Lagos State and the drama of its embattled lawmaker and ex-Speaker of its parliament, Mudashiru Obasa, appropriately answer to an idiom in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Insatiably curious about the mysteries of Wonderland, Alice had used the word, “Curiouser and curiouser” to express the mysteries of how she shrinks after drinking a potion. When Obasa emerged on Saturday to claim that he remained the Speaker of the parliament, Alice’s wonder at the mysteries of Wonderland became a fitting description of the theatre of the absurd that Lagos politics is. Before now, everything that emanated from the January 13 impeachment…
Author: Editor-in-chief
Last week’s ascension to the Alaafin of Oyo throne by then Prince Abimbola Akeem Owoade courted tremendous ruckus in Yorubaland. Why would an unseen Ifa deity and its cloudy, ancient system of divination choose an Alaafin? Implicated in the back-and-forth that followed was 92-year old Ògúnwán̄dé Abím̄bọ́lá, professor of Yoruba language and literature and one-time vice chancellor of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University. In 1981, a conclave of Ifa priests in Yorubaland anointed Abimbola as the Àwísẹ Awo Àgbàyé (World Ifa Priest). He was then investured by the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade. It was…
The door of life is binary; it opens either ways, inwards or outwards. So goes an age-long wisdom. When the Thisday newspaper, on January 1, 2025, announced President Bola Tinubu as its Man of the Year pick, emotions of Nigerians ran riot. Was that decision a product of editorial science or newspaper shamanism? Nigerians asked. To many, the newspaper’s editors must have meandered into some kind of trance, communed with with some unseen spirits and emerged therefrom with their odd pick. To others, Thisday hit the bull’s eye. Suffering Nigerians were even ready to, in the lingo of the millenials,…
Last Friday was the first anniversary of the passage of Rotimi Akeredolu, ex-Ondo State governor. It was also the first anniversary of his successor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, in office. We thus must be grateful to Aiyedatiwa for immortalising Akeredolu, famously known as Aketi that same day. Aketi was an ecumenical spirit – borrowing from Wole Soyinka’s burial oration for Chief Bola Ige. Aside from naming a court after Aketi, Aiyedatiwa organised a lecture in the former NBA president’s remembrance. Stubbornly courageous, Aketi cared not whose ox got gored while he spoke his mind. You could be president or an emperor; Aketi…
I have been asked severally what my opinion was on last week’s presidential media chat. First, I must commend the presidency for hosting the chat, though belatedly after 19 months of holding back. When the people hear directly from their leaders and not from third parties they didn’t elect, it affords them opportunity of psycho-analyzing the man at the helm of affairs, match his gestures with policies and project what the leadership’s future strides will be. It was also gladsome to see the president radiating warmth, confidence and mastery of his craft. He appeared to have learned the ropes of…
This past Monday, Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, held the fèèrè (flute) and blew it admirably. However, bystanders listening to the rhythm of his flute didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Moyo Okediji, Assistant Professor of Art at the Wellesley College, Massachusetts, in his “Art of the Yoruba” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, (Vol. 23, No. 2) described the flute held by Shettima as a symbol of the trickster god Esu, also known as the divinity of the crossroads. According to Okediji, Esu was so powerful that he could help or hinder the craft and life of man.…
The question of whether the law of defamation is a hindrance to freedom of speech and a curtailment to democratic process confronted the Burkinabe, a few years ago. Lohe Issa Konaté was Burkina Faso, that landlocked West African country’s own Dele Farotimi. He was a journalist with the newspaper, L’Ouragan (The Hurricane). Like a tempestuous hurricane, on August 1, 2012, Konaté published a series of articles in the weekly newspaper attacking the conduct of a local prosecutor in a money counterfeiting matter. A week later, Konaté doubled down on this same allegation against the judicial system of Burkina Faso by…
In 1992, Leon Mugesera, a senior politician in the then Rwanda ruling party, gathered a crowd of supporters at a rally held in the town of Kabaya. At the rally, Mugesera labeled the minority Tutsi “cockroaches,” who must be eliminated. He then asked this East African ethnic group to go back to its place of birth. He was quoted to have said: “Anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck.” This “cockroach” typecast glued to the Tutsi ethnic group. Two years later, about 800,000 of them got brutally slaughtered, hacked to death and…
In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘐𝘴 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘦 – 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘐𝘴 𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘦, 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘏𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘴 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘖𝘸𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤: Essays by Ulli Beier, edited by Wole Ogundele, (2001) Horst Ulrich Beier, famously known as Ulli Beier, had an engaging narrative about the power and powerlessness of dogs. He entitled the narrative, Dog Magic of Yoruba Hunters. In it, Beier related how his dog, which he provocatively named Tańtólóhun, (who can compare with God?)’s weird tantrums, which occurred in Osogbo in the early 1960s, could mirror the insufferable power and limitations of dogs. The motive of telling the story, he…
Kunle Rasheed’s recent statement attempting to defend King Wasiu Ayinde’s self-proclaimed title as the “owner of Fuji music” is laughable and misleading. It’s astonishing that Mr. Rasheed would try to rewrite history and dismiss the well-documented facts about Fuji music’s origins. While I won’t give unnecessary credence to Mr. Kunle Rasheed, as he doesn’t deserve it, it’s safe to say that his watery write-up as an acclaimed Fuji entertainment reporter for over 20 years could only produce a concocted, watery piece like this. King Saheed Osupa Akorede has consistently attributed Fuji music’s creation to its true pioneer, the late Dr.…