Category: OP-ED

Events seem to be unravelling faster than anticipated for President Muhammad Buhari and his APC government as he winds down his tenure rather unimpressively. Mr President may have done an introspection by now and realized that promises are easier made in Nigeria; especially during political campaigns, than kept due to numerous extraneous factors and forces beyond control of the maker.… Read More

“I do not know this Bolaji Akinyemi that every one confuses with our well respected statesman Prof. Bolaji A. Akinyemi, the former Minister of External Affairs who was in my house last Saturday to fellowship with me”. – Pastor Tunde Bakare.  Those are excerpts from a comment made by Pastor Tunde Bakare (PTB) in his response to Rev Aboderin. I’m… Read More

On November 23, 2021 when the Nigerian Government announced it will remove petroleum subsidy in 2022, every Nigerian got a blasting hit of the national panic attack. Since the pronouncement, Nigerians had been losing their sleep, making the country a tinderbox where protests could explode at any moment as the usual reaction to fuel subsidy removal. As pundits and the… Read More

Loving Nigeria’s national soccer team, the Super Eagles, is like being in a bad marriage. Your heart is broken many times, yet it’s hard to walk away. There’s a lingering, almost redemptive feeling that just one more try, and it’s going to be alright. But it never is – or has not been for nearly a decade. It happened again. Hearts… Read More

     When I called him the “doyen of African linguistics”  in my valedictory lecture at the  University of Ibadan in July 2005 (a celebratory oriki which, to my greatest delight, has caught on since then),  I did so with not the slightest fear of exaggeration or effusive adulation. Pioneer, pathfinder, scholar, teacher, administrator, relentless researcher, and organizer par excellence, … Read More

Poverty, terrorism, hunger, violence, chaos, killings, make for tantalizing fiction. Nigerians, what do you do when that drama is everyday reality around you? Nigeria was founded on representative democracy. It has devolved into a country where tyrants rise to power, citizens blindly follow, and the entire country is in ruins. Ancient Greek philosophers saw this and warned against it: “Chaotic… Read More

The feedback from the first edition of this piece has been a great relief for me and I’m sure for many, especially those hapless landlords that have been at the mercy of very stubborn tenants, who have taken them through sorrow and tears, in order to reap the fruits of their investment. I know there are landlords who behave as… Read More

Nigerians are very bad losers in politics, sports or both. Nothing illustrates this better than the politics of acrimony that is already emerging over the mode of primaries for the 2023 general election. But even more specifically, would be the anguish, outrage and frustration that have attended the exit of the Super Eagles from the 2021 edition of the African… Read More

On Tuesday, January 18, 2022, a massive asteroid named asteroid 1994 PC1 flew by the Earth. It was one million miles away from us, and a similar distance as where the James Webb Space Telescope that NASA sent to space on Christmas Day is flying. This is the closest that asteroid 1994 PC1 has flown by Earth. It is also… Read More

Yesterday’s football match reminded me of the story of Judah and Tamar in the Bible. She was pregnant with twins and at the delivery, one of them brought out his hand out first and the midwife tied a cloth around it, to mark it. But the other one came out first. Using it as an analogy, I like to refer… Read More