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 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.
In 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
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
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
Dear Son of Man,
Just as we are trying to extricate our feet from the bog of bohemian that epitomises our national lives, some irascible juveniles in garbs of senility are trying to sink our feet deeper into the marshes of ignominy. What we witness here daily is enough to infuriate rational minds into irrational acts that may encapsulate and consume our sovereignty. Daily, our leaders, filled with hubris and self-demanding in their egocentric cocoons, serve illogic diets as menu for the palate of the famished public and leave them drooling in diarrheic spurts. Continue reading LETTER TO THE SON OF MAN Vol.6 by Adeojo Kolawole Adeyemi Hannibal
“The Problem in Nigeria is not about the north versus the south, it’s not about Christianity versus Islam, it’s not about APC versus PDP. The Problem in Nigeria is Right versus Wrong”
Ben Murray-Bruce (2016)
When I first saw the theme of the Great Ife Writer essay contest 2016, “What is the Most Challenging Issue in Nigeria and how would you solve it?”, the well applauded words of the “Common Sense” advocate, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, at the Silverbird Man of The Year 2014 were what came to mind. Many friends have asked why I did not submit an entry for the contest and my major reason was that the topic, though greatly depending on objectivity, is too subjective to just write what any judge wants. Continue reading Right Versus Wrong by Pope Jay
For many years, until recently, I can conveniently say that I was largely selective with choice of music, as against my almost indiscriminate stance with food. However, on a certain recent day, the discovery of the strange pose of the corpse of the legendary music artist, Michael Jackson, in his casket constituted the needed stimulus for me to, even if momentarily, take an amateur plunge into the world of African American music.
It was a Pandora’s box. Like unsolicited pop-up windows, certain question marks popped up at my face. Why is it exclusive Continue reading SARAKI AND THE PANDORA OF STREET MUSIC by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
A case to prove man, especially the Nigerian (as far as I’m concerned at the moment having factored in the reality of my human fallibility), has inadvertently, deliberately or serendipitously summoned cultures to be and almost true to the inaugural force of God during CREATION, according to the Holy Bible, these cultures, degrading, shameful, retrogressive and almost inhumanely unique, as they are, have come to be.
Man is an animal. An animal with a brain like every other animal? Maybe not! Maybe with a top-up to think? No! To speak? No! To build? No! To praise God? No! Then, what? Whatever it is, it’s a top-up to be able to organize ourselves, better than those ‘lower animals’, into tribes, religions, peoples, professions, neighbourhood and associates. Continue reading THESE ‘LOWER ANIMALS’ by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
(As original published on the 1st of April, 2015)
Oh little flower, can I touch?
The air is cool and princely so,
Gliding through, like a piece
of fine cake no one can eat,
As my motherlan’ dances to a new home
Continue reading Shoki for Change: Once upon a time by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
My dear President,
It will be too early in the day to start sending you notes but this is very important especially with the task you have before you. It is an enormous task and it is bothering me already how you will start. Just last week I asked that people should give you some space especially when we are awaiting some deliverables in about 80 days time. But as it is, my impatience to tone some words to you cannot endure a second longer.
Early March this year, I encountered one of the most gentlemen I ever come across in my short existence. He calls Jagaban Bola because they were contemporaries in Mobil. He acknowledged the sagacity of Bola on any given field of his interest. He was even jumping like a puppy while expressing his joy of being alive to witness your coming back to serve the nation. He congratulated my generation that we Continue reading #Pausibility: Voices From The Hallowed Chambers by Adebayo Coker
Dear Compatriots,
We sure had a wonderful Inauguration last Friday. It was awesome even though there were obvious lapses in the protocols during the Swearing-in proper and other activities that followed. From the foregoing, you should be able to tell what I am set out to talk about. The side dis(at)traction!
These past few weeks I have deliberately fed my laziness to blog. Not necessarily because I couldn’t write anything but I knew the last few weeks of Jonathan’s administration were tales of woes and that was what many bloggers cum columnists would air . I was right as so many valedictory notes I read were just as I had thought. Jonathan, A Failure! Scorecard…!! Good Riddance…!!! Continue reading #Pausibility: The Frailty Of Our Ingenuity by Adebayo Coker
It will be gubernatorial elections tomorrow. No doubt, I will urge everyone to go out en masse, just as we did during the Presidential Elections, and cast our votes for any candidate of our choice. Nobody is going to drown especially if you take caution and do not go near the lagoon if you cannot swim.
