“Silence is golden when you can’t think of an [intelligent] answer” – Mohammed Ali, 1942-2016.   Buhari’s death has exposed more horrors about the real attitude of those who held the highest posts in his government – which was largely a failure based on lies and hypocrisy. Last week, my column addressed Garba Shehu’s confession that he […]

“Every government is run by liars; and nothing they say should be believed…” -I. F. Stone, 1907-1989. I was halfway through with the article intended for this week when two things happened. Former President Buhari, 1943-2025, passed on in a London Hospital; where he undoubtedly had gone to save his life. Unfortunately, the man might have […]

I inherited a country near bankruptcy – President Tinubu at Saint Lucia, July 3, 2025. It must have been divine coincidence. One of Buhari’s former Senior Special Assistants launched his book a day before – undoubtedly full of half-truths and plain lies about the wonders performed by the former President. Nobody expects an ex-official, who spent […]

“You can’t beat something with nothing” – American baseball team coach after his team lost 17 games in a row.  Since governance has been suspended for active politicking in Nigeria until May 2027, we might as well stop deceiving ourselves and squarely face the issue of selection of our President from 2027 to 2031. In […]

“In times of victory, prophets are unnecessary distractions” -Trevor Roper, 1914-2003, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 204. Pervasive genocides in the North have a label: MADE IN DEEP THE NORTH. Boko Haram, herdsmen, new terrorist religious groups, cattle rustlers, murderous land grabbers, unrelenting kidnappers and heartless murderers are all Northerners. There is no single Yoruba, […]

“When a nation has allowed itself to fall under a tyrannical regime, it cannot be absolved from the faults due to the guilt of the regime” – Sir Winston Churchill, 1874-1965 “The face of tyranny is always mild at first” – Jean Racine, 1639-1699 Most African and Nigerian leaders are often too busy hustling to make […]

“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought” – Simon Cameron, c1860, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 190 Cameron, who was a politician, must be pulling everybody’s legs. An honest politician is almost an oxymoron – a contradiction in terms. As far as I am concerned, Louis M Howe, 1871-1936, […]

“A precedent embalms a principle” – William Scott, 1745-1836, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 198 “Politicians are their own grave diggers” – Will Rogers, 1897-1935, VBQ p 191. I clocked 81 last month; and, if asked to list ten things which provide me with the most satisfaction, watching the gradual death of the People […]

“Telling the truth and accepting the truth has been our major problem in Nigeria. Some people will never tell you the truth when you are in power; and honestly, many of us in power also do not want to hear the truth” – Professor Babagana Zulum, Governor of Borno State, 2021. Insecurity has been politicised […]

“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business” – US President Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865. I address you as “my brother” not because you are Yoruba and Ijebu; but because you are a Nigerian. As a stubbornly […]

“We must therefore not shirk from accusing our friends, or praising our enemies, nor need we be afraid of praising or blaming the same people at different times; since, it is impossible that the men [and women] who are engaged in public affairs should always be right; and unlikely they should always be in the […]

“More Nigerians will become poor by 2027 – WORLD BANK” – VANGUARD, APRIL 25, 2025. Acute poverty is already fuelling massive increase in all sorts of crime in Nigeria today. Predicting that more Nigerians will become poorer in 2027 amounts to passing a vote of no confidence in ALL the governments of Nigeria; not just […]

“There are no desperate situations; only desperate men [and women and children]” – Josef Goebbels, 1897-1945. Adolf Hitler’s Chief of Propaganda, during the last hundred days of the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich, was the man saddled with the task of broadcasting frequently fake news about the war situation to the German people – who […]

“Traditional democracies will end up on the garbage heap of history” – Alberto Fujimori, 1938-2024, Peruvian President, 1998, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 37. I started the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS in 1965 and got it published in 2007 – 42 years after. The first quote which caught my attention was by Dr Samuel Johnson, […]

“If you shut up truth and bury it underground; it will but grow and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it burst through, it will blow up everything in its way” – Emile Zola, 1840-1902. I never thought President Tinubu would ever sack Mele Kyari. A few days before the announcement, a friend […]