
Is he yours?
He is not my President, who wishes to rule a space of his own conjuring!
He is not my President, who has an army of Nigerians ready to subvert the rule of law!
Continue reading Not my President! by ‘Lakunle JaiyesimiIs he yours?
He is not my President, who wishes to rule a space of his own conjuring!
He is not my President, who has an army of Nigerians ready to subvert the rule of law!
Continue reading Not my President! by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi(Nigeria’s general elections that stopped it all!)
From the pulpits across Nigeria, it’s good news. From the hinterlands to the dense streets of Lagos cities, majority of Nigerians seem upbeat about the coming elections, approaching it with cautious enthusiasm and are purveyors of the good news with a smile. Be reminded that the next elections are just few minutes away.
Good news, Nigeria? Only if the simple dreams of Nigerians, with basic expectations, can inch closer to becoming true. In darkness and with hunger, just a little hope is good news disguised.
2023 is a year that bodes differently for different people.
For some, it’s the subject of jokes, especially the undecided young Nigerians who seek to be voted as governors of either Ebonyi or Abia States, or Kaduna if the electorates would be so magnanimous.
Continue reading 2023: The Year of Pocketing, Junketing and ConfusionOnce, more than a decade ago, I wrote about the tale of two nations that was Nigeria.
Suffice it to say one nation belongs to those who have eaten the national cake so much that their big bellies protrude into other people’s territories. This is not so much parable as indeed, their potbellies cause untold hardship to the underprivileged contemporaries.
The other nation belongs to those who suffer, victims who must shift in order to create space for the potbellies of those who eat big our national treasures. In-between the nations is a gulf that drowns the people’s voices, one group unable to hear what the others are saying. Yet , we believe we practise a democracy where our voices count and where the people, being true subjects of governance, decide their fate.
Continue reading Nigeria, and the gulf that drowns our voicesAt the current state of things in Nigeria, no one should be left out in admitting the need for a drastic change. Indeed, the nation, more than ever, urgently needs a wide-reaching self-determination at the individual level.
According to the United Nations, “…a state is said to have the right of self-determination in the sense of having the right to choose freely its political, economic, social, and cultural systems”, and ”…the right to self-determination is defined as the right of a people to constitute itself in a state or otherwise freely determine the form of its association with an existing state.” Culled from Encyclopedia Britannica.
The latter clarification of what self-determination means indeed feeds the former, as the former cannot stand alone without inputs from the latter, which aligns well with Kendra Cherry’s thoughts on similar subject matter. Kendra writes, “self-determination is an important concept that refers to each person’s ability to make choices and manage their own life.”
For the price of bread,
Down with the arrogance of power!
Atbara, lurked to the east of Sudan
Continue reading WHILE SUDAN ASSAULTS by ‘Lakunle JaiyesimiTo this summit, unwieldy path.
Oh, yes! Long and tortuous…
Though smithing to its core,
Through those many years of arduous trek,
It was a journey to refine and revive!
And like the sheen on those faces,
Thousands of sepals passed and
Mariam: It appears I am hovering over the threshold of life and death. But I do not want to die mama [Slurred speech]
Martha: No, you won’t. God forbid! My enemies will not succeed over me [Mariam nods and looks away].
But that stupid boy, my God will punish him. He shall suffer just like…
Mariam: No, mama. Don’t curse him.
Continue reading Common house o’ commons 005Old Soldier was reclining against the wall as he bit on the last chunk of flesh on the mostly bony portion of chicken he was served by Iya Roy. He washed it down with whatever was left in a cup of jedi that Deckor had left unfinished. “Cigar”, he managed to utter and Smith promptly took out a stick of creased Cigarette from his pocket, lit it and handed it over to Old Soldier.
Continue reading Common House o’ Commons 004“But Azeez isn’t insignificant”, responded Smithereen to Deckor. “In fact”, he continued, “he is more than many people think he is.” Deckor signaled Iya Roy to give him one more bottle of her jedi, which was soon placed in the midst of two empty others. He was nodding at Smithereen’s talk while eyeing Iya Roy.
Continue reading Common house o’ commons 003There has been an explosion. Everyone feared that it was terrorist attack as they had promised. But the doctors remarked that the terrorists were not so stupid as to isolate their targets, focus on only two or three targets or even make such targets as insignificant as Azeez and Old Soldier.
Dr. Rumps: What would be their gain? Nothing!
