Bola Tinubu: The Unravelling Of A Bigot

 By Onyema Omenuwa

Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been unravelled. As a bigot, that is. Eventually, and completely, it needs to be added. And it is all due to the hypocritical kind of politics that he plays, particularly in Lagos State where he holds sway as the alpha and omega of politics. Significantly, his unrelenting and desperate quest to become the President of Nigeria led to his unravelling. Though he has succeeded in that regard, since he is today the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the success came at the great cost of shattering the façade of progressivism that has all along defined his politics.

*Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi

Tinubu projects progressivism as his political worldview. But presently in Lagos State, the “Igbo Must Go” hashtag has become something of a mantra across social media platforms for the Yoruba residents of Lagos and their supporters. That is starkly anti-progressive by any stretch of imagination, and it is happening in Tinubu’s Lagos. “Residents” is used advisedly in this context because not every Yoruba in Lagos is an indigene of Lagos State or a “Lagosian,” as the indigenes of the state delight in describing themselves. And that is the irony. 

Blessed Are The Human Rights Defenders

 By Owei Lakemfa

My mind raced back 34 years as I stood on Saturday in the assembly of human rights defenders who had gathered in Ilorin. Back in 1989, some of us had the choice either to surrender or confront the rampaging Generals who had seized both power and the national treasury and were ruling Nigerians as they would: a conquered people. The 1775 words of Patrick Henry, an American planter, rang in our heads: “Give me liberty or give me death!” 

We were guided by the examples of our ancestors like Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, Raji Abdallah, Bello Ujumu and our mothers in Eastern Nigeria in 1929 who fought what seemed to be unwinnable battles for freedom.

Nigeria: Let’s Fight Insecurity The Same Way We Fought COVID-19 (1)

 By Magnus Onyibe

 In the very popular Bob Marley song: Redemption Song. The lyrics goes thus; “how long shall they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look? “

If you substitute the word ‘prophets’ for ‘masses’ in the music maestro’s scintillatingly and solemnly rendered lamentation song, he might have been singing about Nigeria of today, even though the music was sang and released in June 1980-some forty years ago.

*Buhari receiving Covid 19 vaccines  

And the reason the lyrics of the song would resonate in Nigeria today is owed to the reality of the fact that a similar circumstance of life at its most horrific level- slavery and colonialism that prompted Marley to sing his song of agony is here with us in Nigeria, the land of our birth which has been transformed into a killing field. Unlike white oppression that Marley was wailing about, the misery is not being brought upon us by external forces.

From Falae to Funke – All Rhetoric No Action

By Martins Oloja

Before Governors Rotimi Akeredolu and Kayode Fayemi begin to speak in tongues again on the Ruga ambush now kicking the Yoruba nation in the face, let’s encourage them to look up first to the people of Ekiti and Ondo States before some ‘principalities and powers’ in Abuja. The body language and utterances of these two governors on the curious ‘colonisation’ agenda can implicate and injure them a great deal if they don’t manage perception well around them at the moment.

*Olu Falae 

But before anything else, these two prominent governors who will always be in the eye of the storm because of the preponderance of Funani settlements in their domains, should let the president know at this moment that as in Skakespeare’s Macbeth, “Here is the smell of blood still, all perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”.