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On Christmas Day, Bishop of Sokoto Catholic Diocese, Rev. Fr. Hassan Matthew Kukah, shared a homily in which he criticised the regime of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). In the message, Fr. Kukah summed Nigeria’s anomie from insecurity, the rising rate of poverty, and despondency enveloping the country. He concluded his message on a note […]
Continue ReadingLast week Thursday, a group of politicians converged at the presentation of a book about former President Goodluck Jonathan. While there was nothing quite out of the ordinary about the gathering, there was still an interesting moment where the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, went on a self-justificatory spree to explain why he removed the […]
Continue ReadingOn Friday, hundreds of schoolchildren were abducted in Kankara, a community in Katsina State. As of the time of writing this, more than 300 of those schoolchildren were still reportedly missing. This shameful development is a recrudescence of the 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction in the same Borno State. About 125 of those girls have yet […]
Continue ReadingThe news that the National Association of Nigerian Students had elected a 45-year-old Sunday Asefon as their new president, unsurprisingly, met with derision. Yes, I am quite aware that Asefon claims to be a decade younger than his putative age. Still, in a society where people already graduate from tertiary institutions at 20 years, a […]
Continue ReadingLast week Thursday, while at the fourth quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council in Abuja, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, delivered a damning verdict on the abject state of insecurity plaguing northern Nigeria. According to media reports, the Sultan specifically stated that the northern region was the worst place to live in […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday, British lawmakers debated sanctioning Nigerian government officials involved in the attack on peaceful protesters at Lekki on October 20. The petition against the Nigerian government more than doubled the threshold of 100,000 signatures necessary for the lawmakers to attend to it, and they did speak to the issues. In their presentations, they explored […]
Continue ReadingOn Tuesday, the Nigeria Police Force cordoned off the road leading to the Afrika Shrine in Ikeja, Lagos, to prevent an #EndSARS meeting from happening. In a letter to Afrika Shrine’s operators, Lagos State Police Command warned against hosting a potentially volatile meeting at “this perilous time,” and that any consequent social destabilisation will “be tagged a […]
Continue ReadingIn the days since the Democratic Party candidate, Joe Biden, was projected the winner of the 2020 presidential election, some of those who have been shamefaced are the American evangelical preachers that prophesied his victory. These preachers evidently did not learn from the 2016 experience of Pastor Temitope Joshua of the Synagogue Church of all […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday, the Northern States’ Governors’ Forum expressed unqualified support for Aso Rock’s scheme to cudgel Nigeria’s social media ecosystem. This time, their ruse is “the devastating effect of the uncontrolled social media in spreading fake news.” They called “for major control mechanism and censorship of the social media practice in Nigeria.” The Northern governors’ […]
Continue ReadingThe days after Black Tuesday, that fateful day when soldiers committed atrocities at the Lekki tollgate, was the Apocalypse, the revealing of the vulnerability of our collective existence. As the artifices that have upheld our fragile civilisation ripped off, the reality of the horror that underpins our everyday existence was un-concealed. By Wednesday morning, law […]
Continue ReadingOn Tuesday afternoon, when the news first circulated that they were removing surveillance cameras from the Lekki toll gate and that the government could be up to some mischief, my first instinct was to dismiss the alarm. This was no longer 1983, and the state could not be so reckless they would unleash violence on […]
Continue ReadingToday is the 60th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. Given the sheer indifference to this date that the people have exuded, it is hard to claim this as a joyful occasion. Nigerians are barely displaying any excitement at having come this far. Why should they? People are hungry and angry, and the gnawing precariousness of their […]
Continue ReadingWhen the latest brickbat exchange between pastors and Ifedayo Olarinde (aka Daddy Freeze) started, I simply wanted to watch how this round would play out differently from the last time. However, after reading the intervention of the senior pastor of Covenant Christian Centre, Pastor Poju Oyemade, where he made a case for respecting constituted authority, […]
Continue ReadingOn Tuesday, at a ministerial performance retreat in Abuja, Nigeria’s President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), told an interesting story about his USA counterpart, Donald Trump. Given how taciturn he could be, those rare moments when he tells stories about himself are useful insights into his mind. According to Buhari, he was at the White […]
Continue ReadingBy now, most people are aware that some disgruntled lawyers pulled out of the Nigerian Bar Association and formed a splinter group called the “New NBA”. The disengagement was a culmination of the NBA’s rescinding of a speakership invitation extended to the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, for their annual conference held last August. Critics […]
Continue ReadingWords could barely describe how irritated I felt watching the has-been, Femi Fani-Kayode, berate a Daily Trust journalist, Charles Eyo, for asking him what seemed like a gotcha question. From the distance of my phone screen, I badly wanted to intervene to make him stop. What could have called for that “Fani-power” level of vituperation? Anyone who […]
Continue ReadingOn August 7, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, appeared on a live TV show where he announced the hike in the N500,000 fine for “hate speech” in the amended National Broadcasting Commission Code by 450 per cent. According to Mohammed, the increase was to stem the flagrant violation of the code because the […]
Continue ReadingIn Nigeria, when beggars die, there are no comets seen. But when a politician dies, we have to contend with hagiographic writings that fly into the public space seeking to beatify these dubious saints. As noted when the President’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, died recently, the attendant obituarisation-the effusive rain of tributes poured on […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday, I watched as Breitbart, an American right-wing media, streamed a speech by a gathering of doctors in Washington D.C. The doctors had travelled to the nation’s capital to dissent against their fellow doctors’ consensus on COVID-19. The event was organised by Republicans who want to push back against the tyranny of science. When […]
Continue ReadingOn Monday, a rather dull drama erupted while the House of Representatives Committee on the NDDC investigated allegations of creative accounting in the commission. The acting Managing Director of the NDDC, Prof. Kemebradikumo Pondei, purportedly fainted during the probe while being grilled by the lawmakers. Like many other witnesses, I do not believe Pondei fainted […]
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