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Opinion

Saturday, 22 August 2020 05:29

Mali’s coup: Why the Sahel is suffering

A coup d’etat is almost never good news. In Mali the descent into violence accelerated dramatically in March 2012, when soldiers mutinied and launched attacks on the presidential palace, the state broadcaster and a military barracks in Bamako, the capital. The then president, Amadou Toumani Touré, was forced into exile. Within months, jihadists had taken over much of northern Mali. By the start of 2013 France felt obliged to intervene, sending soldiers and its air force to push the militants out of their strongholds in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao. That seemed to have saved Mali from a terrible…

Saturday, 22 August 2020 05:28

Kashamu’s last hour make-up with Adebutu - Kola Oyefeso

I write as a free mind and someone who is an insider to the telephone conversation between Late Buruji Kashamu and Kesington Adebutu First and foremost as a Mystic, I must remind us of the inevitably of death. It is designed by the Creator Himself as a relief for the soul when our body has become enervated by disease, old age, accident or other mishaps that have made the soul inconduicive to inhabit the physical body any longer. This happens when our allotted time is over in this world. The individual time varies and it is determined by the Creator…

Friday, 21 August 2020 05:28

Bayelsa governor’s one leg - Azu Ishiekwene

Nine months after the curtains were drawn on the Bayelsa governorship polls, the electorate still can’t be too sure who they voted for or who will be governor. Lawyers have become the new voters and courts the new electoral umpires; yet neither the lawyers nor the courts can say exactly where all this would lead or swear that they are in control of the outcome. It appears that politicians who never accept defeat have found other means to have elections without end, until they win and vanquish the loser. Bayelsa has never been a “progressive” state since the return to…

Thursday, 20 August 2020 04:59

Funtua: Honour not deserved (4) - Bola Bolawole

Last June when Mr. Sam Amuka Pemu aka Uncle Sam (pen name, Sad Sam) celebrated his 85th birthday, Mr. Ray Ekpu wrote a tribute titled “Sam Amuka: Journalism’s Generalissimo” (sunnewsonline.com; 23rd June 2020). Uncle Sam has had an illustrious career as a journalist before teaming up with the late Olu Aboderin to start PUNCH newspapers. When both friends parted ways, Uncle Sam started the Vanguard newspapers. He has been a towering figure in the journalism world ever since. So, a salutation to him on his birthday was appropriate and the title of Ekpu’s tribute, apt. In The Guardian newspaper of…

Wednesday, 19 August 2020 04:59

Dr. Jekyll and Mallam Hyde: How a governor’s internal conflict might be destroying his state - Ose Anenih

“…Leaders in general possessed huge components of both good and evil. Some had a little bit more evil than others. I always had difficulty understanding how Obasanjo could sit with us and preach about sacrifice and transparency one moment and then the next, sit with the GMD of NNPC about how to get some payments to the PDP. Studying Bismarck, De Gaulle…helped me make sense of this duality in leaders. It appears that this is a skill that must be possessed to be able to ascend to a certain leadership level. I am hoping that this skill can be acquired,…

Tuesday, 18 August 2020 05:14

2019 and harvest of deaths - Tola Adeniyi

Readers may instinctively conclude that the piece before them is about the horrific catalogue of the daily butchery that had become the lot of Nigerians since the past 5 years which climaxed in the ugly Year 2019, and which unfortunately has resumed a more horrendous proportion since the puppeteers of the programmed pogrom are emboldened with demonic impunity.No. This article is about the personal losses that came my way in the past year and which up until now I have not gathered sufficient strength to write about. They came in shocking torrents; and before I could recover from one shock…

Monday, 17 August 2020 05:20

Kashamu: The verdict of history - Bola Bolawole

In life, he was controversial; in death, no less. Who else but Buruji Kasham, who boarded the Covid-19 plane penultimate Saturday? The first salvo was fired by no less a personality than former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Noted for his knack for letter-writing, Obasanjo fired a sarcastic “condolence” letter that did anything but condole, to Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, in which he mocked his one-time political Nemesis. Obasanjo said, inter alia: “... The life and history of the departed have lessons for those of us on this side of the veil. Esho Jinadu (Buruji Kashamu) in his lifetime used the…