Please and please, stop degrading the palace of The Oba of Lagos. We all have failed to realize that there is no superhuman. What happened was just an act of the gods as it occurred to me that someone had been sharing in the drink of the deities for a long time but the day in question was just the day of reckoning.
The task before us is to make a choice of who will govern our states. And I wouldn’t want us to be carried away by any side attraction or distraction. Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: The Day Of Reckoning Is Here by Adebayo Coker
The dark clouds that gathered on our nation has finally cleared. The jubilation on the streets could be likened to the celebration we had when that killer wolf, Abacha was announced dead (no apology to the Abachas as I am not responsible for their father’s irrationality). The good Lord loves this nation. The doomsayers and those prophets that had in their own flesh believed the elections will not hold and if at all it held, the incumbent will be returned, should be left alone in their pulpits as I would want to believe that people would stop Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: The Silhouette Of This Presidential Election.
Oh little flower, can I touch?
The air is cool and princely so,
That one’s frame glides through,
Like a piece of fine cake no one can eat,
As my motherlan’ dances to a new home
Once upon a time, Abraham Lincoln… Continue reading Shoki for Change: Once upon a time by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
Kindly slam that song Natural Mystic by Bob Marley into your stereo and let it roll as you read this piece.
The Yorubas will say: ti a ba da ogun odun, ogun odun ape, ti a ba da ogbon osu, ogbon osu ako – the fraudulent twist of time cannot last eternal.
Tomorrow we will all go to the polls to assert our constitutional right and also perform our statutory duty as Nigerians. Some of us would have loved to put this behind us long before now, especially on the 14th of February when this election was earlier slated for before #Pausibility: That Cretinous Shift. Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: Is The ‘D’ In The D-Day For Doom? by Adebayo Coker
On Saturday, the 28th of March, 2015, Nigerians will troop out to vote in the first of elections that is adjudged to be the defining step of a long-awaited change. However way we look at it, this election will define the destiny of Nigeria, going forward, and beyond the business-as-usual that our leaders have made governance in the country.
As we so troop out, we should bear it in mind that we deserve change judging from where we are coming from. Be it a new regime of the incumbent or of an old or fresh hand, we demand new beginnings. Only hypocrites (and Nigeria boasts of many of them) would not admit that the country needs change. The contents of our meal tickets and plates must of necessity change, the outlook of our roads must change, the kidnap of school girls must stop, the delay of workers’ emoluments must change, the death of Nigerian Continue reading CHANGE IS COMING. SEEN IT? by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
Dear Sir,
Please do not consider the homophone of this caption but the sincerity that is inherent in the message.
Sir, many Nigerians have written many notes to you but I know you got one in particular: OBJ’s.
I know some of your aides will read this message but will never show it to you. You have made us to understand that going by the composition of your cabinet, a high quantum of the advice your aides give to you are useless, and my conclusion that they will not allow you to read this piece is based on that premise. Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: WHAT A ‘DOLLARED’ MOMENT! by Adebayo Coker
Editorial note:
(The following constitutes the personal opinions of a concerned elderly Nigerian lady, which had been sent in about a week ago)
This 2015 elections campaign should go into the Guinness book of world records as the worst campaign the democratic world has ever witnessed. It beats one’s imagination to observe how men can cook up stories, slander, use very derogatory languages against fellow men, having been oblivious of the fact that elections campaign will last only a few weeks but the damage that indecorums may cause in the mind of our children will linger for the rest of their lives. Continue reading Election 2015: The worst campaign in a decomcray
Editorial note:
(The following constitutes a personal account from a concerned elderly Nigerian lady, which had been sent in about a week ago)
From what is playing out on TV, I believe the main reason for postponing this election is borne out of PDP’s fear of losing the election. Probably, they needed more time to intensify their campaign and try to convince the general public. They observed that APC was gaining so much attention from the public despite all the campaigns of calumny. As much as possible, they are trying to promote the President, probably buy and pay keke-napep, motor park, some churches, drivers. I believe they are playing Continue reading Election and the game changers by Jane Chinelo
lAkUnLeScReWs 