Category: Opinions

     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

THE Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Mejabi Yemi-Esan, on January 17, 2022 announced that the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, is not  a trade union. I am not sure if this magisterial pronouncement is a result of ignorance, sycophancy or a fascist scheme to clamp down on the academics union. Under the military regimes,… Read More

Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), appeared before Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court in Abuja twice last week. The federal prosecutors had increased the charges to fifteen, the principal of which remains those of treasonable felony and terrorism. As usual the lawless Department of State Services’ agents prevented interested… Read More

That the general Muhammadu Buhari administration is pushing Nigeria beyond its elastic limits is very obvious. With apologies to the grammatical Obahiagbon, it is audible to the deaf and visible to the blind.  One of the major percussors to the impending implosion is the callous attempt by the members of Buhari’s administration to move the pump price of PMS, a.k.a.… Read More