Shettima must think beyond Kemi Badenoch, By Abimbola Adelakun

Nigerians who feel slighted by UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch’s disparaging comments about their country are free to respond to her in whatever manner suits them. When someone like Badenoch makes denigrating comments about Nigeria, it is its people who suffer the indignity of such talk. A country might be an abstract entity, but […]

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Afe Babalola: Of a man and his weakness, By Abimbola Adelakun

Contrary to assertions by some so-called experts who have been prattling all week that Dele Farotimi wrote what he could not logically substantiate in his book Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, this was a pre-meditated confrontation. Having depleted the legal means to get justice, he wrote to re-litigate the case in the court of […]

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Fisayo Soyombo and the trouble with taking Nigeria too seriously, By Abimbola Adelakun

After many years of guarding oil pipeline installations, the Nigerian Army finally made its first high-profile arrest. It turned out to be a journalist! Investigative journalist and founder of the Foundation for Investigative Journalism, Fisayo Soyombo became the face of the Army’s eventual success in apprehending oil thieves. Of course, they regularly announce arrests of […]

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Obasanjo and Tinubu, two old men naked-ing each other, By Abimbola Adelakun

You can accuse the Bola Tinubu administration of failing on all fronts, but one thing you will never be able to say about his over-bloated press team is that they do not show up when their principal suffers disgrace. This time, the target of their ire was former president Olusegun Obasanjo, who, during a recent […]

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Fashola and Obi on japa, By Abimbola Adelakun

Two Nigerian leaders shared their stance on japa over the same weekend, but their thoughts diverged. One was former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, who, at the convocation ceremonies of Elizade University, Ondo State, urged youths to resist the temptation of pursuing greener pastures outside Nigeria. Leaders do not run away, he […]

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Bayo Onanuga battles yet another media, By Abimbola Adelakun

When you finally read The Guardian editorial that drew the ire of presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, you cannot help but wonder at his overreaction. For a Presidency that forged its path to power through journalistic propaganda, these people are too jumpy when they encounter media reports they consider unflattering. Even before being sworn into power, Onanuga had […]

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Seyi Tinubu and the love that money buys, By Abimbola Adelakun

By now, you have probably seen Seyi, the president’s son, at presidential meetings and functions where he, ideally, has no business. Remember, his father had to ban him from attending the weekly meetings of the Federal Executive Council, saying his access was “undue.” Undeterred, Seyi still showed up at the swearing-in ceremony of Justice Kudirat […]

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National Assembly shames itself over Bobrisky, By Abimbola Adelakun

In the previous article I wrote regarding popular crossdresser and transgender Bobrisky, real name; Idris Okuneye, I suggested that if there is a way her antics have proved useful, it is how much they manage to reveal us to us. Well, Bobrisky did it again when she became a topic at the National Assembly. Credit […]

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Mrs Tinubu’s desperate search for relevance, By Abimbola Adelakun

In July, the wife of President Mrs Oluremi Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Initiative launched a “smart farming” project to boost food production. According to her, if everyone takes up farming, the problem of hunger can be ameliorated. To lead by example, Mrs Tinubu had to show herself at work. A sanctioned television crew and a few […]

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The Chinese can have Amosun too, By Abimbola Adelakun

Following the seizure of the country’s assets based on the ruling of a French court, former Ogun governor Ibikunle Amosun, put out successive press releases clarifying his role in the embarrassing situation. The first, explaining his responsibility in the matter between Ogun State and two Chinese companies (which culminated in the seizure of three presidential […]

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Can Nigeria fight a loss of hope?, By Abimbola Adelakun

Some of the recurring problems of poverty, corruption, vices, and the perennial decay in our society can be attributed to a hope decline. When people are no longer driven by hope, they stop trying. When they become convinced that nothing they do ultimately matters, they imprison their own agency; they look everywhere else for survival […]

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What good are ‘peaceful protests’?, By Abimbola Adelakun

From initially expressing unease about the protests billed to start today, the government changed its stance to advocating “peaceful protests.” It was a smart move. If they had refused people the chance to protest outrightly, they would have fuelled the rage driving them. By asking them to exercise their rights, albeit peacefully, they took the […]

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As Ariwoola takes the judiciary to the top of the grease pole, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

At the end of July 2017, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) issued a joint report on the public experience of and response to bribery in Nigeria. Among its findings, the report ranked several institutions with reference to public perceptions or experience of demand for bribes from […]

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Nigeria, Africa and LGBT panic, By Abimbola Adelakun

When information minister Mohammed Idris addressed the public on the Daily Trust’s recent controversial report, he took the worn path of adding moral panic to the existing one. Rather than address the matter at stake straightaway, he first went on self-justificatory explanations before whipping out the All Progressives Congress’s favourite allegations of ethnic bias and how everything […]

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When an elderly president stumbles, in which direction does he look?, By Abimbola Adelakun

Yoruba people have a proverb that translates, “When a youth stumbles, they look ahead; when an elderly stumbles, they look backwards.” As a child, I thought the proverb was talking about how children and elders contrarily process the embarrassment of falling in public. I assumed that an elder looks backwards when they fall because it […]

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2027 elections will test the national anthem, By Abimbola Adelakun

The 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 […]

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One year of Tinubu: The man, the myth and the mediocrity, By Abimbola Adelakun

This 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 […]

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Nigeria, a country that demolishes more than it builds, By Abimbola Adelakun

Popular singer Yemi Alade recently drew the ire of some online commentators when she decried the frequency of house demolitions in Lagos. Some of these commenters’ vociferous defence of the government’s decision to demolish houses left me wondering if this is not schadenfreude. Do these people truly believe in the irreproachability of the government, or […]

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Party spraying is not what damages the naira, By Abimbola Adelakun

Since the arrest of another Nigerian socialite, Pascal Okechukwu (aka Cubana Chef Priest), I have come across jejune assertions justifying the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s pursuit of those spraying naira at parties. While reading comments made by a random commenter on social media but unsupported with sensible evidence is one thing, it is another […]

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