Continue reading Common house o’ commons 002Few days ago, a boy who lived on the streets had arrived Iya Roy’s common house o’ commons bearing a piece of paper in his hands. In spite of his odd appearance, with tattered clothes and eyes bulging as if they were going to fall out, he was unnoticed. Iya Roy kept busy filling orders while her patrons ordered without a rhythm. Old Soldier, whose head has been bowed by the merciless hands of heavy drinking, lifted his head and was begging Smithereen (as Smith was called) to give him the remaining of the London he was smoking. He hurriedly inserted the butt in his mouth, dragged it and his eyes widened to notice the boy, leaning against their table, with the letter in his hand. Smithereen beat him to it, collected the letter and attempted to read it. It was written in Arabic or something entirely incomprehensible to those drinkards who tried to read the letter. It was important to understand its content, as apart from the words, there were images of guns and fire drawn around the words, which made understanding what it said more of an emergency. They passed it around, as if by chance it will fall in the hands of someone who understood the language. No one understood the contents.
Continue reading Common house o’ commonsIn Badagry, a district of Lagos in South-West Nigeria sometime in 2016, a boy was accused of repeatedly robbing local residents and businesses and what brought the tyre out was when he was accused of stealing bread from a petty trader. He was “necklaced” with the tyre and burnt alive. For hustling to sate his perpetual hunger, his life lived in penury was cut short savagely on the streets by a mob oblivious of her own sufferings and sins thereof. The gap created by dysfunctional governments was filled by two wrongs, the boy who should be in school stealing and the mob who should focus Continue reading NSIP: WHEN THE COMMONER’S LIFE IS POLITICISED
This was originally published April, 2, 2016 on account of the reputation of Kemi Olunloyo, being categorised, by a contemporary, as unworthy to make the claims that she made. My worry at the time was, who reserves the right to box others into stereotypes? Please, enjoy…
“E go land…e go land…na em butterfly dey take enter bush” is a direct translation of an expression of dynamism. In this piece, it is the dynamic nature of all human relationships and activities and how they influence our choices that constitute our concern.
Just recently, like play…like joke…, a well-known bald-headed friend of mine and I digressed into a heated argument from a general discussion about a Nigerian woman – Kemi Omololu Olunloyo, who many perceive as having a mental challenge and who has recently gone public with the claim that a popular Nigerian Pastor, Daddy G. O. (as
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(Only for the Cerebral)
A cacophony of ideologies, opinions…. We are a rare assortment of silently hopeful individuals, complacently hopeless ones and insolent specimens, just to mention a few, who occupy this noble space created almost six decades ago.
Invariably, the unity that lies in diversity tends to come into its Continue reading AN INROAD INTO RENOWN by Tope Omoniyi
Is someone dead
That before now has died?
A nation on auto-cruise
Irrespective of shape, size
And colour of butt that occupies the driver seat
This ship is always on auto-cruise. Continue reading [OPINION] abiku called Butiku
This was originally published December 3rd of 2014. I have decided to reblog it as its content is as much relevant today as it was then. Correct the typos mentally…. Read on…
My recent trip to Jos (J-town) of Nigeria was an eye-opener. I was hitherto, insignificantly, aware of the magnitude of what I did not know. And at the end of my stay in Jos, en route the humble source of mankind, Ile-Ife, I remembered the words of my loving grandfather, Moses Olaonipekun Akinyode, which he somewhat usually belched out after a protracted meditation, “Nigeria: we ‘hate’ thee”.
Jos is a country other than a city in a state within a country, with her own laws, people and (guess I’m wrong) weather. If anyone is in a hurry (and wouldn’t await my views) to deconstruct that claim, he or she should pay, even if a few days, visit to this lovely city (which I’m certain represents several others within Nigeria).
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When two personalities, who have been throwing the juggernauts at each other with everything they got, decide to combine their forces, it may lead to not only the annihilation of the opposition but also of themselves. Especially when such personalities bear names that portends no good. Find below the letter written by A-RE-MU (Slicer of nose) to A-TI-KU (We are dead):
Like ever before, I am constrained to write this letter to you because at my age, I am struggling against senility. However, the situation in which my country has been Continue reading A-TI-KU ati A-RE-MU
Africa has a rich and complex history but there is widespread ignorance of this heritage. A celebrated British historian once said there was only the history of Europeans in Africa. Zeinab Badawi has been asking what is behind this lack of knowledge and looking at the historical record for an African history series on BBC World News.
The Great Pyramid of Giza in Cairo is rightly considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But travel further south along the River Nile and you will find a thousand pyramids that belonged to the Kingdom of Kush, in what is now Sudan.
Kush was an African superpower and its influence extended to what is now called the Middle East Read More
I thought this may be important in furthering the discussion on identity.
1. The human race is of African origin. The oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans (or homo sapiens sapiens) were excavated at sites in East Africa. Human remains were discovered at Omo in Ethiopia that were dated at 195,000 years old, the oldest known in the world.
2. Skeletons of pre-humans have been found in Africa that date back between 4 and 5 million years. The oldest known ancestral type of humanity is thought to have been the australopithecus ramidus, who lived at least 4.4 million years ago.
3. Africans were the first to organise fishing
Source: 100 things about Africa