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One 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 […]
Continue ReadingThe journey started with being born to Chief Oduola Osuntokun, cabinet minister, Western regional government from 1955 to 1966 straddling the government of Chiefs Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola. This biological fact was reinforced with being portentously named Akintola. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this name until the Action Group, AG, crisis broke out […]
Continue ReadingBy a consensus of research opinions, Oduduwa arrived and founded the Ife monarchy not later than the 11th century. Afolayan (2004:33) said that ‘Oduduwa might have arrived in Yorubaland sometime around 1100 AD, and Oyebade (2004:53) said sometime around the 7th, 10th or 11th century AD) and Oranmiyan founded the Oyo monarchy in the 14th […]
Continue Reading“Two thirds of people in Scotland identify only as Scottish, not British, according to new findings from the census” “1.8 million people identify as Welsh only (58% of the population) and 218,000 identify their national identity as Welsh-British (7% of the population”) I was reintroduced to the controversy over the origins, wherewithal and proprietary rights […]
Continue Reading“I find it interesting that everybody defines me as being Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with the specific ethnicity [Yoruba]. That’s what I really am. I have nothing in common with the people from the north of the country, Boko Haram, where Islamism is. Those were our ethnic enemies and yet you […]
Continue ReadingFor Dele, Christmas day is coming fifteen days earlier on December 10th. His present ordeal represents a climax of the crucial role he has played in the political firmament of Nigeria. He will be rapturously celebrated on that day. The first time I encountered him was as the lawyer who perfected the title of a […]
Continue ReadingGiven the guardian angel role he has taken upon himself to play in the affairs of Nigeria (since he left office), and a prior not too good disposition towards incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, there was a sense of inevitability about the present altercation between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Tinubu. What is of significance […]
Continue ReadingIn the event of a random sampling of Nigerian public opinion leaders, the probability is that former President Olusegun Obasanjo will be judged the best of all those who have had the privilege of holding the office of President (or as Obasanjo naysayers would say) the one eyed man in the land of the blind. […]
Continue ReadingDeparture Points (1) The Amalgamation Roots Conceptually and objectively speaking, all the evidence of a predisposition to endemic corruption looms large in Nigeria today. The sad reality is that there is no silver lining in the horizon, which in itself fuels more corruption as those opportuned to be in position of authority scampers to insure […]
Continue ReadingGiven the unacceptable reality that Former President Donald Trump was on course to defeat President Joe Biden in the American November Presidential election, I had shut off myself from news regarding American politics. When the former won the election in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, I started avoiding the CNN and any cable TV news channel […]
Continue ReadingThe moment it was announced that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was going to enlist the collaboration of the Supreme Court in seeking financial autonomy for the 774 local governments, I knew it was game over. What we know of the relationship between the Nigerian judiciary and President Tinubu is of the dimension that if he […]
Continue ReadingIt is a platitude to restate that Africa has been impacted negatively by colonialism and imperialism. In varying degrees, English has come to supplant Nigerian languages as the dominant mode of communication. Inevitably, this has bred an attendant recession of pre colonial traditional languages. Moreso the Yoruba, who were unarguably the first to receive Western […]
Continue ReadingThere aren’t many subject-matters as extensively and persistently discussed as federalism. As a matter of fact, ‘in its original form, the federal idea was theopolitical, defining the relationship between God and man as one in which both were linked by covenant in a partnership designed to make them jointly responsible for the world’s welfare’. Properly […]
Continue ReadingOne of the central contradictions of social life in contemporary Nigeria is the application and applicability of religion. Like many other socioeconomic indices in Nigeria, the utility of religion is observed in the breach rather than the rule. It has increasingly become dysfunctional and perverted. The dysfunction is illustrated in the positive correlation between escalating […]
Continue ReadingMy first encounter with royalty and power politics is the stuff of family and Yoruba history. At the end of the Ekiti Parapo war, the architect and motivator of the Ekiti uprising, Prince Ishola Fabunmi and his main lieutenant Dada Akoja (my forefather) returned to Okemesi. The long serving Monarch of the town was Fabunmi’s […]
Continue Reading‘For the modern Yoruba intelligentsia, Ifa is the index of Yoruba wisdom and cultural excellence”-Robin Horton Epega classifies into three groups, those interested in Ifa. 1) Professionals (Ifa priests and diviners. 2) Ifa Devotees-Worshipers. 3) Philosophers-wisdom and knowledge seekers ‘Founded on the beliefs of the earliest Yoruba, Ifa was systematised during the Oduduwa Era. It […]
Continue ReadingIfa is the embodiment of the soul of the Yoruba nation and the repository of their knowledge, religious, historical and medical-Epega As anyone who knows me well can attest, I have been engaged in the study of Yoruba prehistory, especially the Ifa aspect, in the past few years. Hitherto I had embraced this subject matter […]
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