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Six weeks after the civil war ended in 1970, Chief Obafemi Awolowo as Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance, addressed the revolutionary convention of the Nigeria Trade Union Congress (NTUC), the ancestor of today’s NLC and TUC. Chief Awolowo, at that event, listed what he called “the imperatives” necessary […]
Continue ReadingThere is a trending video of a senile Paul Biya, President of Cameroon, at the just concluded US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, DC. He is called to deliver his speech after President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. He comes out, sits down and starts browsing aimlessly through a pamphlet he is holding. He mutters some words […]
Continue ReadingMuhammadu Buhari started his presidency with “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” Will he end as a nobody’s man? Sometimes, and for some, it is gracious to maintain one’s lane, listen to your own vision, single, unattached. French statesman, Charles de Gaulle, who holds the copyright of “I am a man who belongs to […]
Continue ReadingHow to Rig an Election’ is one of the newest books in my library. I have all sorts of friends with a taste for weird writings. One of them, Tayo Koleoso from Saki, Oyo State, but based in the United States, bought and sent a copy of that book to me two weeks ago. “You […]
Continue ReadingThe National Bureau of Statistics in January 2012 released its ‘Nigeria Poverty Profile 2010’ report which contained data covering the previous 30 years. It showed that 17.1 million Nigerians were in poverty in 1980; 34.7 million in 1985; 39.2 million in 1996; 67.7 million in 2004 and 112 million in 2010. The same NBS a […]
Continue ReadingI do not know how many people still remember that Dr Tai Solarin was here. He was one of the most decent human beings ever created for Nigeria. Dr Solarin was a columnist with the Nigerian Tribune for most of his active life. Some 52 years ago (in 1970), he penned a piece with the […]
Continue ReadingWe had an unusual vice chancellor in Ife in the mid to late 1980s. His name is Wande Abimbola, professor of Yoruba Religion, Language and Literature. He loved his students and his students loved him. One day, he warned a sea of protesting students about the real Nigeria and its ways: “My children, don’t let […]
Continue ReadingI want to write about the civil war in Egbe Afenifere, then I remember what happened to the lame orphan who thought he could be the referee in a fight of witches. He was too ‘small’ for that magisterial job. I am too, and so, I will hide behind metaphors and allusions in engaging the […]
Continue ReadingThe Washington Post of May 29, 1979 reported an exchange between President Idi Amin Dada of Uganda and an agent of a British money-printing firm. The Ugandan dictator asked the man to help him print two million Ugandan shillings worth of 100 shilling notes. The Briton accepted the offer but “gingerly” asked Idi Amin how […]
Continue ReadingPeter Obi’s enemies are very clever and audacious. They are determined to ruin him and the promise of his movement. Imagine, they appointed for him a certain Mr. John Ezeigbe Ughulu as his campaign coordinator for Lagos State. Lagos is a Yoruba state in the South-West. Yoruba don’t bear Ughulu. It is an Igbo name. […]
Continue ReadingWhile standing before a judge, any judge, you are a ‘petty man’ even if you are a professor of law. I am not being rude. You shouldn’t have any problem getting my drift if you go back and read William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene II). You meet Cassius telling nobleman Brutus how imperial […]
Continue ReadingI learnt yesterday that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will be visiting Nigeria today. The question I asked the bearer of the great tidings was: When is he going back to his rest in London? He will be arriving Nigeria two days after our urban psychedelic ‘children’ […]
Continue ReadingIn Lawuyi Ogunniran’s Yoruba play, Ààrẹ-àgò Aríkúyẹrí, we see how a happy polygamous family is ruined by the indiscretion of the family head. Ògúnrìndé Ajé, the Ààrẹ-àgò Balógun of Ibadan, man with three wives, throws a party to worship his ‘ori’; he lines up his wives in a singing and dancing bout; the second wife […]
Continue ReadingThe story you are about to read was published by the Nigerian Tribune 38 years ago. It was the lead story of its June 5, 1984 edition. Written by Joe Aladesohun, it was headlined: ‘Man commits suicide’ with a rider: ‘frustration at the bank’. The report: A middle-aged man committed suicide in Ibadan last Wednesday […]
Continue ReadingOn Tuesday, September 6, Liz Truss met Queen Elizabeth at Balmoral, Scotland. We saw her with the queen in a warm handshake as she became Britain’s historic third female head of government. The world clapped and congratulated her. Two days later, the Queen was dead. That is death. Sometimes it comes swiftly and stealthily; some […]
Continue ReadingSpeaking at a book launch in Kaduna Thursday last week, Prof Ango Abdullahi, leader of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), accused some unnamed persons of engaging in destructive campaigns to destroy the north. “I have to state here that we are witnessing some of the crudest and most unproductive campaigns to create divisions between Hausa […]
Continue ReadingOlúségun Obásanjó’s mother told him at the very beginning that if pounded yam is not much, it must be made hard and tough (iyán tí kò pò, ó gbodò yi). Read his biographies. Ashabi Obasanjo Bankole had only him and his sister, Adunni. Her hearth had enough embers, her mortar and pestle had diligence but […]
Continue ReadingLike graceful, snowy egrets basking in the afternoon light, the Pyrates Confraternity sailed out last week on the streets of Lagos. In white and scarlet, they did it with much noise and got lots of shrieks from owls and bats of the night. It was their outing; the beauty of their song triggered the chat […]
Continue Reading“I did not mention it to you. The lady that was among the trio recently freed from the Kaduna train hostage attack is my sister-in-law. She was released after payment of (a huge) ransom… She spent about 80 days with the demons. Look at her picture again; you will see something very dead in her […]
Continue ReadingSinger and songwriter, Bukola Elemide, is better known as Asa. She was paid by the Nigerian state to perform on Tuesday last week in Abuja at the launch of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. Buhari was seated; many others who mis-run Nigeria with him were there too. They expected a Baba-has-done-well song because they […]
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