The battles I describe, took place four decades ago. They speak to character and governance; some of the problems we have today and why the country is in turmoil. They were between a then 42-year-old General Muhammadu Buhari and 76-year-old Michael Adekunle Ajasin who had retired after 54 years of teaching from July 1921 to Read More…
AFTER the presidential election on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the rains came down in Abuja. No, they were not pitiful tears even when Nigeria, an otherwise prosperous country has been reduced to a beggarly state. Rather, they were rains cleansing the country, starting with a thorough wash of the county’s seat of government to prepare Read More…
A lot of hope has been placed on the country’s February 25, 2023, general elections. It actually seems that the country’s continued existence depends on them. Already, some foreign observers have dispatched advanced teams. However, amidst all these, a 93-year-old statesman, scanning the horizon, advises that the elections be postponed by six months if the Read More…
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…
INTRIGUING. I mean the topic that leaders of the Food, Beverage, and Tobacco Senior Staff Association, FOBTOB asked me to speak on. ‘Trade Union Leadership: Lessons to be learnt from or Taught to the Political Class.’ I know a lot of lessons politicians can teach labour leaders, but scratch my head what the latter can Read More…
MOST of humanity began a work week on Monday, November 7. I watched hundreds of Congolese youths including ladies engaged in rowdy but seemingly joyous group dances, songs and banter. There was also a sprinkling of soldiers amongst them. Good, you might say. Except that the gathering was not about celebrating life. While billions of Read More…
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…
BAYELSA State was for weeks submerged by floods which damaged or washed away bridges and roads, homes and farms, power transformers, and hospitals, and displaced 99 per cent of its over 2.5 million people. Some deaths were recorded with the living clinging to life while the buried could not safely remain in their abode as Read More…
LUIZ Inácio Lula da Silva, 77 had done his duty to his long-suffering country, Brazil. His origins were rough, like those of his motherland. The product of a polygamous family, he learnt to read at ten and began working at 12. At 19, while working as a press operator, he lost the little finger on Read More…
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…
