Bola Tinubu’s Risky Niger Gamble

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu a few days ago wrote to the Senate to inform it of an impending “Military build up and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta in Niger should they remain recalcitrant.” This is a dangerous, ill-advised, potentially self-destructive gamble Tinubu would do well to give up because it has the potential to consume not just him but also Nigeria.

*Tinubu 

I detest military regimes because I am repulsed by any system that imposes unequal, predetermined structural limits on the aspirational compass to leadership. It is for the same reason that I despise the unearned, inherited authority that monarchies represent. Everyone should, at least in theory if not in practice, have the latitude to aspire to the highest level of leadership in the land. Military rule limits leadership to professional people, as monarchies limit leadership to bloodline.

J.A. Atanda Prize For The Best Essay On The Yoruba

Joseph Adebowale Atanda was a passionate historian who dedicated his scholarship to the historiography of Africa, especially that of the Yoruba. Popular among his publications are The New Oyo Empire: Indirect Rule and Change in Western Nigeria, 1894-1934, An Introduction to Yoruba History and Baptist Churches in Nigeria: Accounts of Their Foundation and Growth. The robust contributions of Atanda to Yoruba Studies have enhanced the existing knowledge of the Yoruba history, culture and spirituality, as well as the colonial and postcolonial relation. More than two decades after his demise, his scholarship remains relevant, and more increasingly so. 

Pius Adesanmi: The Human Oxymoron Politicians Must Learn From

By Banji Ojewale

Professor Toyin Falola has put it most concisely: Pius Adesanmi is the man who leaves and lives. He argues that although Adesanmi is leaving the scene, still he lives. He’s gone, but he’s not done. He’s gone, but he’s still on. He’s dead, but not dusted. There is more to Falola’s dirge than the lyrical alliteration.

*Professor Pius Adesanmi 

There’s also more to the oxymoron of a departure that yet defies an exit. To capture or press a point, you must confront it with its alter ego. To prove Adesanmi 'lives' on, you challenge his death with the greater fact of what he has left behind that offers assurance of his being alive, as it were. You put the two opposite each other: Adesanmi’s death and his works and life that touched many he seems to have left orphaned.