“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”— Lao Tzu “You are under arrest for urinating in public,” barked the police officer. “What do you mean? Am I not urinating in the drain?” “Sir, respect yourself! The drain is for rainwater, not your urine.” “Is urine not made of water? What Read More…
A nation governed by two sets of laws—a constitution and a religious law—is like a woman with two husbands. Can she satisfy them both? Considering the ongoing clamour by some religious zealots for the expansion of the geographical scope of the implementation of Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria, and in view of the massive pushback the Read More…
I like to think that I’m a citizen of the world. Truthfully, I was not raised to have racial or ethnic boundaries, even as I’ve been socialised to appreciate the beauty of my culture and the refreshing diversity observable among humankind. If I could poach a linguistic invention, which I first encountered through Prof. Wole Read More…
Thanks to scientific advancement in the form of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing, it is now possible to determine a child’s paternity with a 99.99% certainty. In the light of recent events that have left our collective jaws on the floor, Nigerians are beginning to wish that a governance/public administration version of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) Read More…
“We need state police. Over-centralised policing has failed to adequately protect lives and property,” said Dr Monday Ubani, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and public affairs analyst, in reaction to the passing of the State Police Bill by the National Assembly. But some other people are sulking. The debate over the introduction of state Read More…
The way forward is a backward trudge to the past. To catapult to the desired new Nigeria, we must return to the ‘old school’ values of years gone by—old-fashioned principles such as integrity, hard work, mutual respect, communal solidarity, and honour (Omolúàbí in Yoruba, Ezigbo afa in Igbo, or Mutunchi in Hausa). Drifting Our lives Read More…
If Dr Goodluck Jonathan were my brother, I would find a quiet place to have a heart-to-heart fraternal talk with him. Don’t Run “My dear brother, God has been so kind to you that He could be accused of being partial. Imagine, in a country of 200 million people, He picked you from the stable Read More…
We are on the march again—27 years after our return to democratic governance and three years into the tenure of the Tinubu administration. Centrifugal forces are on the ascendancy. Terrorism is being exported across regional boundaries. Two sections of the nation which were famous for either republicanism or monarchy before colonialism are befuddled by the Read More…
The incursion of terrorists from the northern states to the southwest of Nigeria was all too predictable. We had warned about that possibility over the years. The crisis is not from lack of warnings but from the failure to convert warnings into interoperable, cross-border security. There has been a steady expansion from border belts into Read More…
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of writing about the heartwarming feat of Oba Adedokun Omoniyi Abolarin, Aroyinkeye I, the Orangun of Oke-Ila, in establishing Abolarin College, the first free secondary school for the underprivileged in Nigeria. Today, products of that school have gone on to exceed the expectations of many people, and several Read More…
