Clik here to view.
What readers say
In the last many weeks and months readers, through SMS and E-mails, have been sending in their comments and rejoinders on the many issues in this column. It is only fair that, at some point, some of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
As Lagos counts down 2013
Rounding off the year, each and every year, in big style and with a flourish of entertainment and lighting razzmatazz is not something new to the big cities of the world like New York, London, Paris,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The youth and the future of Nigeria
What sticks in my mind the most was the spirit of kindness and responsibility that was instilled in us (in my youth). On your way to the Scout meeting you have to find some act of kindness to the aged...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Has Adams Oshiomhole blown it?
Impetuous and irascible are two words by which you could describe Adams Oshiomhole if you want to be nice to him. Tempestuous and uncouth, if not. Unfortunately, in the last week or so Adams had, in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bamidele’s war of attrition
It began as a rumour; then developed into what looked like a game-like gambit; and then the importunacy became truly worrisome. What is going on? What could have gone wrong? Why this? Why now? So many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nigeria, what a mess!
It ‘s getting messier and messier as we wake up each day into the news of something, somewhere by someone in someplace, done to add to the catalogue of woes and absurdities in this country. It is one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Letter to Obasanjo’s daughter
It is the season of letters. I found one I wrote to Iyabo Obasanjo in this column of May 26, 2002 in response to one Iyabo had written to Nigerians urging us to vote for her father for a second term as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Random talks and 2014 projections
Mind you I say projections, not predictions. Prediction is what the herd of religious pastors, especially of the Pentecostal hue, do in Nigeria particularly at this time of ushering a new year in. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Conversations with Mandela
I plunged straight into the questions; we didn’t have all the time in the world. Ten minutes max, I had been forewarned. The window of opportunity to meet with Nelson Mandela The Great was a dream;...
View ArticleClik here to view.
12 years a slave: the reparation question
I posted something on my Facebook (FB) status some days ago. It was my opinion on the current hit movie, 12 Years A Slave, the latest reminder of the gory years of slave trade, the sad lot of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Awo’s wisdom
I was in the primary school when the late Chief ObafemiAwolowo, more popularly known as AWO, was premier of Western Nigeria (1954-1959), but because I was born and grew up in the north, I (or more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ogbeni: Flak for the guru
I call Ogbeni “the guru” and not without cause. It’s an appellation some of us who were friends of the late rabble-rouser Kanmi Ishola-Osobu gave Kanmi. “Guru” is a fond word for someone who displays...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Let’s kill religion before it kills us
It was a peculiar mess (apologies to the late Ibadan stormy petrel politician Adegoke Adelabu) in Iwo, state of Osun, last Monday February 3 when two groups of students of the Baptist High School, Iwo,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Odegbami’s close-shave with death
The precarious state of the country’s security was yet again underscored when, last Sunday, February 9, one of our country’s sports icons, ex-international football star, my friend ‘the Mathematical’...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sanusi’s removal: Lessons and import
So, finally, the enfant terrible supremo of Nigeria’s financial system has been forcefully relieved of his office. President Goodluck Jonathan suspends (sacks, it is) the governor of Central Bank of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
This is not my country, damn it!
The title above comes from a private joke between myself and a good older friend of mine in our club in Ikoyi, Lagos, Olu Ajibade. And it also derives as a joke from the title of my first book –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An encounter with Oyo State’s Ajimobi
On Monday, February 24, I, along with some other personalities, was on the five-person panel to interview Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the governor of Oyo State, on the occasion of his 1,000 days in office....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tell me more about my people
I posted this short conversation on my Facebook status last week and the reactions to it by scores of people, Nigerians and non-Nigerians, came in torrents. It touched a sensitive nerve and evoked...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nigeria is dying
I was outraged, and so were most Nigerians all over the world, by the news of some 19 young Nigerians dying in the course of trying to get a job with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) on Saturday...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Oil companies, exploitation, and unemployment
Alfred Okoigun is my friend, but more importantly he is a Nigerian to be proud of. He is the Group Managing Director of ARCO, an oil company he started about 34 years ago and which has from a couple of...
View Article