauding 10,000 investors. But somehow, he survived brushes with the law over sharp practices to go global with […]
Continue ReadingChina and Nigeria, two continental giants that entered the late 1970s with similar per capita incomes, have since taken opposite economic trajectories. In China, the decisive moment was Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 decision to “open the windows” and let the world’s capital know-how to blow in. In Nigeria, the same decade ushered in the oil boom […]
Continue ReadingAdelabu Adegoke was one of the most flamboyant and charismatic politicians in pre-independence Nigeria. When one day, the press asked him about deliberations in the Western Region House of Assembly, he replied that it was a “peculiar mess”. He pronounced the words with a Yoruba intonation making the two words sound like “Penkelemesi”. So, his […]
Continue Reading“Traditional democracies will end up on the garbage heap of history” – Alberto Fujimori, 1938-2024, Peruvian President, 1998, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 37. I started the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS in 1965 and got it published in 2007 – 42 years after. The first quote which caught my attention was by Dr Samuel […]
Continue ReadingAbimbola’s eyes had seen 999 battles; so, one more battle would not make him go blind. Having survived a milestone of battles, it was natural for Abimbola to deploy his greatest weapon, Ifa, to prosecute the students’ battle that raged during his tenure as vice-chancellor of the University of Ife. The Babalawo’s eyes had seen […]
Continue ReadingPope Francis who died yesterday morning, April 21, at the age of 88 was a trailblazer in more than one respect and definitely one of the most influential figures of the 21st century: the first priest of the Jesuit Order (Society of Jesus) to occupy the Throne of St. Peter as sovereign of the Vatican […]
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