There is something about the Biafran struggle that seems to always gift the people with cowards as leaders. Without disrespecting anybody, one must be truthful enough to point out that the two most prominent leaders of Biafra have been men whom when it seems that personal harm will come their way, have found ways to run away.
For centuries, Africanist scholars have marveled at the variety and gaiety of ceremonies in traditional African societies. In wondrous bemusement, the notion has taken hold in some anthropological circles that ceremonies in traditional African society were manifestations of primitive merry-making; anarchic gyrations of inhumane societies. This pauperized construction of the nature and functions of ceremonies in traditional African societies has hindered a fuller and richer understanding of the normative, didactic, and constructivist dimensions of traditional ceremonies in pre-colonial African societies.
There are several lessons to learn from the political feud between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his erstwhile deputy, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar that lasted almost one and a half decades and on which so many people built their own political careers. One, it is the height of folly for anybody, most especially journalists, to inherit the enemies of politicians because they can always meet again and reconcile. Two, it is dangerous to speak in absolute terms or put down in print damaging things about another person in moments of anger or political disagreements. Three, and perhaps most important, Nigerians cannot afford to base their judgement on the basis of what politicians say about one another because when the music changes, those character assessments too will change because they are fickle and not always based on facts or principles.
Ahead of the 2019 Presidential Election billed for Saturday, February 16, I want to seize this medium to urge the Nigerian government–Executive and Legislature–to shift the election to any of the week days, and not Saturday.
Politics world over, obeys the law of Time and Tide. Therefore, it has become imperative to advise Candidate Atiku Abubakar/Peter Obi to make the necessary in-roads across the East of the Niger, particularly, Anambra State, the ECONOMIC HEADQUARTERS of South East Politics.
The Atlantic slave trade was ended in 1808, but the vast global market for cotton led to this country’s internal slave trade in which, as Lepore writes, a million African slaves were sold and shipped west between 1820 and 1840.
THIRTEEN months after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the Nigerian military to invade the ancestral home of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (MNK), leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), Kanu has reappeared in trending photos and Facebook Live video shot in the holy Land of Israel.
Exactly 32 years ago today, shameless agents of darkness in your country nailed you with the novel instrumentality of parcel bomb. That was the first act of terrorism against the fourth estate of the realm.
I am proud to be a citizen of a country (which incidentally is one of the few in the world) that has been richly blessed with both natural and human resources. I am proud to be the citizen of a country where despite our diversity, we work hard to be united. I am proud to be the citizen of Chinua Achebe’s country; Soyinka’ country and Kanu Nwankwo’s country. And like James Brown would have advised, I shout at the rooftops;
I don’t know what is more disgusting. That a journalist, a human being, can be so brutally murdered by his own government, or that an American president has continued to defend the murderers, citing America’s economic ties with Saudi Arabia, and even suggesting that Jamal was not an American citizen.
