News, Events, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Inspiration and yes… Gossip! The Only Place It Happens!
Two major projects were announced in Abuja last week: a polytechnic and a military barracks. Both were named after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I thought the president would say no to such fawning sycophancy. But no. He appears to love it. He actually sat and presided over the inauguration and naming of the barracks. A […]
Continue ReadingSome 15 years ago, millions of poor Nigerians were conned into borrowing to buy bank shares. I was one of them. I had no one to pull my ears and tell me that I needed to be educated first before seeking to hoe that farm of thorns. Records still say I am a shareholder of […]
Continue ReadingThe people of Lagos should thank their stars that their state is not a country. If it were, it would have seen worse times than Gabon of the Bongo family. Even without being a country, Lagos already has big and small Bongos with each of them exacting worship from wayfarers and home-sitters. One of them is […]
Continue ReadingThe oba under our law is not a king; he is a chief. That is why the law governing the appointment and removal of the oba and his ijoye is called Chiefs Law. The colonial government made it so. The oba was not recognised as king by the law – because the English king/queen was […]
Continue ReadingWe say in Yoruba that if we do a census of slaves, slaves will be sad. History, an account of facts of the past, is always injurious to the health of sick nations. And, Nigeria is sick. We’ve all become ethnic nationalists – especially after the coming of the last regime. Questions previously unasked are […]
Continue ReadingI died one bright day in 1969 — yes, died; crushed by a motorcyclist. It happened on Ileya Day (Eid el Kabir) in my hometown. I did not know, and still do not know, how it happened. All I know is that I was following my father to the Eid praying ground in the morning, […]
Continue ReadingIf the elites of the North will not ‘give’ President Bola Tinubu a second term, who told them that the South will give power back to them in 2027? Leper losing his needle presents peculiar problems. It is not two years since power changed hands in Nigeria but the jungle is already rumbling. Mordant cries […]
Continue ReadingAdeola was a destitute woman with neither a surname nor a known relative who died at 1:15 p.m. on Friday, 29 June, 1888 at the Colonial Hospital in Lagos. She was buried at 4 p.m. the following day at Ereko Cemetery, Lagos. The manner of her death on Friday and burial on Saturday was to […]
Continue ReadingThere is the legend of a newspaper journalist who had an issue with his uncle, an oba in present-day Osun State, and threatened the king with death. The man needed a favour; the oba closed his eyes to the man’s demand. “Kabiyesi, you will die,” he reportedly informed the oba. “Iku boo?” Everyone who heard […]
Continue ReadingNigeria is a ring of iniquity. And, the iniquitous didn’t start with it today. For several years, I covered the activities of several military governors and administrators in Oyo State. Each of those well-trained minds came with their peculiarities. Colonel Ahmed Usman (God bless his soul) was particularly voluble. Whenever he spoke, it was as […]
Continue ReadingIt happened that the NCNC-controlled Ibadan District Council (IDC) under the chairmanship of Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu chose a Saturday, 7 January, 1956, to sit. The council took a decision at that meeting to suspend the salaries of the Olubadan, Oba I. B. Akinyele; Otun Olubadan, Chief Yesufu Kobiowu and the Balogun, Chief Salawu Aminu. Councillor […]
Continue ReadingWahala no dey finish for Nigeria. Because President Bola Tinubu appointed an acting Chief of Army Staff last week, my northern friend sent me a WhatsApp message from Zaria: “It comes as a surprise as Oduduwa takes over the lead agencies of the critical safety sector: Army (military), Police (security), DSS (Intelligence), EFCC (anti-corruption).” My […]
Continue ReadingPatient walks unaided into the doctor’s consulting room. Patient soon suffers mismanagement. She goes pale and jerky, unconscious. Doctor gives his best shot – or so he claims. Patient is not responsive. Doctor strolls off, leaving the patient to sip his tea. Doctor comes back and sees worsening symptoms: Cold hands. Weak pulse. Fatigue. Incontinence. […]
Continue ReadingAll music comes from Africa,” African pop singer, Angélique Kidjo, told an interviewer in 2023. Kidjo’s dad is Fon; her mum is Yoruba. In locating Africa as the source of all music, she was saying that in our music and in our songs are all things that interest, excite or worry humanity. In that same […]
Continue ReadingChief Obafemi Awolowo’s 1947 book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’, opens with three quotations. The first tells the reader: “This above all: to thine own self be true…” It is from William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. It simply says do not deceive yourself – like the one with a sore in the right leg but who nurses the […]
Continue ReadingThere was a time in this country when professors earned more than federal permanent secretaries. That was before Nigeria happened to itself. A professor in 1973 was on a consolidated annual salary of £3,000; permanent secretaries earned £2,800. Today, the most senior professors do not take home N450,000 per month; federal permanent secretaries gross N1.3m […]
Continue ReadingAre Nigerians hungry because they’ve been drinking too much free beer and now the brewery is bankrupt? I ask because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu waxed rhetorical Thursday last week as he dissected the very bad hunger wracking his country and its more than 200 million people. “I understand we are hungry, but no free beer […]
Continue ReadingI always wonder why it appears difficult for President Bola Tinubu to defeat banditry in Nigeria. The president’s most popular chieftaincy title is Jagaban Borgu. Jagaba means chief warrior in Hausa – one of the two dominant languages in Borgu of Niger State. It would translate to either Balogun or Aare Ona Kakanfo in Yoruba. […]
Continue ReadingAt 89, old age has confined Dr. Omololu Olunloyo to the wheelchair, but he remains as sharp as he was 29 years ago when I first met him. He still does not wear eyeglasses, even to read. A genius who proved his prodigy as a toddler. I thought I should visit him and inform him […]
Continue ReadingNothing we do or say now will change Nigeria unless it turns back from its present plunge. Nothing. “No spring changes the desert. The desert remains; the spring runs dry. Not one spring, not thirty, not a thousand springs will change the desert…” That quote is from ‘Two Thousand Seasons’, a tumultuous novel by Ayi […]
Continue Reading