(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 24 January, 2022) Some people sold their father’s land to purchase guns; now that war is in their home, they are begging for where to stand on to use the weapons. I got that sense from an elder some days ago as we agonised over the destruction of…
20 Years After: What Did We Learn From Lagos Bomb Blast?
From Sylvester Asoya January 27, 2002 will remain one of the darkest days in the history of Lagos. And the day will always be remembered for the accidental detonation of explosives at a military armoury in Ikeja. That tragic event shook Nigeria’s economic capital to its foundations on a Sunday that was full of expectations.…
2023: Some Proverbs for the North and Tinubu
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 17 January, 2022). The aged died, we replaced him with the chronically ill; who does not know that there will be wailing once more soon in the palace. (Arugbo ku a fi olokunrun j’oye; taa ni ko mo wipe ariwo k’eekan l’aafin). This Yoruba proverb covers the field…
Let’s take our President to Mummy G.O
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 10 January, 2022) Once upon a time, I got a book gift from Charly Boy. Like many in my generation, I love books, especially unusual ones. And that precisely was what I got from the son of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa. The title of the book? ‘My Private Part.’…
Desmond Tutu, Kukah and The Protests in London
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 27 December, 2021) Proverbs are not just the palm oil with which yam is eaten; they are the yam. Where I come from, there are a million proverbs for every experience of life. Some people are contagiously sick but they hate being told so. They suffer self-deception, the…
I Humbly Disagree With Obasanjo And His Oily Thesis
Former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has theorized that the oil and gas found in the Niger Delta region belong to the federal government, and not to the oil-bearing communities. Legally speaking, Obasanjo can be said to be correct, because he was part and parcel of successive military juntas that cleverly and systematically inserted expropriatory and inhuman…
A Critique of Bisi Akande’s ‘My Participations’
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 20 December, 2021) ‘The Man who looks history in the face’ is the title Professor Wole Soyinka put on the Foreword. Of course, “the man” here is Bisi Akande, the author of ‘My Participations’, an autobiography that is roiling calm across Nigeria. Soyinka endorses the book and the…
Bisi Akande and Nigeria’s Last Puritan
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 13 December, 2021) There is a huge noise over Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography released on Thursday, December 9, 2021 in Lagos. I have not read the book. But I have read what the media says the book contains. I have also read the book review by a brilliant…
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