By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
It all started at the
local secondary school in Ndiorumbe when the literature teacher, Holy Nwankpi,
asked his students: “Who wrote Things Fall Apart?”
The first student pleaded his innocence thusly: “I didn’t write it-o!”
Another student pointed an accusing finger at the denying student and screamed: “He is a liar. I know he wrote it!”
The class prefect joined the fray with these words: “I saw him when he was writing Things Fall Apart with a red biro!”
An attempt was made on the life of the Osun State Governor, Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola, today, Saturday, October 17, 2020, in Oshogbo.
By Hope Eghagha
It is within the context of a poignant, profound and perhaps arcane ritual imagination that we encounter John Pepper Clark in his literary world as evidenced by the evocative power of his primal poetic and dramatic compositions.
Especially so are some of the early works such as Song of
a Goat through Ozidi, the ‘middle’ The Boat, The Return Home, Full Circle,
Casualties and the later Remains of a Tide.
His only known work of prose the semi-autobiographical and bitingly sarcastic America their America, at once immediate in content and prophetic in thematic concern exists outside this ontology of ritual and the mythic imagination.
By Yinka Odumakin
The great political philosopher and polemicist, Leon Trotsky, once talked of professor of Spring who was teaching the subject in a classroom for years. He came out one day and was face-to face with Spring but he denied it saying it must be some disorder in nature.
So it is with Nigeria that got its independence on a federal constitution with a very lean exclusive list. But the aberration of military rule with command and control bloated the exclusive list to give virtually everything to the centre stripping the federating units. The centre became too fat to be productive and the units too lean to have a healthy existence.
*J.P. Clark
One of Nigeria’s pioneer writers and retired professor of Literature, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, is dead. He died Tuesday morning, October 13, 2020. He was 85.
A statement jointly signed by Professor C. C. Clark and Mr. Ilaye Clark, for the family, revealed that Professor Clark-Bekederemo died surrounded by his immediate family.
You bowing, you crying
You, dying like that one day without knowing why
You, struggling, you watching over another’s rest
You, looking no longer with laughter in your eyes
You my brother, your face full of fear and suffering
Stand up, and shout No!”
– David Diop
By Dan Amor
Nigeria is a beautiful edifice built with bricks of contradictions. Somewhere between the idea and the reality hovers a huge geographical abstraction that beguiles the imagination. Situated at the Eastern end of the Gulf of Guinea, between the 4th and the 14th Parallels, Nigeria occupies a total area of 923,768 square kilometres, slightly more than the combined areas of France and Germany.
From Lagos in the South-west to Maiduguri in the North-east is the distance between London and Warsaw. Its population estimated at about 200 million, exceeds the combined population of all other countries in the West African sub-region of the Sahara. Endowed with enormous wealth, a dynamic population and an enviable talent for political compromise, Nigeria stood out in the 1960s as the potential leader of Africa, a continent in dire need of guidance.
By Ayo Oyoze Baje
To fight against untruth and falsehood,
…to fight for our memory;
for our memory of what things were like –
that is the task of the artist.
A people who no longer remembers
has lost its history and its soul.
– Alekzander Solzhentsyn
With trillions of revenue in Naira, mostly from crude oil sales, agricultural exports, solid minerals, sundry taxes including Value Added Tax (VAT), from the ‘60s till date, it is a crying shame that Nigeria is currently the world capital of extreme poverty! And that it still parades some of the most disturbing and dismal figures in the Human Development Index (HDI) across the globe.
According to Oxfam Report, between 1960 and 2005, about $20 trillion was stolen from the treasury by public office holders. This amount is larger than the GDP of United States in 2012 (about $18 trillion).The Report goes further to state in categorical terms that the combined wealth of Nigeria’s five richest men, put at $29.9 billion could end extreme poverty at a national level. Yet, more than 112 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria, while the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million (N386 Million) every day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune! So, what does this mean to you and yours truly?
By Theodore Dzeble
“The American president was the quintessential repository of stately virtue, democracy, legitimacy, wealth, elegance, majesty, and freedom! Like the women of Jerusalem who cast down their garments on the highways for Christ’s motorcade, American presidents before Trump enjoyed such audacity of praise that even the angels coveted!”
