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Bitter, sweet and curious creature, the honeybee. When the honeybee stings, its abdomen tears up, its mouth opens and closes, hitting the ground in a final kiss of death. That is the fate of the honeybee and its stinger – a weapon it uses for protection and the harbinger of its ultimate death. Hey, the […]
Continue ReadingWhen cornered by death or stalked by danger, an insect called the Malaysian Exploding Ant turns against its assailant, ruptures its abdominal muscles, causing its poisonous glands to explode. With the explosion of the poisonous glands, the ant releases an irritating substance in all directions. The released secretion is capable of immobilising or entangling the […]
Continue ReadingTomorrow is D-Day. The belly of the sky is heavy but no one knows what it will birth. The sky rumbles in labour pain. The water has broken. But no meteorologist is ready to put their certificate on the line and make a forecast. The sky booms in thunder and lightning, the wind whistles in […]
Continue ReadingWear a crown on a pig, clad it in the starchiest agbada, and sheathe its feet in Gucci shoes; it’s still a pig, not a king. More than a thousand years after Oduwuwa ruled Ile-Ife in the 12th Century, and his scions expanded the kingdom to Dahomey and beyond, a taboo of impunity has descended […]
Continue ReadingBroken in every bone, life hangs by the thread for 62-year-old comatose patient, Nigeria, inside the intensive care unit of the decrepit Ass-o-Rock hospital, Abuja, where it nurses diseased kidneys, liver cirrhosis and an enlarged heart while the Chief Physician, Dr M. Buhari, stands by with a shroud, clutching a book entitled, ‘From national hero […]
Continue ReadingUntil science unmasked the myth of the jungle and brought the secrets of wildlife home to man via the television, little did the world know the lion wasn’t the king of animals. Yep, the world never fully realised that the lion, when alone, was a potential danger, whose presumed invincibility is magnified by the strength […]
Continue ReadingAs the Boeing 747 airliner descended at the J.F. Kennedy International Airport, spread-eagled, its massive tyres forked out, grinding the New York tarmac on the dot of 4pm. This was when Abba Kiyari roused from his deep slumber since the Delta plane embarked on the 13-hour flight from Lagos, Nigeria. All his life, he had […]
Continue ReadingOn the opposite side of Ass-o-Rock lies a stagnant, stinking body of water. Once a river of clear water, but the tidal waves of corruption, greed, ego and selfishness have killed virtually all the aquatic creatures therein, making it almost as dead as the Dead Sea. The stinking lagoon is the heritage of the Peoples […]
Continue ReadingNightfall in Abuja. Smoke filters through the savannah foliage, skywards. A bird’s-eye view reveals that all is not well under the canopy of forest below as a cacophony of voices rises and falls like traders’ babble on market day. It’s another hunting season in the Forest of a Thousand Demons located in the Ass-o-Rock region, […]
Continue ReadingKings don’t die. They depart to ancestral underworld in vaults known to the Yoruba as aja ile. The mountainous confetti of praise heaped in the trail of the departed Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, is bigger than the entire Oyo kingdom because Iku Baba Yeye was larger than life itself. What’s Iku Baba […]
Continue ReadingArole Oduduwa, my second mental image of you left me in pure dazzlement of your unfolding personality, which I thought was a perfect fit for the big shoes left behind by the departed Ooni Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II. But William Shakespeare warns, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.” Kabiyesi, it’s […]
Continue ReadingKABIYESI Onirisa, I call your name in awe and utter fear; it’s the impudent subject that the king kills. I stand at a respectable distance away from the crown, may the second-in-command to Adimula not kill me. May my mouth not kill me. May the king’s hoe and the king’s machete not strike my feet. […]
Continue ReadingAlthough Oshodi Tapa rose from the ashes of slavery to become a warrior and foremost Yoruba leader over 170 years ago, his footprints on the sands of time in the land of Eko were etched in honour, industry and gallantry, unlike the infamous pathway to MC Oluomo’s emergence, which was soaked in blood-red colour. Unlike […]
Continue ReadingWhen the British-American documentary film producer, Theroux, flew into Lagos from the US in 2010, looking for the hotbed of gangsterism in Nigeria, Oshodi stood naked in the sun. Theroux’ choice of Oshodi as the General Headquarters (GHQ) of disorder wasn’t a product of fate, fancy or accident. His choice was informed by the crippling […]
Continue ReadingThey wear the nation’s green-white-green flag as uniform. They have their own army, arms and ammunition. Their constitution is superior to the laws of the land. They’re state-backed bandits. They’re a clan of killers. They’re the National Union of Road Transport Workers. Though Lagos is the centripetal force in this discourse, it’s no breaking news […]
Continue ReadingIn a jaw-dropping revelation, Ade Lawyer, the self-confessed hired killer, accentuated how subsequent Lagos State governments of Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola, and Akinwunmi Ambode, had indirectly made life unsafe, cheap and nasty through the abetment of NURTW activities in the state. In a front-page story, “Confession Of An Alleged Assassin: How I Killed People For Money – […]
Continue ReadingDear god of Lagos, I had vowed not to write about your presidential ambition yet. I was waiting for the time your protegee, Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor in the lush pasture of politics, would confirm his rife presidential ambition. Honestly, I had patiently waited and hoped to show why both the lion and the lamb […]
Continue ReadingThe pride of lions lounge under the baobab. Some look at the sky belly-up in gratitude to nature. Some crouch on their warm, filled bellies, swishing their tails to the music of the wind and the shine of the sun. Like fleeting ghosts, three monkeys, from nowhere, suddenly descended on the pride; giving a knock […]
Continue ReadingSince the sun of social media appeared in cyberspace during the second half of the 1990s, it hasn’t ceased to blaze the dark closets of myths and tradition, exposing their cobwebs, warts and all. And humanity is excited. At last, an answer has come to the bi-directional communication telephony of the era, welcoming the world […]
Continue ReadingOnly three reasons could make me follow Nigeria’s President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and his former victim, Chief Adebisi Abdulkareem Akande, into the jungle; not the President’s false claims on security, not the news that 3,125 persons were killed and 2,703 others were abducted in the North alone, in the last 11 months. As […]
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