Opinion

  OKEZUE OGBUU ALAA📌  RE: 2019 AHIAJOKU LECTURE SERIES!   It is good and commendable that the 2019 Ahiajoku Lecture was recently held in Owerri.  The intellectual and non-intellectual benefits of Ahiajoku lectures are legendary and innumerable no doubt.  However, some fallouts from the 2019 Ahiajoku Lecture suggest that the solemn …

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058 The saying, usually, is: Who bells the cat? The story is told that rats met one day and the agenda was how to put a halt to the havoc the cat was wreaking in the rats’ midst. Suggestions after suggestions were considered before the rats, in …

dispossessed by James Eze; Fasihi (Daraja Press); 2019; 121 pp Ever since I got a signed copy of James Eze’s debut collection of poetry, dispossessed, I’ve been possessed! Poetry can be overwhelming at the best of times such that it becomes a benumbing challenge getting the aesthetic distance to engage …

turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533 If a writer does not generate hostility, he is dead – Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, Nobel Laureate in Literature (2001). In any man that keeps silent in the face of tyranny, the man dies – Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature (1986). Those who vote (in …

The new word I put in the Dictionary recurs: Buharigging. It simply means deploying every apparatus of state – military, police, the secret service and the electoral commission – to manipulate an election. It is a word for an “anything goes” election where the figures of the agents of the …

The rise of Air Peace coy took everyone by surprise. The attitude was that the company belonged to Mrs Patience Jonathan, also known as Mama Peace. The subsequent investigation into the affairs of the company was thorough. Now fast forward to 2019 when the company decided to establish itself as …

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058 Recent events must have Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaders thinking which of Ali Modu Sherriff (aka PDP’s undertaker), and the incumbent, Uche Secondus (aka “Se ko dun”: Cook PDP well and let it taste well in APC’s mouth), is more of a pain in the ass. …

The results of the Saturday November 16 2019 off-season polls in Kogi and Bayelsa States, as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, have, as expected, been mired in controversy. The two elections were marred by violence as projected by many analysts in the run-up to the elections. According …

In recent years, some of my friends have relocated to Europe or North America along with their family members. When another longstanding friend hinted he would be migrating to America soon, I tried to discourage him as I did other friends. “You’re making a mistake,” I told Udinny, a university …

  turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058 Just like the prodding of a respected younger professional colleague moved me to take a look at the Ibadan house of horror, so also has the intervention of a senior professional colleague that I owe a lot of respect moved me to re-visit the issue. …

Many Nigerians were taken aback on Tuesday, November 12 2019, when news filtered that the Hate Speech Bill, first introduced in March last year under the eighth Senate,  passed the first hearing at the plenary. The Bill, entitled, “National Commission for the Prohibition of Hate Speeches (etc) Bill 2019, was …

  Now, my introduction to Professor Tam David-West was on this wise: I was brought up by a very strict, educationist father, who would not allow his seven children travel during holidays, particularly the long vacation at the end of the session. He had his own way of keeping us …

turnpot@gmail.com 0705 263 1058 I have lost count of how many houses of horror have been unearthed in various parts of the country in recent time, starting from the North before berthing, last week, in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and famed largest city in West Africa. Apart from such …

A fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. (William Shakespeare, As You Like It) In this season when the Villa has become dangerous to the men of your tribe, with the man known as VP now minimized, you have in an …

After the Supreme Court threw out the legal challenge by Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) on the February 2019 presidential poll last week, two things flashed across my mind. One was a song, the other, a quote from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which I’d read over 40 years …

The sudden death of Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe in London on Thursday, October 17, 2019 came as a rude shock to his friends, admirers, students, comrades and loyal followers in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large. He was a top-flight intellectual who had distinguished himself in scholarship and activism as …

  “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.” –Alexander the Great. If you talk to most people, you will discover that they actually mean well in their criticism of what government does. But …

  The sound of restructure or dissolve Nigeria has now become too loud for the core north to ignore. And certainly they are not ignoring it. A digression must be created, they have reasoned, and a very suitable one has emerged for that matter. A northern president of Nigeria emerging from 2023 …

The first Russia-Africa summit which held in Sochi, Russia, from October 23 – 25 2019,   has put Russia- Africa relations on the spot. During the summit, Russia welcomed 43 heads of state or government, along with dozens of business and community leaders. The Summit ended with the usual optics:it spawned …

President Muhammadu Buhari has returned to Nigeria from his four-day visit to the Russian Republic extremely happy with the success of the visit, which outcome is the best response to a few skeptical audiences back home, including a toxic newspaper editorial, “Buhari, Stay On Your Job,” by the Lagos-based Punch …

It was one death that sucked the juice of life out of me. Chief Joseph Ekemezie Ifedobi, famously known as “Okosisi Akpo” and “Ijikara”, should not have belonged in the same life with death. His endearing ebullience and very pleasant boisterousness gave so much meaning to the lives around him. …

  turnpot@gmail.com  0705 263 1058 The increasing cases of rape and defiling of little children in Ekiti require urgent attention. The amendment being sought may include imprisonment and medical castration of offenders, among others not stipulated in the existing law – Erelu Bisi Fayemi, First Lady, Ekiti State. The human …

Dr Junaid Mohammed, my colleague at the National Conference of Nigeria 2014 and  a former  follower of the Aminu Kano school of thought, has once again demonstrated why he is referred to as a former follower of Mallam Aminu Kano. The penchant to say anything that will give him publicity …

  An old video clip in which President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha, was seen irate and throwing tantrums in the Villa recently went viral, renewing focus on the First family and their domestic issues.  Just before this video, there had been unfounded rumours that President Buhari was set to wed …

Nigerians across all the divides cannot forget in a hurry that the country could not have become independent on October 1, 1960 if not for the resolve of one iconic nationalist. When others were fighting for their ethnic groups he stood firm for one Nigeria against very formidable odds. As …