CHIBOK,
sounding like the celebrity’s name,
has joined the league of Burj Khalifa and
the statue of liberty.
Seeming to mock our dear country,
The tourist asks, “Where is it?
Can I go see Chibok?” Like no one knows it was Continue reading CHIBOK, a year after by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
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
Just as the common example, Ramadan has come to an end and a sharp upsurge in the patronage of brothels and beer parlors noticeable. Do not get me wrong, same could be said of quadragesimal period. A great number of us display piety louder than the Pope and the chiefest of Sheikhs just around those periods that we observe our religious abstinence, but other than those times, we are just as evil as the devil can be.
Yours truly was Ebuka’s guest at Channels TV last Sunday. It was a live cast of the famous programme for youths, Rubbin’Minds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJmy8Q_xx2Q), Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: OF NOMINAL, NORMAL AND THE EXTREME by Adebayo Coker
One of the news items, in fact, it was reeled as a Breaking News item, last weekend was the Ceasefire Deal that was entered into by the FGN with Boko Haram. I am sure so many of us will say it is a welcome development; but immediately I saw that piece on Channels TV I knew this is another of those displays of mental incapacity to think right and to act right by the crop of managers in charge of our state affairs.
I am sure many of us must have been reading different analyses and commentaries on why this particular ceasefire is defective. I have my wholesome reservations too about the deal but I will only employ Maieutics to drive home my point. Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: ARMITICE WITH AN EYE CYST? by Adebayo Coker
A few enfant terribles can successfully disturb the peaceful sleep of a majority of docile individuals. When such enfant terribles include persons such as the legendary Fela Anikulapo Kuti, champions of #BringBackOurGirls, Gani Fawehinmi, Japhet Omojuwa and a host of their likes, who have always disturbed the peaceful sleep of docile others, it is interesting to note how these persons are quickly tagged negatively, limbs thrown out almost hitting their faces and then, the precious slumber is resumed without a thought to what these ‘enfant terribles’ are calling our attention to.
If at all Nigerians are moved to fight what has become obvious to be injustice, corruption and so on, if at all, they quickly reconcile with their inner peace, “Who cares?”, “Will the fight or protest put food on my table?”, quickly, like a mother holds a cane at the back of your yansh, they resume the slumber, the “suffering and smiling”, the “no-break-no-jam-on-the-streets-of-Lagos-and-now-elsewhere”. Continue reading WE SLEEP TOO MUCH DOT NG by ‘Lakunle Jaiyesimi
Three months ago, Chibok existed as a lone town at the far North-eastern outskirt of Nigeria; utterly ordinary and almost non-existent in the National Geography of most Nigerians. Until that fateful moment in time! Until that sober point in our National history when some of our girls were whisked away from known liberty by some named but unknown vagabonds to an unknown destination to be subjected to things unknown. What crass audacity in a lawful society!
However, since the dawn of this anti-juvenile horror, some of us have not hesitated to march over long-standing ancient divides to explicitly identify ourselves with the families of the temporarily departed, developing a vigorous sense of “chibokhood” in the process. And like the chibok family, with the Chibok family, and for the Chibok family, we await with uneasy eagerness the reappearance of a lost sisterhood. Continue reading DEAR CHIBOKFAMILY by Adejuwon Grace Oluwawemimo
It took me a while before I finally decided to write my column for this weekend, as I had decided to leave it unattended to for this week and the next, in order to have a proper holiday that I deserve. I see this as an escape from the societal angst and madness being promoted and perpetrated by our insane politicians/ ruling class. But what fun do I stand to have when daily I am forced to watch pools of human blood and pieces of human flesh everywhere I turn to. What celebration?
I had promised my wife that I was going to switch off my phones and that I wasn’t going to put my hands on any gadget, let alone adding or editing any manuscript, but on Monday, I broke that promise as I was passionately provoked to reply a guy on one of the social media platforms when he ridiculously asked: What is Oby Ezekwesili’s pedigree for her not to be questioned by the DSS? I jokingly told my friend that I will only answer his question if he would mention someone in his lineage that could rival her record. Did I say too much? Continue reading #PAUSIBILTY: THIS HOLOCAUST AND THE REST OF US by Adebayo Coker
14th July, 2013, I sat right in front of my television set, and watched as a young sixteen year old girl delivered one of the most courageous speeches I ever listened to, during a United Nations General Assembly. Each word she uttered on that international podium gyrated with bravery. I rose in ovation at the end of her delivery as I do not think any world leader could have been more inspiring than Malala Yousafzai. (I love that girl).