Since 1788 when the Constitution of the United States of America was adopted (it was the very first formal blueprint of modern democracy), America’s democratic governance, (albeit unfolding in stages) became the city on the hill that inspired all leaders and nation-states. America was the dream everyone wanted to experience.
By Julius Oweh
Of the three
prominent early Nigerian nationalists, it was perhaps Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great
Zik of Africa and a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah who believed in the unity and
corporate existence of the nation. The other two, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi
Awolowo at one time or the other expressed their reservations about the unity
and oneness of the country. It is on record that Ahmadu Bello described the
1914 amalgamation as a mistake, while Awolowo described Nigeria as a mere
geographical expression.
At the height of constitutional conferences that paved way
for the nation‘s independence, Bello was quoted as saying about the north
‘we are not going to be part of Nigeria again‘. The most powerful politician of
the north at that time only had a change of mind when Awolowo explained the
concept of federalism to the Premier of northern region. I am embarking
on this political voyage so that you can truly understand the situation and why
after sixty years of independence, despite the abundant human and material
resources, Nigeria is still the butt of dirty diplomatic jokes around the globe.
By
Mike Ozekhome
Many Nigerians at home and abroad, including elder statesmen and women, rights activists, NGOs, journalists and social media czars, have severally called upon me in the last one week to comment on my personal feelings about “Nigeria at 60”. I had hitherto resisted this invitation, lest I painted a horrifically gloomy picture of despondency. However, because the questions will not stop cascading in like a torrential rainfall, I am now compelled to share my honest, but very modest, thoughts about Nigeria at 60. I am extremely sad about Nigeria at 60.
Very, very sad indeed. Surely, a 60-year and above old man or
woman, is already a senior citizen; a grandfather, or grandmother. I am one.
This means such a man or woman has grown; or is at least, presumed to have
grown, in maturity and development. But, I am sad that Nigeria, “our own dear
native land” (words taken from the beautiful lyrics of the unfortunately
discarded old National Anthem), has neither developed nor matured.
By Gbenro Olajuyigbe
Kings of empires were historically imperial, feudal lords. They were fearfully revered. They could decide to take their baths with bucketful of another person’s blood if they wanted.
They were the law, the empires and the emperors – trinity of terror! To drive home the omnipotence of their cruelty, one of the wives of the Alafin in the Old Oyo Empire, due to familiarity, tested the potency of such power. She playfully ridiculed the king while naked by saying ‘ I don’t know why people fear a man with small organ like you?’ Alafin responded, ‘you don’t know?”.
By Reuben Abati
I was very skeptical when the current leadership of Organized Labour in Nigeria objected to the decision of the Federal Government to withdraw fuel subsidy and hand over the pump price of petrol to the forces of demand and supply, also known as market forces. Labour, represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and their affiliates and privies in civil society, further threatened that they were opposed to the hike in electricity tariffs.
They issued a statement in which they railed
against neo-liberal policies, bad timing, and the insensitivity of government.
They made heavy weather out of the hardship that COVID-19 has imposed on the
people and why any form of additional taxation that could pressurize the people
would be utterly unacceptable. Deregulation of the downstream sector is not a
new subject in Nigeria. Removal of fuel subsidy is an old subject. Only the
dumb and the deaf would deny being aware of the persistent argument that a functioning
electricity sector in Nigeria would unleash the country’s energy and
potentials, through the values derivable therefrom: saving of costs, creation
of jobs, a value-added SME, an improved manufacturing sector and a happier,
more productive citizenry.
In 2012, when the Jonathan administration announced a full deregulation of the downstream sector and removal of fuel subsidy, Organized Labour aligned with opposition politicians and turned the argument on its head. They called out their troops and a thoroughly hypnotized political class, and workers’ community, fostered tension and instability in the system.
By Adaeze-Mcphilips Nwachukwu
Dads play important roles in every step their children take. They are like warriors who will fight battles for the sake of their children’s happiness. However, some children grow up without a father; some lose their dad because of death. Some are not given the chance to spend their entire life with their father. Being away from your father or losing him forever may cause you to feel empty and incomplete. The sadness that fills your heart is very upsetting. Missing my dad and knowing I may never see him again is so painful to me.
MISSING MY DAD
Dad, I keep thinking about you never
knew that being fatherless, would make me feel so much pain. I miss you Dad.