Sunday, 16 August 2020 04:44

Tai Solarin, Mailafia, Lai Mohammed at a reverie with George Orwell - Festus Adedayo

Any student of autocratic rule will tell you that free speech is always the first casualty of a budding despotism. So, watching the viral video of how development economist, polymath and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Obadiah Mailafia, spurted out his seismic allegations against runners of the Nigerian state last week, my hunch squealed to me that he would be Tai Solarin in a matter of days. Solarin was a social critic and educationalist. As at 1989, the Ibrahim Babangida government had literally become a sturdy despotism, encompassed on all fronts by rife allegations of corruption. Military…

Sunday, 16 August 2020 04:42

Overruling the decrees of darkness - Taiwo Akinola

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime ~ Daniel 6:10. Introduction Every excellent position naturally attracts big opposition. Some negative forces will conspire against you if truly there is anything enviable in your destiny. Nevertheless, with God on your side, your head will still be above water, no matter the adversaries. But you must stand your ground in faith and become who…

Sunday, 16 August 2020 04:39

The mystery of the mind (1) - Kola Oyefeso

From this week i will be discussing the MIND and hasten to say, we will find its study very revealing because mind is very central to our psychological problems. We will be analyzing the mind itself to discover its several components and functions. If modern psychology were that equipped to tell us exactly what the mind is, beyond the externalities, the world would have been a better place. All wars among nations, bickering, slander, restiveness, indeed all negative tendencies of man would have died of attrition. But such Sangri-La wasn't in the design of the Creator. That ideal utopian world…

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Saturday, 15 August 2020 04:17

Akinkugbe: Father, mentor, friend and confidant - Folu Olamiti

One of the most illustrious sons of Nigeria in contemporary history, Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe, professor emeritus of medicine, was laid to rest recently in a hail of glory with a modest crowd of the high and mighty in various walks of life in attendance at his home town in Ondo, Ondo State, Nigeria. The homily as delivered by the charismatic preacher, Joseph Akinfenwa, an archbishop of Ibadan Diocese, Church of Nigeria Anglican Communion, was electrifying. Akinkugbe was somebody I respected and revered so much as a great man in every sense. He was an accomplished personality whose prowess reverberated globally…

Friday, 14 August 2020 05:21

Kashamu: Backstory of Obasanjo’s letter to the dead - Azu Ishiekwene

From the way he addressed the letter, you could almost guess that he had some difficulty writing it, but Olusegun Obasanjo being Olusegun Obasanjo, he wrote it anyway. Usually, condolence letters are addressed to the bereaved family, while others could be in copy. But former President Obasanjo chose, instead, to indulge his pet peeve his own way. He sent his condolence letter on the passing of Buruji Kashamu to Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, hoping that somehow, the family will get the message. Well, thanks to social media, not only Kashamu’s family, the wider public also read Obasanjo’s letter to…

Thursday, 13 August 2020 05:02

Dead or alive, crooked leaders deserve no kindness - Abimbola Adelakun

In Nigeria, when beggars die, there are no comets seen. But when a politician dies, we have to contend with hagiographic writings that fly into the public space seeking to beatify these dubious saints. As noted when the President’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, died recently, the attendant obituarisation-the effusive rain of tributes poured on him and which was at dissonance with the inept government that he served till his death-was a strong indication of how the living was using the dead to rewrite public memory. Since that time, a few more people that have served in public offices have…

Thursday, 13 August 2020 05:01

Funtua: Honour not deserved (3) - Bola Bolawole

We start the third part of our subject matter today with the views of three thoroughbred professionals that journalism has produced in this country. The first is Steve Osuji, the journalist par excellence whom Oga Ray Ekpu, in his defence of Funtua, cynically and condescendingly referred to as “someone” and “the fellow”. Oh no, Mr. Ray Ekpu! Respect, as they say, begets respect. Besides, Osuji is not an unknown quantity in Nigerian journalism. He has made important contributions and, I dare to say, he has paid his dues and is still firing on all cylinders. To trample him so whimsically…

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