Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa

Oladipo Diya: The man who rode on a tiger’s back

In the rascally days of the military, when generals were wedded to coups, a military officer arose in their ranks called Oladipo Donaldson Oyeyinka Diya. He was unknown to the public until January 1984 when the coup plotters led by General Muhammadu Buhari, who had overthrown the Shagari administration, announced him as the Military Governor Read More…

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Ethiopia Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

Tigray-Ethiopia: Writing a bloody peace in hopelessness

Ethiopia, which along with Liberia were the only two African countries Europe was unable to colonise, has been bathed in blood many times in the last six decades until a bloody peace was written on November 2, 2022. A civil war with Eritrea which was then part of Ethiopia exacerbated the 1983-85 Ethiopian Famine resulting Read More…

Italian Navy/AP Photo/CNN
Africa Europe Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

To migrants, watery graves; to humanity, a boiling world

TRAGEDY.  Unimaginable tragedy. What is most tragic to me is not the number of migrants, including children from underdeveloped countries, who have gone down the sea to watery graves trying to reach Europe. Yes, this year alone, over 1,200 went on a final dip, never to resurface again, or if they did, only as corpses. Last Read More…

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Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

Emptying the Sahel of transnational terrorists and insurgents

Martin Luther Agwai, retired General, walked briskly on the grounds of the Nigeria Defence College, NDC, like a man with a spring under his heels. At 74, he seemed ready for call up to do battle with enemies of the people. Indeed, on this Thursday, October 20, 2022 morning, he stood before a packed audience Read More…

Cargil & Shutterstock
Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

Smart Europeans, daft Africans

SMART Europeans. After building their wealth from resources taken from the colonies, including gold, diamond, rubber, cocoa, cotton and human beings, they decreed that the only way to prosperity is through ‘market forces’. They taught gullible Africans that only the perfect market delivers, while state intervention stagnates.  They are never in short supply of maladjusted African Read More…

Africa Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

Ruto and Falana: Brother for enslavement and brother for liberation

His Excellency William Ruto, Kenya’s newly minted President, prides himself as the Hustler-in-Chief of the country. He says he is from the “Hustler Nation” – the informal economy where he used to sell chickens for survival. However, having a dog-eat-dog street ideology as he claims, does not preclude a sense of basic human decency. It is Read More…

Education Featured Nigeria Notes Owei Lakemfa

The National Industrial Court should not be for hire

Once the Muhammadu Buhari government had failed to get striking lecturers in our public universities back to class, I knew it would head for the National Industrial Court, NIC, shopping for an injunction. Tragically that is what governments in the country and rich employers have turned the NIC into: a fishing pond for injunctions against Read More…

Featured Nigeria Notes Owei Lakemfa Society

Broken truths and broken ribs: Kukah’s forensic examination of Nigeria

The year 2018 was one of self-examination for Nigeria. President Muhammadu Buhari who flew in on the wings of change had been in power for three years and the situation had simply become far worse. The inflation rate when he came in was 9.01 per cent, shooting up to 15.68 per cent the following year, Read More…

Featured Notes Obituary Owei Lakemfa

Akin Mabogunje: An African institution

PROFESSOR Akinlawon ‘Akin’ Ladipo Mabogunje was an African institution established for all-round development. He is also widely accepted as the Father of African Geography. By 2000, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, was fed up with the National Housing Fund, NHF, which in the eleven years of its establishment had failed to deliver on mass housing Read More…

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Featured Notes Owei Lakemfa World

After Ukraine, US fishes for new war in Taiwanese waters

IN Nigeria, there are people who traditionally rejoice at the prospect of war. They are uncomfortable when there are no wars or new territories to conquer, plunder or destabilise. The United States establishment has this same psychological make-up. It appears allergic to peace, and as one conflict drags to a bloody close, it is instigating Read More…