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Proverbs are not just the palm oil with which yam of words is eaten; they are the yam. Where I come from, there are a million proverbs for every experience of life. Some people are contagiously sick but they hate being told so. They suffer self-deception, the refusal to believe what is true about themselves. […]
Continue ReadingThe Man who looks history in the face’ is the title Professor Wole Soyinka put on the Foreword. Of course, “the man” here is Bisi Akande, the author of ‘My Participations’, an autobiography that is roiling calm across Nigeria. Soyinka endorses the book and the content in an eleven-page Foreword. The Nobel Laureate says Akande, […]
Continue ReadingThere is a huge noise over Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography released on Thursday, December 4, 2021 in Lagos. I have not read the book. But I have read what the media says the book contains. I have also read the book review by a brilliant professor of English at the University of Ibadan who spiced […]
Continue ReadingOn Thursday, October 13, 2017, there was an uproar when the then World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, innocently announced that President Muhammadu Buhari asked his bank to focus its developmental programmes on northern Nigeria. “In my very first meeting with President Buhari, he said specifically that he would like us to shift our focus to the northern region […]
Continue ReadingA month from now, it will be over for the year 2021, and a new year will be born. The Bantu people say the road does not tell the traveller what lies ahead. Is that also true here? I do not think so. We have trodden this crooked road long enough to know its offerings. […]
Continue ReadingThere was a time in this country when one single person was acting prime minister, acting minister of finance and substantive minister of defence. How would a man perform the functions of those offices simultaneously without having an accident? It happened that during that interesting period, the question of purchasing a new office for the ministry of […]
Continue ReadingIn a very recent interview with The New Yorker, an American news magazine, Professor Wole Soyinka was asked to name his favourite song of Fela. He had no problem quickly declaring that “My favorite is ‘Zombie.’” And what was his reason? He answered: “That song, ‘Zombie,’ applies not merely to the military in terms of […]
Continue ReadingThe Ikoyi skyscraper tragedy has more than its 21 fatal floors. It is like wood falling on wood; and more wood falling on wood; a tangled narrative woven by fate and circumstances. The building came down in style: a very huge structure collapsing on itself in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t an implosion and […]
Continue ReadingToday, November 1, 2021, is the 143rd anniversary of the Jalumi War. Some historians call it the Battle of Ikirun but Jalumi (meaning: plunge into river) is the more popular name for the one-day war that commenced at dawn on Friday, November 1, 1878 and was won and lost before dusk same day. Those who […]
Continue ReadingI read Camara Laye’s ‘A Dream of Africa’ in secondary school. I still see the sky-high gate of his walled Africa; the murderous giants and guards; the cowering captives, terrorized and traumatized in their condemned prisoners cells. I remember the homicidal, militant ‘nationalists’ and the ‘revolutionary’ tyrants. I see homelands in the throes of fear […]
Continue ReadingParty politics and adultery have same rule of engagement: there is no commitment to fidelity and conjugal permanence. We are in this thing for a reason and it is for a season. It is not till-death-do-us-part. We respect political seminaries abroad thinking they are homes of decency; but they are also suspects in perverse acts. […]
Continue ReadingAbdulrazak Gurnah, the Tanzanian who won the Nobel Prize in Literature last week has a very interesting definition of honour. He says it means “respect yourself (so that) others will come to respect you.” That is from his ‘Paradise’ – a ‘narrative reversal’ of Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’ Every piece of writing – or speech – […]
Continue ReadingIgboland is the new home of Hades, lord of death and king of the underworld. The land writhes in pains as rough men roast it for supper. Vultures have descended on its forests; hawks feed on its cities. Every dove there is in fearful flight. There is no sacred bird the bad boys are not […]
Continue ReadingAlhaji Baba Ahmed, a Mauritanian cow seller, plied his trade from his country to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and to Dahomey (now Benin Republic). Business was very good but at a point, his customers in Dahomey, with impunity, refused to pay for his cows. Is it not the law that every seller must collect […]
Continue ReadingThe National Assembly last Tuesday received a presidential request for yet fresh foreign loans. This time, it is $4billion and €710million (N2trillion) to finance ‘critical projects’ in the 2021 budget. Our lawmakers will approve the loan request without asking any question. It is not the first loan request this year and it won’t be the […]
Continue ReadingPresident Muhammadu Buhari, last week in Imo State, acknowledged the resourcefulness and enterprising spirit of Igbo people. He said: “The fundamental thing about the Igbo people is that there is no town you visit in Nigeria without seeing the Igbo being in charge of either infrastructure or the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, it is unthinkable for […]
Continue ReadingSomehow, we’ve all, individually, managed to get by and get better but the country gets progressively worse every new day. I thought of how much I paid to get university education – my first degree. The first year, I paid N20 caution fee; I also paid N90 for accommodation. The second year, there was no […]
Continue ReadingScary! One spring night, the pilot of a small plane experienced a complete engine failure. On top of that, he lost his electrical system, and with it, the use of his radio and navigation instruments. Mist filled the sky. The moon had not yet risen. The plane went down helplessly and blindly in the darkness….. I did […]
Continue ReadingSome years ago, an editor-friend told me that he was slapped from behind by someone during his first pilgrimage to Mecca. His offence was that he pointed at ‘something’ with his shoes in his hands. The person who slapped him was not an Arab. The man who slapped him was a Nigerian pilgrim from our […]
Continue ReadingTwenty-four hours after paying an inter-infirmary visit to his co-Londoner, co-APC founder, comrade and power-sharer, President Muhammadu Buhari came back last week to meet his Nigeria as dying as he left it. Nigeria’s definition under him has remained sorrow, tears and blood. In his absence, unremitting mass murders continued casting very long shadows here and […]
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