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On Saturday 18 March 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted the gubernatorial and State Assembly elections to mark the second and concluding round of the 2023 elections. On that day, INEC, the law enforcement agencies and the Nigerian populace were presented with a golden opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the world […]
Continue ReadingWas. Is. Will. The spellbinding sight of the throne would blush King Solomon green with envy. With a grin, the elephant walked majestically towards the throne, swishing his tail as its tree-trunk legs embossed map-like footprints in the brown earth. He clambered up to the throne, turned around, made a throaty sound of satisfaction with […]
Continue ReadingWith the elections over, and at a time you expect the PDP to regroup, the leaders are now squealing on one another. You hear stories of over a thousand vehicles that can now not be accounted for as well as tales of how billions of Naira and hundreds of millions of Dollars were being distributed […]
Continue ReadingThere are many still in shock about February 25th and March 18 elections. This is understandable. In the week before the 20th of February it appeared the Obidient movement had pulled off a miracle and already made good of the first part of the first promise of the Obi/Datti manifesto: To unite and secure Nigeria. […]
Continue ReadingThe prevalence of the comic spirit is one of those distinctive features of Nigerian life and society – one of those things that make us who we are – our capacity to turn every season, every occasion, serious, not so serious, even sombre, into an opportunity for mirth, that is – plain rambunctious, defiant or […]
Continue Reading“The ides of March are come,” Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar says in utter derision and dismissal of a life-and-death warning. And the soothsayer replies “Ay, Caesar; but not gone.” And truly, they were not gone. The 2023 elections should be over by now but they are not. There are people everywhere mocking poets and prophets. Clouds […]
Continue ReadingNigerians must not lose their sense of expectancy in the face of electoral disappointments. Last Monday, a friend sent me videos of some Nigerians tearing their international passports into shreds. My response to her was spontaneous: “Clinical depression may have set it. So, so sad. Well, I don’t have another passport/country yet, so I won’t […]
Continue ReadingDuring lunch with a Fulani friend some weeks ago, he sounded so relieved that power was shifting to the south with the election of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the next president. “It is now the turn of Yoruba people to be profiled and stigmatised. The captions would soon change to ‘Yoruba terrorists’ and ‘Yoruba […]
Continue Reading“If you are unlucky not to have a representative in the judicial council, even if you are innocent, you can be found guilty – B’eyan o l’eni ni’gbimo, bo ro’jo are, ebi lo mi a je.” This very profound saying of the Yoruba, translated into a pithy musical line in one of the tracks of Ayinla […]
Continue ReadingAs the 2023 election cycle comes to a close, the battle for the various political offices will shift to the Tribunals and the courts. Ordinarily this should be a reason for relief. However following some recent decisions of the Supreme Court, what we have is a feeling of trepidation and a fear of the unknown. […]
Continue ReadingMallam Mamma Daura is easily one of the most powerful Nigerians today. Not only because he occupies the amorphous ‘Office of the First Nephew’ as the supreme commander of ‘Aso Rock Cabal’ but also because he knows how to play the power game. Daura is hardly ever seen in public neither does he court media […]
Continue ReadingIn retrospect, one should have expected that the ethnic attacks that blow up in Lagos State around election seasons would be intense this time round. First, this election was the first time since 1999 that another party came close to blowing the lid off the All Progressives Congress’ much-vaunted “structure.” From the traditional rulers to […]
Continue ReadingAs the results of the 25 February presidential election filtered in, it shocked many, especially the political elites in Lagos, that Senator Bola Tinubu (now president-elect) had lost his home state to the candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi. Although the All Progressives Congress (APC) also failed to pull a win in Kano, Osun, […]
Continue ReadingWhen the People’s Democratic Party was in power for 16 years, from 1999 to 2015, many Nigerians, especially members of the opposition, complained of the party’s haughtiness, highhandedness and fixation with victory. PDP was accused of seeing election as a “do-or-die affair.” The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), was a member of the opposition […]
Continue ReadingNigerians looked forward to their just concluded State elections – Gubernatorial and State Houses of Assembly – held on Saturday March 18, with fervent hope that their expectations would be met. They had managed to survive the Presidential and National Assembly elections of February 25 which resulted in controversy, protests, and two of the major […]
Continue ReadingUnder the cover of darkness, a dish was placed on a highway in Lagos at the weekend. It was food for the gods but it was a madman that we saw eating it on Saturday morning. The video trended online in competition with the shrieks of electoral madness which thundered through the Nigerian skies on […]
Continue ReadingThis week, the opening salvo will be fired to signal the onset of the final round of voting in Nigeria’s electoral marathon. This is not a reference to the state-level ballots that occurred around the country on Saturday, 18 March. I refer instead to something far more consequential. Democracy may be about choices and decisions […]
Continue ReadingThe victory of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the February 25 presidential election has answered one or two questions about our nationhood — but it has, at the same time, left many salient and latent issues hanging. Now we know a south-west Muslim can be elected president of this ethno-religiously complex country. Before, it appeared […]
Continue ReadingFellow Nigerians, please, let me express how happy I feel returning to writing my Pendulum column today. Special thanks to the Publisher of Thisday newspapers and Chairman of Arise News Television Channel, Prince Nduka Obaigbena for always inspiring me to excel. So I’m back to what I truly love and treasure, READING and WRITING… But […]
Continue ReadingDear Aunty Temilolu, I will be 34 this year but still single. This was because I made a decision to abstain from sex until marriage. This has made men run away from me after one to three months of dating because I won’t give them what they want. I am not 100% clean because I […]
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