In many ways, High Chief Olusegun Matthew Okikiola Ogunboye Aremu Obasanjo is a great man. In many ways, too, his plebeian irascibility makes him look like a medieval proletarian who gatecrashed into modern high society and feels obliged to play Orunmila. In case you didn’t know, Orunmila is the Yoruba god of wisdom and knowledge. Read More…
Tag: Wole Olaoye
Memo To Their Excellencies
Your Excellencies, greetings from Citizenville. It is not fashionable that anyone from this valley of citizens would nurse the pretence of counselling you as you perch on your high pedestals all over Africa. But times have changed. This is 2023. Many of you still live in the era of England’s King James I (reigned 1603–1625), who famously Read More…
Requiem for Production?
Anyone who still wonders why Nigeria and its citizens have become mendicants in spite of their rich natural endowments should take another look at the number of manufacturing companies that have gone under or relocated from the country in the last five decades. In the 70s and 80s, Nigeria-made goods were the gold standard in Read More…
When Trouble Sleeps…
I don’t like wars. But I don’t mind wars if they are in defence of a people’s essence. Remember how Horatio defended the bridge of River Tiber in the days of ancient Rome? The book, “Lays of Ancient Rome”, preserved the narrative for posterity: “To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late; Read More…
On Adam and Steve
We all acknowledge that the world is changing but we also know that some so-called changes negate our essence and culture.
God Save Their King!
Congratulations, King Charles III. The whole world literally stood still as the major networks of the globe tuned to Westminster to report the incredible cultural spectacle of your coronation. The global community felicitated as one family with the United Kingdom, gluing its eyes to the show stopper. Before God and man, Charles III ascended the Read More…
Why Can’t Science Speak ‘Vernacular’?
Cast your mind back to your secondary school days. English was the only legitimate language of communication. There were students from the hinterland who couldn’t measure up to the requirement and so had to run afoul of the law and face the inevitable sanctions. There was the case of one such student who had a Read More…
When Impunity Feeds Criminality
What is the common denominator between the attempted electoral coup in Adamawa State and the recent lynching of a final year student of Obafemi Awolowo University? Impunity! We have, over the years, got so used to getting away with bad behaviour that we now strive to outdo whatever malfeasance is considered the current champion in Read More…
Pa Adebanjo @ 95
I have always been fascinated by the worldview and insights of old people— fellow mortals who have trodden these ever changing paths for so long that the story of their lives is the story of an era. I am doubly enthralled when such old people have impacted their societies and LIVED FOR SOMETHING. In a Read More…
Vilification of Soyinka
Our values as a people have broken down. There is no better place to witness the madness than social media where apparent cowards hide behind digital anonymity to cast aspersions on the integrity of their betters. It was sad seeing the kind of insults some misguided elements were flinging at Prof Wole Soyinka over his Read More…