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The ongoing conversation on the establishment of state police in Nigeria is essentially a debate on Nigerian federalism. The argument that has mostly obfuscated the understanding and indispensability of federalism to the long term survival and viability of Nigeria is its subordination to the ‘Leadership’ factor. Those who make the argument will tell you that what ails […]
Continue ReadingFirst the good news, there is an often ignored critical dimension to debates on the political history of Nigeria and on which Nigeria can justifiably take pride. The default preference of (International) Western scholarship is the evasion of any evidence that runs counter to their narrative of the unrelieved incapacity of Africa in general and […]
Continue ReadingI was at Ada, Osun state, the other day, for the funeral ceremony of the founder and proprietor of the iconic Micom Golf and Hotel Resort, Prince Michael Ayantunde Ponle. Naturally, I went to commiserate with the widow, former deputy governor of Osun state and my admission officer at the faculty of social science, University […]
Continue Reading“The Federal Military Government hereby decrees as follows: Subject to the provisions of this Decree, Nigeria shall on 24th May 1966 (in this decree referred to as ‘the appointed day’) cease to be a Federation and shall accordingly as from that day be a Republic, by the name of the Republic of Nigeria, consisting of […]
Continue ReadingNine months to the January 2027 D Day general elections, this electoral cycle is distinguished by the poverty of the opposition platform. It was predictable. The moment they could not commit to the prescription of the North /South power rotation principle, the opposition lost its most potent instrument of political mobilisation. Says the scripture “There […]
Continue Reading“I am writing as a concerned citizen to seek clarification and reassurance regarding information available to the political opposition leadership about a procurement of approximately 10 kilograms of Thallium Sulphate by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), reportedly from a supplier in Poland.. Given that thallium salts are highly toxic and tightly controlled […]
Continue ReadingNigeria’s Fourth Republic approaches the 2027 elections under familiar stresses and some new strains. Central to the country’s instability is the persistent overcentralisation of power in Abuja, which distorts federalism and undermines prospects for a stable political equilibrium. The immediate background to the inauguration of the Fourth Republic was the precipitate death of the two […]
Continue ReadingA former Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Akin Osuntokun, has dumped the Labour Party for the African Democratic Congress. Osuntokun, a former News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Managing Director, confirmed this to a correspondent of the agency on Monday in Lagos. “Yes, it is correct. I am now in ADC,” he told […]
Continue Reading**”Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin?” —Joseph Addison** For years, a thick fog shrouded Nigeria’s efforts to identify and prosecute those enabling banditry and terrorism. That haze finally began to lift […]
Continue Reading“In a broken society where anyone able to be within the circle of power brokers loot the treasury and take the funds out without investing in the country, Dangote is a welcome relief. Many Nigerians have had the opportunity and advantage to be pioneer investors in many sectors of our economic activities, particularly crude oil […]
Continue ReadingUnlike Professor Wole Soyinka’s Idi Amin caricature, my image of President Donald Trump is very much like Robert Holt’s portrayal of Henry V111, “who started with everything and squandered it all, who had the physical and mental fortitude to endure a lifetime of gratified greed. We recognise in him an archetype, one of the champions […]
Continue Reading“I Don’t Blame BAT, Whoever Knows What Shettima Did Won’t Keep Him Long, Airwaves Can’t Carry It”—Datti Baba-Ahmed The pithy and cryptic line from Datti Baba Ahmed — veteran educator, businessman and former vice principal on the Labour Party presidential ticket — captures the kind of blunt, insinuating commentary that has become his trademark. The […]
Continue ReadingNext to Oduduwa, the eponymous ancestor of the Yoruba, the most significant monarch in Yoruba antiquity is Oranmiyan (purportedly Oduduwa’s son? grandson?). He was as elusive as he was ubiquitous. He holds the record, perhaps, in human history, of being a monarch, three times over, in three different world historic locations during his elastic lifetime, […]
Continue ReadingIn the allegory of the elusive past of Africa, the young traveler was reported to have asked the old man, “What happened to the Black people of Sumer….!?? For ancient records have it that the people of Sumer were Blacks. What happened to them?”* *”Aaaaahhhhh!!!!” sighed the Old man, “They lost their history, and they […]
Continue ReadingThe Yoruba including myself are conflicted about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Since the return to civil democratic rule in 1999, he had actively sought to mentor me. At a point, he actually offered to sponsor me for the governorship of Ekiti state and urged me to cross over to Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. This […]
Continue Reading“This BOOK OF LIES, intended for the INDOCTRINATION of Ibo children into a LIFE OF FALSEHOODS, was written by two Ibo people. It was approved by an agency of the Federal “One Nigeria” Government in the Education Ministry. And it was allowed to be published. I bet it is already in circulation and being taught […]
Continue ReadingOne of the unique and pleasant experiences of my adult life was the uncertain definition of my relationship status with the former Yoruba patriarch, Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade. Between him and my friends (Tokunbo, Deremi and several nieces and nephew) I often wonder whose buddy I really was. Regardless of his preoccupation at […]
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 ReadingThere are two perspectives from which the apparent lopsidedness of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s appointments can be understood.There is the power politics perspective and there is the federalism compliant dimension. The emergent casus belli between the President and the custodians of the Northern Muslim electorate devolves on this lapse. It is amenable to being cited […]
Continue ReadingThe Obafemi Awolowo ‘papal bull’ issued against President Olusegun Obasanjo designating him as number one enemy of the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, was more than enough cue for Awoists to regard bellicosity towards the former President as virtue. You remember the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, party convention in Yola in 1982 dubbed the […]
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