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Decades ago, my late mother pointed at a house to me: “Someone in that house once snatched someone’s wife. In the evening, when it was time for husband and wife to sleep, a storm swept into the bedroom and carried off their sleeping mat. Then pandemonium followed…Ó di b’óòlo o yàá mi.” She described that […]
Continue ReadingA tree does not fall in the forest and kill someone at home. That proverb may be true one hundred years ago. It has expired; its truth is lost to the ravages of this century’s technology. Check what Iran and Israel are sending to each others from a billion kilometres apart. They are pressing buttons, […]
Continue ReadingMODERATOR: We take this space for ‘The Sick Nation Debate’, a town hall exchange between two political tendencies recommending themselves to our sick nation. Today’s edition is between the ruling APC and a budding coalition which, for now, uses the ADC label. We start in alphabetical order. APC: Alphabetical order? No. A good debate should […]
Continue Reading“When lions battle, jackals flee.” Isaac Newton wrote that to his bitter rival, Gottfried Leibniz. It was a barbed remark on their feud over who between them first invented calculus. The more you read of the mutual respect those two had for each other, the more you wonder why they ended their respective careers in […]
Continue ReadingIf you think there are too many beggars on your street, please take heart. A trending video is showing a massive throng of Nigerian children and women being deported from Ghana where they were found doing street begging. They are said to be part of thousands of West Africans on Ghanaian streets. About 10,000 are […]
Continue ReadingIn Yoruba, there is a proverb: “Ojú l’arí, ọ̀rẹ́ ò dé ‘nú” — literally it means ‘we only see the face; friendship does not go deep inside.’ That is the name the Group Managing Director of the NNPCL, Mr Bayo Ojulari, bears. The name calls attention to why appearance and essence sometimes wear different colours. […]
Continue ReadingOne hundred and seventy-nine Anambra kings gave President Bola Tinubu a chieftaincy title last week. They said the title, ‘Dike si Mba’ means “Warrior from the Diaspora.” That title, plus its translation, get as e be. I heard them and asked questions. If they didn’t translate it, I would be quiet. But they did. Why […]
Continue ReadingWhen vultures surround you, stay awake so that you do not die stupid death. Whether you are in business or you are in politics or you are anything of value, stay alive and stay alert. People shave people’s heads in their absence. In 1938, Britain was rumoured to have toyed with the idea of donating […]
Continue Reading“I am a defector, my dictionary defines the act of defecting as ‘abandoning a person or a cause, apostacy, revolt, backsliding.’ Not to put too fine an edge on it, I am a traitor…” (Joseph Frolik in ‘The Frolik Defection: The Memoirs of an Intelligence Agent’). If in 2003 Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu did what […]
Continue ReadingI found myself inventing that verse as today’s headline. The verse came sounding like “The Lord is my shepherd/ I Shall not want…” The twenty-third Psalm. Yesterday was Easter Sunday; today is Easter Monday. All Judases are shamed. Life here is bitter as brine. The green pastures are withered. The still waters are poisoned. More […]
Continue ReadingOn 9 June, 1913, Lord Friedrick Lugard minuted on a document that Lagos “could never be made a healthy place.” It was his reaction to a proposed sewage scheme estimated to cost £186,000. He believed that that amount was too vast to expend on an unworthy Lagos. He was Governor of Southern Nigeria at that […]
Continue ReadingA short four minutes, thirty three seconds video of what looks like Kogi senator, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, worshipping at the Osun shrine in Osogbo is trending. If she is truly the one in the video, then her traducers better back off before the deluge comes with its fury. You do not beat the child of the […]
Continue ReadingThe Nigerian presidency is an energizing elixir. It has proven to be very effective in breathing life into dry bones. To old creaky engines, it gives deep cleaning; it replaces worn parts and upgrades the lubrication system. Olusegun Obasanjo went in there and got transformed from an imprisoned stork to a clean-shaven ladies’ egret. The […]
Continue ReadingPresident Nnamdi Azikiwe was certain that the 1964 federal elections were a farce and should not produce a legitimate government. By hook and by crook, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa’s Nigerian National Alliance (NNA) party got (about) 200 of its candidates elected into a parliament of 312/313 members. The winners wrote the election results and gave themselves […]
Continue Reading“Possibly he cohabited with Miss Bloggs, but don’t mention it in front of his wife, let the sleeping dogs lie.” Gordon Jarvie’s ‘Dictionary of Idioms’ contains that example of a warning that has been with us since Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1385 epic poem, Troilus and Criseyde. When the storm is angry and howling, the wise stay […]
Continue ReadingThere is a royal family in Lagos called Oniru. In the earliest times when there was no Lagos and Eko knew its boundaries, that family owned all lands that house today’s Awolowo Road, the prime area called Falomo, Tafawa Balewa Square, the Independence Building, Island Club, Yoruba Tennis Club, et cetera, et cetera. Add Oyinkan […]
Continue ReadingIn five parts, thirteen chapters, six appendices, including an interview; a prologue and an epilogue, he sought to give a definite definition of himself. But, for me, the deepest insight into the person of General Ibrahim Babangida is not in his expensive book (it fetched him billions; I bought a copy for N40,000). The greatest […]
Continue ReadingAfenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, died on Friday. He would have been 100 years old if death had not been too fast; if it had waited three more years plus two months. An age of almost a century is a huge haul, a boon anywhere. Yet, when the 96/97-year-old’s death was announced four days ago, […]
Continue ReadingIt happened one sunny day in mid-May 2003. I was preparing to go to the office around noon when Tayo, the editor’s secretary, called me. “Mr Olagunju, don’t come to the office, Baba Adedibu is here looking for you. He came with his boys.” There were no two birds bearing ‘hawk’ in the skies of […]
Continue ReadingEach time we hear or read outsiders say they are fighting for Yoruba Muslims, some of us (Yoruba Muslims) laugh. Who told them that we cannot fight our war ourselves – if there is a war? A statement signed by an Imam Haroun Muhammad Eze on behalf of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs […]
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