Nigerians are incredibly gullible! They believe anything they read in a newspaper; they believe anything their government tells them; and they believe anything their Pastor, Imam or Ifa Priest (make that last one dibia or marabout depending on geography!) tells them! I may ignore for today’s conversation the propensity to believe our religious intermediaries since faith is supposed to be the “substance of things hoped for…the evidence of things not seen” but what of the unquestioning swallowing of any information from journalists and government? Unlike Almighty God, both of these institutions and the individuals comprised therein are nowhere near divinity,…

There is a very funny cartoon trending in the social media. It is about a teacher who asked some pupils what they would like to be when they grow up. The pupils all replied they would want to become whistleblowers. The federal government launched its whistle-blowing policy in December 2016 to help expose financial crimes and concomitantly strengthen its fight against corruption and impunity. Domiciled at the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF), it is hoped that through the policy, more looted funds will be recovered. The policy has three key components- the channels for reporting information and the type of…

I was fourteen years-old and in Form Four when I first encountered the Greek philosopher, Plato. No, I did not encounter him in the classrooms of Titcombe College, Egbe. I encountered him through Baba Adesanmi’s disciplinary regime: a hybrid of Roman Catholic, African-traditional, and Spartan colonial disciplinary methods. Depending on the gravity of your offence, if he spared the rod in favour of a long-winding sermon (pure torture for us at the time), then you were in for two hours of philosophies, wisdom nuggets, and anecdotes drawn from a vast arsenal of Yagba, Yoruba, Christian, and Greco-Roman resources. Your rebuke…

I am not going to talk about heroic figures whose names have continued to resonate in public discourse and in spaces far beyond their places of birth. This piece is not about the lives of legendary names like the great Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Sage Obafemi Awolowo, the titan Sir Ahmadu Bello, the immortal Nelson Mandela, the enigma Michael Jackson or the most recognizable face on the planet, the unstoppable Mohammed Alli. These were individuals, and a lot more whose deeds on earth impacted greatly on their communities and perhaps the world at large. These were individuals who are probably being…