It hurts to think that you are not here anymore. Although I cannot help it but at times I smile with tears in my eyes when I remember how we cherished each and every moment when you were alive. I miss you Dad!
The Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has congratulated Governor Godwin Obaseki of the Peoples Democratic (PDP) for his victory at the September 19 governorship election held in Edo State.
In statement signed by the state chairman of the
party, Anslem Ojezua, the party said that although the
election was “acclaimed to be peaceful, orderly and transparent,” what led to
their defeat was the mismanagement of the process leading to the election by a
“selfish, insensitive, arrogant and irresponsible leadership.” 
The statement reads:
“We join President
Muhammadu Buhari and the National Caretaker Committee of our great Party to
congratulate Governor Godwin Obasekl and his Deputy Rt. Hon. Philip Shalbu for
their victory at the just concluded Governorship election in Edo state” the
chairman said.
“The election has been generally acclaimed to be peaceful, orderly and transparent. The people of Edo State have made their choice. In a very clear and unambiguous manner.
By Reuben Abati
The pundits who had predicted the outcome and the nature of the Gubernatorial election in Edo State got it all wrong. The Edo 2020 election may well prove to be a turning point in the management of elections in Nigeria, and if not, there are certainly lessons to be learnt from it. It was in every sense a rude awakening for both the actors in the drama and the community of observers who witnessed and monitored the election.
Pundits predicted that the election would end up as war, a do –or die affair and that there would be blood-letting in all the state’s three Senatorial Districts. That didn’t happen. An official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was shot in Etsako Central LGA, another person was macheted and given a cut on the face. In Orhionmwon LGA, a person was killed. In Egor, Ovia South West, Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo LGAs there were reports of skirmishes involving vote buying, and physical assault, but on the whole, the election went on peacefully. There were fears that voters would stay away from the polling stations, out of fear and anxiety, for indeed, before election day, September 19, campaign rhetoric was febrile, hate speech dominated political talk. The people had every reason to be afraid.
I don’t envy President Muhammadu Buhari. The sheer enormity of the burden on the leader of a nation like Nigeria is certainly not a thing to trivialise or dismiss with the wave of the hand. Before Buhari’s emergence as president, there were issues that threatened the very existence of the nation and had eaten deep into the very fabric that should hold us together. All these issues preceded the administration of President Buhari. True.
However, and sadly too, nothing much is being done to build this slowly but steadily disintegrating and dysfunctional nation. Every of those fault lines that threaten the nation are daily accentuated by the action and inaction of the Buhari regime. There is a clear lack of willpower to arrest the decline. To this end, we have been regaled with stories of denials and blame trade that will ultimately do no one any good.
PRESS RELEASE
By Hon (Barr) Frank Ugboma
Some Sections in the recently gazetted Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) came to me with rude shock.
As the Chief Sponsor of the Bill, I have had cause to search through all the documents that cumulated into the Bill. I must say that I have done this repeatedly and have equally taken further pains in reaching out to my colleagues in the House. I must admit that they have each expressed shock over the sudden obnoxious sections of the Law more particularly Section 484 of the said ACJL of Imo State.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Bill I presented had about a total of 372 Sections. How and where it was amended, recreated and reshaped into Section 484 and beyond remains a mystery and a legislative wonder of our time as what I presented and circulated to my colleagues during plenary, both in the First and Second readings did not contain such obnoxious and embarrassing Section 484. Neither was it deliberated in the House Committee of the whole. It indeed never existed in the House.
By Yakubu Mohammed
Apparently, the North deserves pity. But is it worth crying for? Whichever angle you want to look at it, and through whichever prism you want to look at the Hobbesian state of its conditions today, the inevitable conclusion is that the North has nobody to blame but itself.
In its heydays, with good
leadership that was imbued with sound vision, the North was united and
monolithic in more senses than one. And relatively, it was more
economically viable, self-confident, arrogant even.
But today, it is at war with itself, thanks to rabid ethnicity and religious bigotry with a system that wallows more in mediocrity than merit. Home to soulless insecurity with Boko Haram and other assorted criminals, armed bandits, kidnappers, cattle rustlers and herdsmen, both local and foreign, unhinged, the once united and peaceful North has turned into a hot bed of grotesque abnormality.
