A Word On Nigeria’s Deadly Enemies

 By Banji Ojewale

Our leaders are our deadliest enemies.

Not given to altruism, these leaders don’t also subscribe to the law of the power of example. This is the golden rule insisting that rulers aren’t graded great until they exhibit selfless, sacrificial and Spartan conduct that sparks same virtues in the citizens. But our leaders, elected, selected or ‘dictated,’ believe in the precept of the example of power. Here, the goal is, as you grab power, you must dig in, you must live in it and flaunt it and extend its frontiers like you’d be in its embrace forever.

Tinubu and Buhari

They invest their all in it, nursing it with a lusty affection that outlaws competition or regard for other existential concerns. They bequeath a depressed economy after fattening their personal bank accounts and acquiring more property than they had at the point of entry. They exploit the led and desecrate their sacred office. They arrange a superannuation that glides them into a lifetime of cloying affluence and luxury. 

Dimgba Igwe, The Enigmatic Born-Again Journalist

 By Onoise Osunbor

(First published in Sunday Concord, February 21, 1988)

“If there is one achievement I have successfully accomplished, it is to prove wrong the myth that you cannot be a successful journalist and be a born-again Christian.”  These are the words of Dimgba Igwe, the Sunday Concord Staff Writer among the prizewinners at the first UAC Merit Award for Journalists. 

*Dimgba Igwe 

People often perceive journalists as permissive, loving wine and women, but that is not the life of Dimgba who is deeply religious—a real born-again Christian.  Stylistically, he is an impressionistic writer who applies his pen like a brush in the hands of a painter, carrying the reader along as he tells his story.  One of his works is a masterpiece he wrote on Dakar, the capital of Senegal.  And he wrote it without talking to anyone.  He says: “The story I have done that I am likely to read over and over again is the one on Dakar.  

Nigeria: What Does ‘Independence’ Mean?

By Hope Eghagha

The years between 1957 and 1963 were very crucial to African countries within the context of gaining independence from colonial powers. Great Britain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the United States (in the Philippines) were at different times, colonial powers.

The scramble and partition of Africa from 1883 to 1900 benefited the imperial powers. Through force of superior power and masterful cunning, whole nations were subjugated under colonial rule in order to compel the ‘conquered’ nations to part with their resources at little or no cost to the colonial power.

UNILAG Crisis: The Devil Is In The Detail

By Banji Ojewale

…if gold rust, what then will iron do? For if a priest be foul, no wonder common man should rust—Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) English poet and author.

Evicted from Heaven for pride and rebellion against God countless thousands of years ago, the devil would hardly be expected to move in the mundane details of mortal man here on earth. But alas that has been his business, meddling in the affairs of puny man. He is everywhere man is: bedroom, market, school, politics, institutions, government, environment, mosque, church, heathen centres and even pagan or atheist abodes. He must order disorder where there is order, as he sought to do in serene and symmetrical Heaven. That is if you allow him.

The arch recidivist has also been at work at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, Nigeria’s foremost institution ranking as the 12^th in Africa. He has cooked noxious menu ready to consume all the parties, including those we presume are our beautyful ones, by the standard of Ghanaian novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah. What is on the table that Nigerians must not take from the devil?