I PASSED in front of the University of Abuja, UNIABUJA Staff Quarters on Sunday, October 31, 2021 on my way from the Nigeria Media Merit Award programme in Lokoja. As I did, my mind raced back to the issue of insecurity I had raised three days earlier during my keynote address to the Academic Staff Read More…
BAUCHI seems to retain its innocence. An urban city that remains infidelity with its better rural half. As you race out of the city, small beautiful hills run before you ending up at the feet of the enchanting Gubi Rock, paying what may be an eternal homage to their chief. What pointedly reminds you that Read More…
A STORY trended in the social media on Tuesday, October 5, 2021, the International Teachers Day. On that day, the Senate confirmed the nomination of Alhaji Yahaya Mohammad as a Board Member of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. Many Nigerians appeared scandalised that the Senate would clear a man who was born on Read More…
I CAME ACROSS A CABLE NEWS NETWORK, CNN, interview with a man identified as the Ugandan Minister of Internal Affairs. It was anchored by the network’s North American Correspondent, Larry Madowo, who clearly was being threatened. Madowo, a Kenyan journalist who had also worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, had to go into hiding Read More…
ADEOLA SOETAN WAS A STAFF of the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, Abeokuta when some young student leaders from the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife visited the station. Cladded in black, they came in connection with the annual commemoration of the June 7, 1981 massacre of six students in Ife by the police. The students looked Read More…
THE NIGERIAN LAW SCHOOL on July 29, 2021 called a number of new lawyers to the bar. This is nothing unusual; but what was unique was the call of Rasheedat Adeshina. Before returning to school to read law, she was already a sort of a veteran of the courts. In 1999, she had dragged to Read More…
NIGERIA HAS A LONG HISTORY OF Western education. Its first medical doctor, William Broughton Davis graduated in 1858. It had its first television station on October 31, 1959 before some Western countries like Albania and New Zealand. Yet, in July, 2021, its National Assembly voted overwhelmingly that the country must not transmit election results electronically. Read More…
BRITONS HUGGED THEMSELVES and celebrated Monday, July 19, 2021 “Freedom Day” as the eclectic Boris Johnson government eased COVID-19 restrictions. That day, a dark sturdy man with tribal marks was led away from the Cadjèhoun Airport in Cotonou, Benin Republic. He had lost his freedom, and an uncertain future awaited him. The arrest or capture Read More…
BAGRAM AIRFIELD and Military Base, 70 kilometres north of Kabul was the epicentre of the 40-country coalition war to oust the Taliban from Afghanistan. At a point in 2012, over 100,000 U.S. troops passed through Bagram which is also a notorious detention centre where no human rights are observed. It was the symbol of American and NATO might Read More…
THE NEO-COLONIAL TRAJECTORY of almost all African states, the neo-liberal policies they pursue and their anti-people programmes, lead in virtually all cases, to constant conflicts between African political leaders and workers. So it is rare for workers to eulogise their political elite. So, for them at the continental level to collectively eulogise and honour a particular African president is Read More…