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The scholar and researcher had taken a trip to an open market. There, he met a female fishmonger. Attracted by the casual attention this researcher paid to a croaker fish on display in her stall, the lady attempted to win this potential buyer to her stall. So, she began to dish out a combination of […]
Continue ReadingNative Brazilians arrest monkeys with what is called Cumbuca. They make a hole in a gourd that is big enough to accommodate the hand of a monkey. The gourd is then affixed to the ground of a place infested by monkeys. Placed inside the gourd is usually a banana for the attraction of the monkey. The monkey […]
Continue ReadingWhether real or imagined, none of the metonyms for “Lagos boy” is complimentary. The “Lagos boy” moniker once came up in the late 1980s. Commodore Olabode George, then military governor of Ondo State, had just been removed from office after spending two years. The African Concord magazine then did a post-mortem of his turbulent rule. Newly purchased […]
Continue Reading“I know the arithmetic of the budget and the numbers that I brought to the National Assembly, and I know what numbers came back… Those who are talking about malicious embellishment in the budget; they did not understand the arithmetic and did not refer to the baseline of what I brought,” President Bola Tinubu declared […]
Continue ReadingTalented filmmaker, Tunde Kelani, recalibrated a popular Yoruba folklore in his famous Agogo Ewo (the forbidden gong) movie. A supremacy battle ensued between Eledumare – God, and Land. The two earthly ancient principalities had gone hunting and jointly killed an Emo rat. When it was time for sharing of the game, both got locked in a duel […]
Continue ReadingThis is what Kurumi’s Ijaye looked like after it was attacked and defeated by Ibadan forces in 1860/61: “Old people, men and women and young children were being carried to the river Ose to die,” wrote John Iliffe in his Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland. He continued: “Whilst many others were left to perish in the streets. […]
Continue ReadingThe porcupine is a large rodent that is clothed with a thick coat of sharp quills. These spines protect it from rampaging predators. When it feels threatened, the porcupine shoots the arrows of its spines at its assailants. These deadly quills pierce the intending attacker, thereby allowing the animal to escape harm. As such, in […]
Continue ReadingNorthern Nigeria used to have a cult of power called the Kaduna Mafia. This Mafia decided who would become the Nigerian president, which road to build or to abandon, which industries to be sited and where. When it couldn’t help but hand the reins of power to the South, it determined which weakest link to […]
Continue ReadingFor the Algerian journalist, editor and editorialist, playwright and director, novelist and author of short stories, political essayist and activist, Albert Camus, life is meaningless and absurd. To him, it is inexplicable why we live, struggle all through and die. The meaninglessness of life is explained in his book, The Myth of Sisyphus, where he captures the […]
Continue ReadingIt was 25 years ago; Saturday, 10 October, 1998 to be precise. We were all inside the living room of the Yaba, Lagos modest home of Frank Ovie-Kokori. We were waiting for our heroes. In the heat of the June 12, 1993 presidential election validation saga, Kokori was secretary-general of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum […]
Continue ReadingLast week, in the ancient city of Ibadan, Oyo State, two bedfellows, journalism and history, became objects of attraction. The duo have always existed in a Siamese matrimony. As a way of emphasising this liaison, some scholars have defined journalism as history in a hurry. So, this day, Thursday, 30 November to be exact, inside […]
Continue ReadingNational Security Adviser (NSA) Nuhu Ribadu, always wears a permanent visor of one who needs to be pitied. Last Monday, however, he advertised far more pity with his pithy speech. The venue was the Chief of Defence Intelligence 2023 Annual Conference in Abuja. His white babanriga fluffing angelically and struggling to cling to his lean […]
Continue ReadingIs there any connect between law and public opinion or judgments and public opinion? Before Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad’s valedictory speech at the Supreme Court last Friday, the connect or disconnect between those two had begun to assume a life of its own. The presidential election judgment delivered by the Supreme Court the day before […]
Continue ReadingFather of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, must have had the conversation last week between Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and the recently cleared Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) Ola Olukoyede in mind. While propounding the theory of what is now known as Freudian slips in his 1901 book he entitled The Psychopathology of Everyday […]
Continue ReadingWho is the man who today sits atop the presidency of Nigeria? What is his name? Who are his parents? Who are his childhood friends? What was his childhood like? What primary school did he attend? Where did he attend secondary school? Or, the university? Is he a criminal? Is he a serial forger? On […]
Continue ReadingProfessor Akinwumi Isola’s Efunsetan Aniwura (1981), the first play written in 1961-62 while he was a student at the University of Ibadan, is highly celebrated. It is a historical drama which reflects proceedings of the 19th century reign of the heroine, second Iyalode (Queen of women) of Ibadan, Efunsetan Aniwura. Aniwura – one with a surplusage of gold – a fiery, Egba-born […]
Continue ReadingYoruba have a way with the Sigidi, whose closest modern translation is the robot. So when the Sigidi – a moulded clay effigy – at the height of its self-destruct, asks that it be taken to the river to swim, Yoruba say a catastrophe is in the offing. They render this as, Sigidi nse’re ete, […]
Continue ReadingInitial applauses from Bretton Woods and some local economists that greeted the economic reforms of the Bola Tinubu presidency were deafening. The reforms were termed bold and courageous. The most surgically painful of them, which drilled deep down into the marrows of Nigerians, was the removal of fuel subsidy. In a country that is almost […]
Continue ReadingThis season, President Bola Tinubu is harvesting big pods of cocoa from his plantation. His co-farmers are looking at him with concentrated envy. And jealousy. Exhilaration is in the air. In the last two weeks, he has shown tremendous energy towards changing the status-quo. His suspension of Central Bank (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, is exciting […]
Continue ReadingThe Batá is a Yoruba drum that is in a class of its own. It used to be highly venerated in social and political circles as its percussion impacted virtually all spheres of life. It is a double-faced drum shaped by its crafters to look like an hourglass, with one end of it bigger than […]
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