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Ancient Oyo people found it very convenient to follow the Alaafin to Koso (where kings are made); they balked at following the Alaafin to Bara (the king’s burial place): Kòso ló se é b’óba rè; Barà ò se é b’óba lo. Nigeria’s politicians do not lick expiring presidential palms soaked in blood; they go for […]
Continue ReadingI am calm. I am calm. It is the calm before something awful – Sylvia Plath, American poet and short story writer. Convener of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Professor Ango Abdullahi, was asked by the Sunday Tribune in an interview last week if he didn’t think the North retaining power immediately after Muhammadu Buhari […]
Continue ReadingThe naira exchange affliction of 1984 rose up a second time in 2022 and spilled into 2023 because it has always been the choice of Nigeria to submit to vultures. Don’t fail to listen to Chief Bola Tinubu who philosophised in Osogbo last week that despite the rains beating the vulture since the very beginning, […]
Continue ReadingListen to Senator Bola Tinubu Wednesday last week in Abeokuta: “If you want to eat palm kernel, put a stone on the ground; put a palm nut on it, take another stone and smash it on the palm nut. The nut will be cracked and the kernel will come out. You can see that it […]
Continue ReadingGeneral Ibrahim Babangida’s Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) had just finished its weekly meeting. What ministers do with the present occupant of Aso Rock, Abuja –praise and worship – was the lot of IBB then at the Dodan Barracks, Lagos. Toady appointees in abject servitude fawned over the president; everybody must congratulate the leader on […]
Continue ReadingSix 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 […]
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