Opinion

The Southwestern town of Ota is famous primarily for two things: farming and witchcraft. For its Yoruba neighbours, the witchcraft is the most fabled and the wickedness of the Ota witch is the benchmark by which other witches are…

In the masterpiece, satiric comedy, The Trials of Brother Jero, Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, captured religious hypocrisy in the form of a con, or fraud, named Brother Jero, who preaches to his followers on Bar Beach in Lagos.…

Akinwunmi Ambode, governor of Lagos state, has been thrown under the bus. He will not serve a second term in office not because the people of Lagos state rejected him in an election but because his godfather, Bola Tinubu, pulled the…

MANY of us had resigned ourselves to the second term of Muhammadu Buhari as President, until the emergence of Abubakar Atiku as candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. A year ago, whenever I peered into the…

It was a mockery of a familiar scripture. “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.” So Atiku Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo could sit together, after the firestorm of laughter a few years ago. They now see…

In October 1987, the late Sheikh Abubakar Mohammad Gumi, a well-respected Islamic cleric, granted an explosive interview to the now-rested Quality magazine. It was on Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s transition to civil rule programme. Gumi…

That the Igbo are in a political freeze is largely due to their own “sleight of hand”; that they are in disarray is because they never agree. And that they have not had any success in politics since 1999 is because they still think…

With Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s endorsement of his preferred candidate, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, it was a given that Governor Akinwumi Ambode had not only lost the second term…

When in 2014, he was asked about his successor, Fashola said he was not worried yet at the same time expressed concern. “I hope, firstly, that the next person is a lot better than me. I hope that he can do in four years what we did in…

It is faulty to equate the deep loyalty Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu attracts in Lagos as exemplary of ‘Omoluabi loyalty’ or being reflective of the entire Yoruba or South-West populace. Ondo State electorate will argue for example that they…

The already charged political atmosphere seemed slightly calm early on Sunday, September 30, 2018. Political gladiators were in the trenches getting ready for the State primaries. This was punctured at about mid-day with an announcement…

We see different things even when we are looking at the same picture. When CBN asked MTN to return the $8.1 billion dividends it “illegally” repatriated between 2007 and 2015, I was not thinking about MTN or CBN. Rather, my mind was on…

In the thick of global attention on Nigeria as a result of the undercover story by BBC Africa Eye and the pidgin unit of the foreign media, the local front has embraced the choice to join the discourse that has built a chalet on social…

If Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode feels being held hostage by his political godfather, he should blame no one but himself for how long his ordeal lasts. No, we are not lost in schadenfreude – gloatingly cavorting about over the…

Over the weekend, Lagos State Governor’s Advisory Council(GAC), a leading voice within the All Progressive Congresses (APC) in the state, came up with its final verdict: the incumbent Governor Akin Ambode will not be given a consensus…

Extra time in the game of football is the most unpredictable period in a keenly competitive match. This is because there may be a twist of fate for a team which appears to be strong during the full time to fall during this critical moment…

The political fortune of Ambode and President Muhammadu Buhari are tied together, which is the more reason why good reasoning should prevail in this matter. Before the advent of the Fashola administration, driving through…

I have hesitated to weigh in the media frenzy about the HSBC report entitled ‘Nigeria: Papering over the cracks’, which was issued in July 2018. My hesitation had to do with the fact that I had not read the full report in its original…

When shall we meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” asks the First Witch in Macbeth, William Shakespeare’s shortest and grimiest tragedy. The Second Witch replies: “When the hurly-burly’s done. When the battle is lost and won.”…

“A man alone hasn’t got a chance.”Ernest Hemmingway, 1898-1961’ Hemmingway, an American Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1954, wrote several books including The Sun Also Rises and Road to Dusty death. I read all of them because I…

If not that we politicise everything in Nigeria, the Kemi Adeosun saga should provoke a genuine public debate on reforming the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The constitution and other laws are supposed to be living, not embalmed,…

WITH the supersonic speed of social media, it is almost certain, troubled Lagos helmsman Akinwunmi Ambode, would have seen the viral video of Wasiu Ayinde spraying him with straight-from-gutter expletives. The successful but…

WHATEVER decision Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode eventually takes on his botched or controversial second term, he will have to rue the saying “what goes around comes around.” Four years ago, others got disappointed by the godfather so that he,…

My dear Asiwaju, I pray my letter meets you and yours in fantastic spirit. It has almost become a tradition for me to write, or openly express my views, to you periodically on political issues, since about 2007. Before I go into the…