Up till today, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo state has not stopped beating his chest, saying that his decision to flout the directives of the Federal Government to observe a total Lockdown for two weeks so as to contain the spread of the dreaded Covid 19 virus was an act of ingenuity. The Governor pointed out that he could not lock down the state and thereby prevented citizens from fending for their daily meals. If you look at the decision and the consequences therefrom from a narrow angle, you will be tempted to agree that the Governor was right. However,…
Author: Editor-in-chief
Like the man whose palm kernel were cracked by benevolent spirits, the Governor of Oyo state has made a powerful statement about his strategies and his abilities to win at all times regardless of the opponents and the Team mates. In a News Letter I came across, the Governor dropped a riddle about how he engaged his children and their friends in a game of pickleball. He took time to describe how the game is played and how he switched sides thrice in the three sets played but ended up winning on whichever side he played. He went on to…
Have you ever read Heidi Holland’s Dinner With Mugabe? It was published in 2012 by a Zimbabwean journalist and columnist who worked with Illustrated Life Rhodesia magazine. The book is a very penetrating portraiture of Robert Mugabe. It is a psychobiography of a freedom fighter, liberal lawyer and revolutionary who later became, first Prime Minister and later, President of Zimbabwe. The book’s title was a product of a 1975 sudden call from a Holland friend. He wanted her to arrange dinner and meeting with a friend she had no idea who he was, in her home in Salisbury, now Harare,…
The unfortunate misdeeds of a former Governor of Ogun state has resulted in a National embarassment for the whole Nation. Nigeria is currently being hounded and embarrassed all over the globe by a Chinese Company, not the Chinese Government, as a result of some transactions that went sour between it and the Government of Ogun state under former Governor Ibikunle Amosun. I do not intend to go into the nitty gritty of the arrangements and the alibi of the former Governor. Both are already public knowledge. The reality that however stares us in the face today is that the Chinese…
If it takes a mad man ten years to rehearse his insanity, when exactly will he enter the market square in full blown madness? Bi a ba fi odun mewa pile were, igba wo ni were fee ja oja? The Ogun state Governor, Dapo Abiodun has demonstrated how not to talk about food sufficiency alone without putting words into concrete action. Ogun state has joined the list of rice-producing states, just like Lagos state. Governor Dapo Abiodun has recently flagged off the harvest of a 200 hectares of plantation located at Mogbare Rice Farm in Obafemi Owode Local Government area…
I read the piece titled ‘ Light Up Oyo ‘: Who Is Sabotaging Makinde’s Pet Project by my brother and friend, Dapo Falade. The write up is not only timely, it is also revealing. Some of us have never been impressed with the said project ab initio, not because it is a bad thing to light our streets up but because the said project is a misplaced priority, bereft of transparency and one that could not stand the test of time. The write up is a brilliant exposure and confirmation of our fears. Let us start this way. The said…
Skits literally crack ribs with laughter. The line separating fact from fiction or faction (fact and fiction) in skits is paper-thin. An instance was a skit cobbled together in Addis Ababa on January 11, 1976 at an OAU Extraordinary Session on Angola. This high-octane skit was documented by General Joe Nanven Garba in his Diplomatic Soldiering (1987). Garba was a Langtang-born Federal Commissioner for External Affairs under Murtala Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo. Self-titled ‘Field Marshal’ Idi Amin Dada, the notorious Ugandan despot, was then the OAU chairman. It was at that conference that General Muhammed delivered his famous and powerful…
There will be a serious issue with local Farmers in Oyo state very soon but I will come to that later. I was guest on some local Radio stations in Ibadan recently and the experience is revealing and thought provoking. I had the privilege of featuring on another station today to discuss issues bothering on the State of the Nation. We discussed issues and problems facing our Nation and the responsibilities of Governments at all levels with a view to also suggesting solutions. I must credit the press, most especially, on Air personalities within Ibadan for the fresh zeal to…
The piece titled ” A Harrowing Trip To Eruwa” has elicited diverse response. There are those who felt the piece was a direct confrontation to the Speaker, Oyo state House of Assembly, Adebo Ogundoyin. Some die hard partisan politicians felt it was a sponsored job which is meant to discredit the PDP in favour of the APC. Interestingly, many of our people in Ibarapa embraced the write up as a timely intervention and many also volunteered information which I must confirm were out of my personal knowledge before I wrote the piece. I must put it on record that my…
Undoubtedly, the political matrimony between President Bola Tinubu and Northern Nigeria is at Talaq stage. Talaq is the Islamic unilateral repudiation of a marital union. There are no sobs, no wails. No dabbing of the face with a handkerchief. But, the dusts provoked by the matrimonial dislocation hang notoriously in the sky. Even bystanders miles away can see them. The marriage is only 15 months old but the couple’s patience for each other is rope-thin. As our elders say, right in the presence of the kolanut seller, irreverent worms slide inside his pods. A matrimony celebrated with pomp and ceremony…