Achebe: The disrobing of a god
I have given Chinua Achebe’s latest and highly inflammatory book, There Was A Country (A Personal History of Biafra), the first reading, so to say, poring through its 333 pages all night long to...
View ArticleAchebe’s opening of Pandora’s box
It is doubtful if the great novelist of our time, Prof. Chinua Achebe, expected his latest book, “There Was A Country” to be anything more than its subtitle says: “A Personal History of Biafra.” In my...
View ArticleA wake-up call for African leaders
The past week has been an exciting and thought-provoking one for me in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a participant-observer of the Eighth African Development Forum (ADF-VIII) that ran from 23-25 October....
View ArticleA glimpse into a nobler past
I am doing the unusual today. I am bringing my readers an abridged version of the first address of Chief Obafemi Awolowo as President of the Action Group to the party’s Conference at Owo on April 28,...
View ArticleObasanjo’s echo of impending revolution
Many were amused but few shocked by former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s warning, last weekend of an impending revolution in the country. It falls in character of the man who sees himself as the...
View ArticleLagos-Ibadan Expressway: Too many people have died!
President Goodluck Jonathan must be commended for finally bringing to an end the debacle of a road contract that was clearly long amiss. The surprise is that it took this long to come. The damn...
View ArticleRe: Lessons from an Eric in Kigali
Dear Tunde, Your write-up on the Kigali Memorial Centre (Genocide Museum) is so moving, it reminds me of excursion to similar museums in Kiev, USSR and Poland during my undergraduate days in Moscow in...
View ArticleSomething is happening in Ekiti — for real!
Something is happening in Ekiti State that needs to be told. And I will, since I bear witness to it. Quite a few folks, including my good friend and brother Femi Orebe and Sam Omatseye, both columnists...
View ArticleEkiti: Setting the record straight
Last week’s column on my visit to Ekiti State and the good job Governor Kayode Fayemi is doing raised a few eyebrows and drew the ire of one professor aburo of mine abroad, who was virulent in his...
View Article2013 is the window to 2015
If anyone was left in doubt, the President – or those pushing for him – have sounded the beagle; forget any pretence to the contrary: the race for 2015 has begun! Ghost posters appearing overnight all...
View ArticleAyo Ositelu’s death and appreciating the living
The Nigeria media world was thrown into mourning on Thursday as news of the sudden death of one of their most distinguished veteran sports columnists seeped out into public space with the morning dew:...
View ArticleFor Prof. Layi Fagbenle @ 70
“Eyin ibeji, eyin ibeji” (you twins) is how market women call out to us on the few occasions my brother and I find ourselves in any Lagos or Ibadan market. Twins-looking, yes — sporting the same grey...
View ArticleJonathan, Oshiomhole, and the case for State Police
I am imagining the sort of conversation that would have taken place between President Goodluck Jonathan and one of his close aides after the knowledge of (it would be too presumptuous to think our...
View ArticleWhen will this mindless looting stop?
It’s not just the magnitude of the looting and corruption that goes on in Nigeria that is mind-boggling and harrowing, worse is the impunity with which they are carried out. And nothing feeds the...
View ArticlePerspective on Nigeria
This perspective on Nigeria is an adaptation of my letter to my child. Enjoy: My dear daughter, This is to let you all know of my safe arrival in Nigeria and that all is well – so far! I came...
View ArticleA Maina bigger than the N’Assembly!
This may sound incredible but it is real for I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own very ears: There is a Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina somewhere who has proved himself bigger than the National...
View ArticleWe’ve got a long way to go!
I had an experience last weekend that troubled my mind and got me really thinking about the enormity of the challenges facing us as a nation and as peoples inhabiting this geographical space which by...
View ArticleFor the sake of our children
A couple of columns back I hinted that some group was in the offing the group is made up of patriotic Nigerians both in the Diaspora and within Nigeria, we are concerned about the continued deplorable...
View ArticleIt should all be about good governance
Over 50 years of independence from colonial rule, the country still finds itself tottering and wobbling, muddling and messing about – sans national consciousness, sans any collective sense of values to...
View ArticlePresident Jonathan: Carrying disdain a little too far
At age 60, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Alams for short, is no longer a young man. Indeed, going by the conventional opinion on life expectancy of the average Nigerian, put at about 40, Alams has been 20...
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