The UN declared 14th July of every year #MalalaDay.
This superlative young girl defied the bullets of discouragement Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: MR PRESIDENT, IN LOCO PARENTIS by Adebayo Coker
I know this much about you; that you are human just like I am. That we have never met is true but knowing with all certainty that you are out there makes me feel like there is a companion going through life with me. I address this letter to you because, in a way, we are the same – life-fellows with questions that linger deep within our hearts with a tenacity that defies evasion. Questions pertinent about what the next step in our drifting existence ought to be; questions ceaselessly demanding from us what to life our attitude should be. Stranger though you are, yet a companion so dear.
I know very well there are moments you are reduced to sighs and gasps, because such moments exist for me, too. That you have many times grieved and mourned I have no doubt, for that, again, is a necessary life-fare that guarantees our companionship. Continue reading DEAR STRANGER, a love letter by Adejuwon Grace Oluwawemimo
“If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out.” – Arthur Koestler (1905 – 1983)
Someday, the little mama and dada’s girls will be a shadow of what they used to be. Their once fragile heart becoming as hardened as diamond and their trauma-tested wills mounting into an Continue reading CHIBOK: WHEN TEARS NO LONGER AVAIL by Adejuwon Grace Oluwawemimo
I write this piece to quickly draw our critical consciousness to this “infamous”, yet significant, speech of P.W Botha, the erstwhile President of the apartheid South Africa, which a friend drew my attention to in the course of the week (even in the overwhelming ambiance of my grudges against Nigerian leaders, but gratifying reluctance in discussing them), after reading one of his email’s entitled “Now That Botha Must Be Taken Seriously (or whatever that means)!”. For the sake of emphasis, I decided to retain the title.
The reason for bringing up this speech anyway is to enable us have a rethink of the horrifying events that have plagued our nation Nigeria, and by extension Africa – corruption, civil unrests and wars, leadership crisis, kidnappings here and there, consumerism and underdevelopment, and more recently, terrorism – since independence. These horrible events, we must recall, have for a while now been attracting blatant reactions from sensitive and oversensitive people to an extent that even the silence of phlegmatic individuals has become the din that prevents us from hearing ourselves anymore. Therefore, at this critical time, existential questions demand immediate answers as they continue to gaze at us shamefully and a need for us as Blacks to reconsider Botha’s chauvinistic and supposed malign speech. This speech, of course, seems the only formula that couched, thoroughly and fittingly, our rhetoric of confusion, most especially at this moment when our entire socio-political realities continue to draw hoots of derision and despair from us, thus, making us all becoming improvised, nay, accidental social critics of Continue reading “NOW THAT BOTHA MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY” by Yemi Czar
By principle, a man that cannot protect his neighbor is himself in a big security mess.
When GEJ ordered Eagle One to Paris rather than Chibok, he was not doing the unstated; he already hinted during his last media chat that Shekau and his boys will kill anyone that ventures Sambisa. I must doff my hat for the men and women that are still living in that village of terror, Chibok; they are stronger than this CinC with all of his appurtenances of military might combined with the strength of the international allies. Even when GEJ had the opportunity to get grasp of the situation by granting just few minutes’ audience to the protesters of #BringBackOurGirls in Abuja yesterday which could have placed him on a better pedestal with the people, he blew it. Those of you that think you are helping this guy, there is God o! Continue reading #PAUSIBILITY: RECLAIMING CHIBOK by Adebayo Coker
With the indiscriminate ‘butchery’ of Nigerians by the dreaded and attention-seeking Boko Haram, all Nigerians are as good as dead. And one wonders if by Nigeria, we are referring to a country and not a mere geographical tag of a space, where anyone is at liberty to do anything in the name of whatever goddamn thing they believe in. No one knows when he or she may be the next victim of their senseless killings until it has happened; unfortunately, dead persons know nothing of such, I suppose. However, there are some victims who are given the privilege of being injured and that’s if their situations are not worse than being dead.
Is this a country? Whatever the response may be, should it remain so? In the last few years and at every turn, thousands of Nigerian humans with full constitutional rights, not fishes or insects, have been ignobly murdered. Shortly before their deaths, they all must have believed strongly in the supremacy of the constitution of the Federa Continue reading #Boko Haram, all Nigerians are as good as dead
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