(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 10 January, 2022) Once upon a time, I got a book gift from Charly Boy. Like many in my generation, I love books, especially unusual ones. And that precisely was what I got from the son of Justice Chukwudifu Oputa. The title of the book? ‘My Private Part.’…
Desmond Tutu, Kukah and The Protests in London
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 27 December, 2021) Proverbs are not just the palm oil with which yam is eaten; they are the yam. Where I come from, there are a million proverbs for every experience of life. Some people are contagiously sick but they hate being told so. They suffer self-deception, the…
A Critique of Bisi Akande’s ‘My Participations’
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 20 December, 2021) ‘The Man who looks history in the face’ is the title Professor Wole Soyinka put on the Foreword. Of course, “the man” here is Bisi Akande, the author of ‘My Participations’, an autobiography that is roiling calm across Nigeria. Soyinka endorses the book and the…
Bisi Akande and Nigeria’s Last Puritan
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 13 December, 2021) There is a huge noise over Chief Bisi Akande’s autobiography released on Thursday, December 9, 2021 in Lagos. I have not read the book. But I have read what the media says the book contains. I have also read the book review by a brilliant…
For Madam Odili and Journalist Salem
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 15 November, 2021) In a very recent interview with The New Yorker, an American news magazine, Professor Wole Soyinka was asked to name his favourite song of Fela. He had no problem quickly declaring that “My favorite is ‘Zombie.’” And what was his reason? He answered: “That song,…
The Ikoyi High-Rise Rubble
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 8 November, 2021) The Ikoyi skyscraper tragedy has more than its 21 fatal floors. It is like wood falling on wood; and more wood falling on wood; a tangled narrative woven by fate and circumstances. The building came down in style: a very huge structure collapsing on itself…
Jalumi War: Remembrance and Lessons
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 1 November, 2021) Today, November 1, 2021, is the 143rd anniversary of the Jalumi War. Some historians call it the Battle of Ikirun but Jalumi (meaning: plunge into river) is the more popular name for the one-day war that commenced at dawn on Friday, November 1, 1878 and…
Gunmen at Oyo Prison
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 25 October, 2021) I read Camara Laye’s ‘A Dream of Africa’ in secondary school. I still see the sky-high gate of his walled Africa; the murderous giants and guards; the cowering captives, terrorized and traumatized in their condemned prisoners’ cells. I remember the homicidal, militant ‘nationalists’ and the…
Congresses of Gun and Godfathers
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, 18 October, 2021) Today’s party politics and adultery have same rule of engagement: there is no commitment to fidelity and conjugal permanence. We are in this thing for a reason and it is for a season. It is not till-death-do-us-part. We respect political seminaries abroad thinking they are…
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