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The quit notice served on the Fulani community in Igangan, Oyo state, by a non-state actor, Chief Sunday Igboho, is a timely reminder that Nigeria is at the risk of becoming a failed state. In my previous article, I argued that no private individual should have such powers in a modern nation-state. But with unending […]
Continue ReadingRecent events in south-western Nigeria, as I would offer to think, are not ordinary. First, Chief Sunday Adeyemo (also called Sunday Igboho), a private citizen described as “youth leader”, stormed the Fulani community in Igangan, Oyo state, and gave them seven days to vacate the land, failing which he would expel them. The “grassroots mobiliser” […]
Continue ReadingHooligans invading the Capitol Hill, disrupting the certification of presidential election result and desecrating the symbol of American democracy? That would be art imitating life. That would be the Machiavellian and eccentric President Frank Underwood doing his thing in the House of Cards on Netflix. But, no, this is life imitating art. This is US […]
Continue ReadingWhat a year. WhatAyear. What. A. Year. Muddled and fragmented. Masked up and washed up. It was a tasteless year, the year we could barely smell the coffee, the year humanity was severely fatigued. It was the year that soaked our hands in an ocean of sanitizers and distanced us from each other. It was […]
Continue ReadingApprehension. Relief. Apprehension again. My emotions went full cycle in seven days. The abduction of 344 students of Government Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina state, had whipped up a frightened feeling of déjà vu in me. The Chibok schoolgirls in April 2014 readily came to mind. More so, I feared that these boys could be turned […]
Continue ReadingIf you take time to study Nigeria since 1960 — when we began to govern ourselves — you would notice an unrelenting constant: bloodshed. From political violence to coups, civil war, ethno-religious riots, communal clashes, military massacres, banditry, terrorism, farmers/herders clashes and kidnappings, it has been a gory story spread across 60 years. In the […]
Continue ReadingIn my previous article, I tried to remind us of what we have always known and talked about: that oil boom flatters to deceive. The world is, meanwhile, desperately looking for alternatives to crude oil — with several advanced countries setting dates, starting from 2025, to phase out vehicles powered by fossil fuels such as […]
Continue ReadingDo you remember when your mechanic advised you not to buy a car with automatic transmission? If you recall, he said manual cars were the best — easier and cheaper to maintain. What he didn’t tell you was that technology had injured him and left him behind. He had thought the world was going to […]
Continue ReadingAny hopes that we are going to quickly move on from the tragic #EndSARS protests and enter into the phase of reconstruction and rehabilitation are disappearing by the day as the federal government closes in on the promoters and supporters of the mass action. A lawyer who actively supported the protests was barred from travelling […]
Continue ReadingMy favourite comedians are Bovi and Okey Bakassi. Governor Benedict Ayade of Cross River state and Hon Gudaji Kazaure are also gifted entertainers. Their theatrics are primed to calm your nerves. But the real deal in politics has to be US President Donald Trump, by far the most entertaining president I have seen in my […]
Continue ReadingYears ago, as we were driving through some Lagos streets early morning on a weekday, we saw idle young men sitting in front of their houses, some with wrappers surrounding their waists and toothbrushes dangling from their mouths. They stared at us. Their faces instantly instilled the fear of God in me. In a sober […]
Continue ReadingHow can a peaceful protest end up with killing and maiming, burning and looting in a matter of days? For those of us who have seen plenty “peaceful” protests in our lives, it is not too hard to explain. The moment you hit the streets and fail to read the road signs — so that […]
Continue ReadingThe youth uprising against police brutality in Nigeria has taken many by surprise. Conventional wisdom is that the youth are more likely to dance at a concert than sing a protest song. Events of the last couple of weeks have altered this narrative as youthful Nigerians have taken to the streets in a vigorous campaign […]
Continue ReadingIf you don’t know Ndubuisi (“Dele”) Udo, it is not your fault. The Nigerian police did not allow him to be great. As a teenage athlete in the 1970s, Udo was a collegiate champion at the University of Missouri in the United States. He was a three-time member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) […]
Continue ReadingIn my previous article, ahead of Nigeria’s 60th Independence Day celebrations, I tried to examine the root of Nigeria’s divisive politicking. In what many saw as a sacrilegious criticism of our venerated “founding fathers”, I argued that their politics was founded on ethnic and regional sentiments and quite destructive. Most colonial-era political parties were formed […]
Continue ReadingWe often tell ourselves a lot of beautiful lies in Nigeria. One of my favourite is the saying: “This is not the dream of our founding fathers.” By that, we often try to claim our founding fathers had a dream for Nigeria from which we have deviated — the dream of oneness, of national unity. […]
Continue ReadingAmidst the series of tough decisions rolled out by President Muhammadu Buhari as the Nigerian economy gasps for breath under the weight of low oil prices and the coronavirus pandemic, a mini-war broke out between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) last week. In a statement with the […]
Continue ReadingYou campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. Former governor of New York, Mario Matthew Cuomo, now of blessed memory, said those immortal words 35 years ago. Poetry is relatively short and flowery; prose is much longer and less flowery. Yoruba would render the same thing Cuomo said as “enu dun r’ofo” i.e. “it always […]
Continue ReadingTwo can play the game. That should sum up the politicking surrounding the disinvitation of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, for the 2020 annual general conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) where he was to be a guest speaker. If he was “cancelled” simply because of the allegations that he does not […]
Continue ReadingIn Nigeria, oil is definitely the apple of our eyes — we don’t need to argue over that. But this piece of news should set us thinking once again: Apple, the American tech company, is now worth over $2 trillion. By contrast, the GDP of Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, is estimated at $448 billion. […]
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