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One of the central contradictions of social life in contemporary Nigeria is the application and applicability of religion. Like many other socioeconomic indices in Nigeria, the utility of religion is observed in the breach rather than the rule. It has increasingly become dysfunctional and perverted. The dysfunction is illustrated in the positive correlation between escalating […]
Continue ReadingThe University of Ibadan is 75 years old. Chief Bisi Akande celebrated his 85th birthday on January 16 this year. He was made Secretary to Oyo State Government 45 years ago at the age of 40. He was Deputy Governor of Oyo State 42 years ago. He was elected Osun State Governor in 1999 – 25 years ago. […]
Continue Reading(The 2024 edition of the Pastor Poju Oyemade-inspired ‘Platform Nigeria’ conversation held yesterday in Lagos with the theme, ‘Democracy and the Free Market Economy’. Speakers included Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, a former Lagos State Governor, Bishop Matthew […]
Continue ReadingSince the Alliance for Democracy was founded in 1998, under which President Bola Tinubu became the governor of Lagos State in 1999, the key ideologies he and the party have pushed have been “restructuring” and “true federalism.” The two principles followed the AD when it became the Action Congress and then the Action Congress of […]
Continue ReadingThe quantum of reservations and growing public disapproval of the Tinubu government has little or nothing to do with ideology. I am pretty sure that if anyone ever accuses Mr. Tinubu of being anything resembling ideological, he could draw a pistol. Yet his unrelenting dismal job approval rating and increasing popularity deficit is the result […]
Continue ReadingMuhammad Ali, the American boxing phenomenon whom the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) voted the Sports Personality of the 20th Century in 1999, often promoted the pugilistic enterprise in verse. When then ruler of the country formerly known as Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, invited him to a […]
Continue ReadingThe truth is, I do not particularly care about the words in the re-introduced national anthem that some people deem offensive. They consider words like “tribe” and “native” as derogatory and outdated, while the idea of a nation where people stand “in brotherhood” bespeaks its female gender as alien to its body politic. None of […]
Continue ReadingThe National Minimum Wage Act that came into force on 18 April 2019 prescribed a five-year review cycle. For that reason, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) had the law on their side for the strike that paralysed the country on Monday. But even if some of us have issues with shutting down […]
Continue ReadingI watched an interview on a national TV days ago and was shocked to hear the interviewee, a professional in the real sector, use the phrase, ‘should in case’. It is an ageless tautological expression that experts rightly condemn. Well, some may whisper that even one or two teachers too have used the phrase one […]
Continue ReadingOne of the very easy tactics that a government adopts when it sees that it is unpopular with the publics that it governs is to create a diversion, fly a kite or invent a subject of controversy to keep the people busy and draw them away from what exactly they should be talking about. The […]
Continue ReadingGood God, we are madly in love with yesterday, aren’t we? We are always looking forward to yesterday. You know, the good old days. The days when we had three regions and “true” federalism. The days when the regions “competed” with one another, when the Western Region would set up a TV station and the […]
Continue ReadingA carefully choreographed political diversion has just carried the day. In the absence of any tangible results for his first year in office, Mr. Tinubu’s fertile political imagination came up with a potent diversion. A quick ruse of reverting to the old national anthem was the hit score. It would reverberate with the popular audience. […]
Continue ReadingMy first encounter with royalty and power politics is the stuff of family and Yoruba history. At the end of the Ekiti Parapo war, the architect and motivator of the Ekiti uprising, Prince Ishola Fabunmi and his main lieutenant Dada Akoja (my forefather) returned to Okemesi. The long serving Monarch of the town was Fabunmi’s […]
Continue ReadingThis week last year, two things were enthroned in the Nigerian political space. One was the man, Bola Tinubu, who was sworn in as the president. The other was the myth of the man as a headhunter endowed with a unique instinct for sourcing the right talent and an astute administrator. So much was this […]
Continue ReadingIn my 1994 book, ‘Fortress on Quicksand’, which chronicled the presidential primaries of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) and profiled the contenders during the aborted Third Republic of General Ibrahim Babangida, I wrote that it was glaring to the discerning that the experiment would not last. I had the same […]
Continue ReadingLet’s come to the issues of recruitment and selection. All over the world, leadership is what changes history. Think of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, led by leftist revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, aka, Vladimir Lenin, and come to terms with the fact that followership are just extras in a movie! Or, was it ‘the people’ […]
Continue ReadingNigeria is a mess right now. A huge mess. Even the blind can see it. And the deaf can hear the cry of anguish of Nigeria’s children. Can the country be rescued? Possibly. But the myths, years of delusions of grandeur and criminal capture of the Nigerian state threaten the possibility. Last week one of […]
Continue ReadingToday, those whose ancestors snatched Kano are fighting each other over the city and their spoils. The Yoruba would look at their drama and sing for them the song of Ambrose Campbell/ Ebenezer Obey: Eni rí nkan he tó fé kú torí è/ Owó eni tó ti so nù nko? I won’t translate this! Their […]
Continue ReadingMohammed Ladan Tsamiya probably believed he was a commodities trader who happened also to moonlight as a Justice of the Court of Appeal. To him, both vocations seemed to provide mutually reinforcing revenue streams. Sometimes, he transacted business as one, while doing the other. In keeping with this tendency, it was an unsuccessful transaction in […]
Continue ReadingRoyalty in today’s Nigeria is sheer ridicule. That’s why the DailyMail this week could provide unassailable evidence showing that a prominent traditional ruler in the South-West is a notorious conman with a jail record and a history of filth. The royal father was once captured on video rolling up a joint. Career criminals, including landgrabbers, […]
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