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Grand ancestor of Nollywood, Ayinla Olumegbon’s ‘Wole Wole Arufin’ (The Lawless Sanitary Inspector) was very popular in the 1970s. The story was about a sanitary inspector who was consistent in searching soup and water pots for infractions. His method and diligence regularly paid off – he made arrests which also fetched him fat bribes. But […]
Continue ReadingAye ti ba je! (the world has gone bad). A US dollar exchanged for N504 at the weekend. What this means is that your one million naira cannot buy two thousand dollars worth of anything. It will get worse going forward. On April 13, 2018, UNICEF released a statement in which it lamented that “since […]
Continue ReadingIt was in Hubert Ogunde’s ‘Jayesinmi’ that we last saw witches transforming into cats – black cat, red cat. I never knew witchery and witchcraft have found their way into the curricula of our security academies until the recent Igboho night experience. Media reports said Sunday Igboho had cats as pets and those were victims […]
Continue ReadingOur Minister of Agriculture is Alhaji Muhammad Nanono from Kano State. The Minister of State for that ministry is Alhaji Mustapha Baba Shehuri from Borno State. You are wondering why the two of them come from the far north? Where else do you have farmers in Nigeria except in the North East and the North West? […]
Continue Reading“Whatever the party holds to be the truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the party.” – George Orwell, in Nineteen Eighty-Four. We are entering the era of enforced silence. When you firmly fold your lips, you are not likely to hop into trouble. That is […]
Continue ReadingThe president tweeted a promise of war. Twitter deleted the promise. The government banned Twitter. It has also promised to jail anyone found in bed with Twitter. The Buhari government’s role models on this road to infamy are North Korea, Iran and China. The list is that short. I laugh at Nigerians who say they […]
Continue ReadingThere is an undeclared war going on in the South East. The headlines, in frightening details, painted the lurid portrait yesterday: “Gunmen kill 7 military men, raze police stations;” “Gunmen raze courts in Imo, Abia CID building burnt down;” “IPOB’s stay-at-home order: Tension in Ebonyi, Imo, others.” Then the big one: “Ahmed Gulak shot dead […]
Continue ReadingThe way we mourn tells something about our humanity. I read the Nigerian Army’s three-paragraph, late-night statement announcing the crash of an air force plane on Friday. It said the Chief of Army staff, Lt. General Ibrahim Attahiru “and ten other officers” died in the crash. There was another follow-up three-paragraph statement from the Defence […]
Continue ReadingHave you asked why every saviour always ends up worse than his bad predecessor? King Dionysius (430 BC—367 BC) was famously called the tyrant of Syracuse. He conquered Sicily and southern Italy and made Syracuse the most powerful Greek city west of mainland Greece. But Dionysius was a very cruel king. Almost every citizen of […]
Continue Reading“In an upcoming foreign policy piece, Dr Robert Rotberg and I will argue that Nigeria is a failed state.” That is a 6 May, 2021 tweet from John Campbell, a former United States Ambassador to Nigeria. It should worry all who know that this came from Campbell, author of ‘Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink’ published […]
Continue ReadingVulture means Igún in Yoruba. At the very beginning of time, he was the priest of the earth. The priest was also earth’s doctor. It happened that Olófin, the king in Ile-Ife that time, had his life in total disarray – a life broken like calabash and rent like cloth (ayé e rè fó bí […]
Continue ReadingA normal southern Nigerian citizen would be shocked to hear cries of ‘Jihad now’ or ‘give us sharia or death’ or ‘it is sharia or bloodshed.’ In the fundamentalist north, what will shock the street will be if the rabble refuses to lick blood from the plate of those cries. The huge support which Isa […]
Continue ReadingThere was an open rally against the entity called Nigeria on the streets of Ibadan on Saturday. The organisers wanted a Yoruba country. That it happened where it happened should worry everyone. The Yoruba believed so much in Nigeria and sacrificed so much to make it live and work. Now, the medicine man no longer […]
Continue ReadingZamfara State governor, Bello Matawalle is in the news. He issued a very long statement on Thursday attacking the south in defence of his north. He also attacked anti-Buhari London protesters for their hatred for the president and the north. This governor belongs to the PDP, a political party that claims to be in opposition […]
Continue ReadingIn June 1948, Sir Adeyemo Alakija, President of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, was in Ile Ife with other leaders to inaugurate the Egbe. At that event with the organisation’s founder, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alakija spoke strongly to the imperative of a ‘big tomorrow’ for the Yoruba race. “This big tomorrow,” he said, “is the future of […]
Continue ReadingNorthern leaders are an intriguing lot. They are looking for shortcuts to the top of the palm tree by befriending their nemesis, the bandits. They want peace, yet they express open sympathy for killers. They speak volubly for bandits and have no word of empathy for their own people, daily killed, daily abducted by the […]
Continue ReadingWole Soyinka, last week, wrote about mad cows and madder narratives. Where else do cows, what they eat, how they eat, and where they eat dominate discourses in the 21st century if not in a kingdom of fools? And, again, last week in Ibadan, Nigeria, rotten tomatoes and how they were disposed of claimed lives […]
Continue ReadingRespected Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, has lately been mounting campaigns for amnesty for murderous bandits. He has also been meeting with them in their forested hideouts. This past weekend, the Sheikh went beyond the bandits; he looked south and labeled Yoruba and Igbo youths demanding security, equity, restructuring and true federalism as secessionists who […]
Continue ReadingEven if you feed on tortoise’s head, you should weep reading this young man’s tribute to his dad who was recently murdered by Fulani herdsmen on his farm: “I remember one of our last conversations, I told you I had lost every hope in Nigeria and how I don’t see it becoming better in another […]
Continue ReadingThe president is in Katsina state, he is not on leave, yet the Federal Government sent a delegation from Abuja on Sunday to ‘commiserate’ with the Katsina State government. I do not know if you also find that very awkward. Is that how it is done? What is happening? I know there are persons in […]
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