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Nightfall in Abuja. Smoke filters through the savannah foliage, skywards. A bird’s-eye view reveals that all is not well under the canopy of forest below as a cacophony of voices rises and falls like traders’ babble on market day. It’s another hunting season in the Forest of a Thousand Demons located in the Ass-o-Rock region, […]
Continue ReadingExpectedly, condemnation has trailed last Thursday’s lynching of Miss Deborah Samuel by her College of Education, Sokoto colleagues for alleged blasphemous post on WhatsApp. As I commiserate with her traumatized family, I hope this unfortunate killing does not degenerate into another Christian versus Muslim crisis, because it is not about religion. The issue is also not […]
Continue ReadingThe catchiest remark I could find on the political scene last week emanated from Kano. In apparent preparation to ditch the ruling APC, make up with his old political foe Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso and join him in the fast-emerging New Nigeria Peoples Party [NNPP], former Kano State Governor and current senator Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, Sardaunan […]
Continue ReadingAt the last Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, May 11, President Muhammadu Buhari directed all ministers and other political appointees who aspire to contest for elective offices in the 2023 general elections to resign their appointments. In compliance with the directive, nine ministers resigned their appointments. The nine former ministers are Rotimi Amaechi, Godswill Akpabio, Ogbonnaya […]
Continue ReadingIt is goldmine season for Nigerian lawyers, meal time, boom time as every election season has been, but now more than ever. Every electoral process, pre- during, and after – often provides opportunities for aggrieved politicians to take their disputes to court, and over the years this has been so much the pattern that lawyers […]
Continue ReadingThe Nigerian Bar Association’s dis-inviting of Nasir El-Rufai from debasing its platform at its last conference due to the pressure of open bar initiative that a man who has outright disregard for the rule of law is not a good teacher for lawyers on the subject is a good example of constructing amoral finishing post […]
Continue ReadingA Sokoto mob on Saturday violently protested against justice for Deborah Yakubu who was murdered by her schoolmates in broad daylight. They wanted her suspected killers released without trial. The mob thought the state did not owe the murdered that duty of care, even in death. She was a Christian from a minority part of […]
Continue ReadingThe stoning to death of Deborah Samuel, a student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, over alleged blasphemy is a timely reminder that retail religious extremism is very much alive and kicking in northern Nigeria. It has been quite a while since killings over “blasphemy” took place in the north and the tendency […]
Continue ReadingThe latest potential outrage in Nigeria is the credible speculation that the two dominant parties, the All Progressive Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP are scheming to present Nigeria with the fait accompli of two northern moslems as their presidential candidates. Both are using the vaunted fanaticism of this subset of the Nigerian […]
Continue ReadingIn Nigeria, saying something is “impossible!” is risking being stranded on the island of reality. This time eight years ago, a section of the country badly wanted the mediocre administration of Dr Goodluck Jonathan gone. It seemed impossible, but it happened. Depending on how the odds align, Jonathan may return to Aso Rock again. That […]
Continue Reading“…In nearly every one of these gatherings across the length and breadth of this vast, impossible country, active open dissections, and excoriations of the government of the day is on rowdy display, capped often by all manner of hare-brained solutions and scenarios on how best to govern and impose order on one of the world’s […]
Continue ReadingAs the melee I describe as the Godwin Emefiele malady gains traction, one anecdote that seems to capture it can be found in the song of late Ibadan, Oyo State-born Yoruba Awurebe music maestro, Alhaji Dauda Epo Akara. The malady is unexampled for its cunning. In it, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Emefiele, seeks […]
Continue ReadingToday is the 35th anniversary of the transition of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. A sage is “a profoundly wise person; a person famed for wisdom.” A sage is also he that is “venerated for the possession of wisdom, possession of judgment and of experience.” That is what my dictionary says ‘sage’ means. In life, […]
Continue ReadingAlthough traces of Islam first came to Yorubaland through the Trans-Saharan Trade (from about the 8th century through the 16th century), which saw Arab traders travel from Arabia through North Africa to parts of West Africa in search of gold, salt, and human labor, it was the mass migration of Malians to the area from […]
Continue ReadingNigerians are aghast over the ballooning list of people who want to succeed Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) as president. There were at least 40 such people last Friday. As most of these people are known to be the men of easy virtue, many Nigerians are outraged. By the time this story is published, the list […]
Continue ReadingWhere should the next president come from? In the unwritten code that guides matters of national politics in Nigeria, the answer is obvious. A northerner will have been president for eight years by 2023 and it is naturally expected that the next one will be a southerner. Ideally, where the next president comes from or […]
Continue ReadingI was among friends who hail from the southeast when the Anambra State gubernatorial election result was officially declared on November 7th last year. Not surprisingly, the outcome provoked considerable excitement in the room. One said, “I can bet that Segun’s next column will be on Soludo”, and turning to me, he added, “I know you like Soludo a lot.” […]
Continue ReadingThe news that actor Yul Edochie took a second wife rebooted discussions about polygamy. Typical of our clime, issues bordering on long complex history too quickly descended into superficial exchanges and self-serving arguments. It gets worse when the interventions are headlined by a self-labelled “deep thinker” whose grasp of any issue hardly goes beyond his […]
Continue ReadingI was wondering on this Sallah Day what happened to numerous schemes, programs and agencies that Government rolled out in the last 50 years, and what this country would have been like if many of them had delivered even 10% of their tall promises. An official told me recently that the Federal Government of Nigeria […]
Continue Reading“My brother, when are you declaring for President?” “Which President? I am already a President in my own right. I am the President of my house.” “That is not the kind of President I am talking about. I mean a President with the big P, not the small one that gives you a delusion of […]
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