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A lady told me her story, recently. Hers is one of those sad realities of life, I must say. Read her: “My mum has been living with mental health challenges for as long as I can remember. My parents separated when I was less than 10 years old. My mum is a schoolteacher. Despite her […]
Continue ReadingThis is what Kurumi’s Ijaye looked like after it was attacked and defeated by Ibadan forces in 1860/61: “Old people, men and women and young children were being carried to the river Ose to die,” wrote John Iliffe in his Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland. He continued: “Whilst many others were left to perish in the streets. […]
Continue ReadingThe last premier of the Western Region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, asked his guest what the town was saying. The guest told him the town was solidly behind him. The guest backed his claim with a cassette which he said contained the adulation with which the people of Ibadan welcomed every step so far taken by Chief […]
Continue ReadingOn Wednesday, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa of the federal high court, Lagos, ordered federal government to fix the prices of milk, flour, salt, sugar, bicycles, motorcycles, motor vehicles, and their spare parts. This looks like a judicial attempt to address the biting inflation and the harsh economic climate caused in the main by naira devaluation. My […]
Continue ReadingToday, Nigeria is in a place where everyone – government, opposition, and the people – should work together. It is not a time for divisive or self-servicing conversations and engagement. There is fire on the mountain in Nigeria, even though many who should know do not seem to realise it. This is why I find […]
Continue ReadingThe searing torment that everyday folks are going through in Nigeria right now is so dire, so unbearably extreme, and so unexampled in its rawness that even diasporan Nigerians like me who live tens of thousands of miles away from home can feel it not just vicariously but also experientially. The unending streams of requests […]
Continue ReadingAt a recent function in Abuja, Vice President Kashim Shettima expressed his disappointment that some Nigerians would rather be amused by the free fall of Naira value than pour ashes on their heads. According to him, “It is not only disheartening and disenchanting but also heartbreaking that yesterday when the Naira culminated to N1,500 to […]
Continue ReadingFuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, aka KWAM 1, has been the official ‘palace entertainer’ for almost a decade. Evidently through the instrumentality of then All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his ‘Nigeria, Sai Baba, Sai Buhari’ song that preceded the 2015 general election was a campaign anthem that also elicited an […]
Continue ReadingIt is not just the menace of insecurity in the land that has been in the news in Nigeria, the economy too, and indeed the latter for obvious reasons as well, with the national currency, the Naira in a very bad shape, inflation at 28.92%, widespread systemic distortions in the economy, a foreign exchange regime […]
Continue ReadingThe porcupine is a large rodent that is clothed with a thick coat of sharp quills. These spines protect it from rampaging predators. When it feels threatened, the porcupine shoots the arrows of its spines at its assailants. These deadly quills pierce the intending attacker, thereby allowing the animal to escape harm. As such, in […]
Continue ReadingSports, especially football, have opiatic effects on Nigerians. I call it kinetic booze. The ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) football competition has been remarkable in numbing the people’s terrible pain and pangs of hunger. Since this thing started, morbid fears of violent death and of mass abduction get forgotten every night in sporty ecstasy. […]
Continue ReadingPolitics has probably one million definitions but, for the purpose of this article, I mean the art of winning, keeping or jostling for state power. There is nothing wrong with politics, even though the conduct of many politicians tends to give it a bad name and you always hear a lot of decent people vowing […]
Continue ReadingOne of the challenges couples often encounter in their marriages is letting go of issues from their past such as unpleasant events experienced in their own lives or past or present relationships which can affect their lives and marriage in general. Studies suggest that when people can focus on the present rather than their past, […]
Continue Reading“The fraught debate on slavery is largely absent in Africa, even though Africans were deeply involved in the slave trade. Africans raided for slaves often in connivance with local chiefs and then acted as middlemen with European and Arab purchasers”. In sheer exasperation at the tragic enormity of it all, this subject matter grew out […]
Continue ReadingIn the first part of this series started last week, I excerpted from ‘The Nigeria Handbook 1919 (Issued with the approval of the Nigerian Government)’—a 304-page publication which contains ‘Statistical and General Information respecting the Colony and Protectorate’. The main idea was to draw lessons from the Nigeria of 105 years ago. Although I promised to continue […]
Continue ReadingThe other day, on the plane, two ladies sat behind me. I was minding my own business, re-reading one of my pieces, “Mummy let the Singles Breathe” (https://www.newtimes.com.ng/mummy-let-the-singles-breathe/). However, the conversation between these two women, whom I will call Miss A and Miss B here, distracted me and captured my attention. Trust me, I always mind my business,and I tried my best to turn […]
Continue ReadingIf we take the Central Bank of Nigeria to Sokoto, will that translate to wellness for the seat of the caliphate? The Central Bank of Nigeria recently announced a decision to send back to Lagos some of its departments. The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) also announced a decision to go back to its […]
Continue ReadingNorthern Nigeria used to have a cult of power called the Kaduna Mafia. This Mafia decided who would become the Nigerian president, which road to build or to abandon, which industries to be sited and where. When it couldn’t help but hand the reins of power to the South, it determined which weakest link to […]
Continue ReadingNigeria is the world’s poverty capital. Most Nigerians live on less than $2 a day. Nigeria’s economy is powered by only 4,000MW of power. Even Republic of Benin has better road infrastructure than Nigeria. Over 70 percent of Nigerians are unemployed. Nigeria has a housing deficit of 28 million. Some 16 million Nigerian children are […]
Continue ReadingFrom last week continues the narrative of how Abuja came to become Nigeria’s seat of government following the failed April 22, 1990 coup and how it has fared over the years compared to other countries’ federal capital Captain Bade Omowa from Oka, Akoko in Ondo State and others played a major role in rescuing General […]
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