I made acquaintance with a lady, Yeye Akilimali Funua Olade, about 1990. A few months later, my wife and I visited her in Ila Oragun where she was running a rural library, the African Heritage Research Library. She was an American who had studied at Fisk University from 1963 -1965, earned a Bachelor’s degree in […]

By Owei Lakemfa Today, Nigeria stands ragged and worn out on the global highway. Should it look back at the last eight years and try to make sense of the rough road it had been dragged through? Or simply pick itself up and face the future? The misfortune of the last eight years that was […]

By Owei Lakemfa AS a child I was taught that the road to heaven is narrow. But that seems to be the teachings of the ancients; now across the world, shepherds are letting their flocks know that there are shortcuts, or even flights to heaven. Perhaps the old depended on stars to guide them on […]

By Owei Lakemfa THE story of Laoye Oluwole Sanda reads like fiction. It is that of a man who decided to dedicate his entire life to the emancipation of society so that others may have a better tomorrow. While almost all in his generation planned to generate wealth for themselves and their families, this highly […]

By Owei Lakemfa THE United States of America, US, this Monday placed visa restrictions on some Nigerians who allegedly undermined the February and March 2023 general elections. The US in a statement by its Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said it took the decision as part of its commitment to supporting and advancing democracy in […]

By Owei Lakemfa AS an undergraduate in Great Ife, the Obafemi Awolowo University, I was a member of the Students Representative Council, the parliament. Whenever we met, the generality of the student body surrounded the venue to observe. The idea was that the parliament represented the students, so they have a right not only to observe, […]

By Owei Lakemfa I got word that my elderly friend, His Excellency Mohammed Ould Salek, the Minister-Adviser on Diplomatic Affairs to President Brahim Ghali of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, better known as Western Sahara, was in Nigeria. He was the Special Envoy sent by the Saharawi President on April 28, 2023 to bid farewell […]

By Owei Lakemfa General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the Dean of Coups in Nigeria, finally staged a coup for himself on August 27, 1985. The veteran coup plotter could sniff coups years away. On December 17, 1985, he rounded up over 100 military officers for allegedly conceptualising a coup. Some, including his childhood friend, Major General […]

By Owei Lakemfa WE were gathered. Some intellectuals, social activists, journalists, serving and retired diplomats. The primary issue was democracy. Is it universal and is there just a single, or multiple roads to democracy? Is the British democracy which calls itself the Mother of Parliaments, superior to the American version; is the latter better than […]

By Owei Lakemfa Census is very serious business as it requires the general mobilisation of the populace. In many cases, the nation is placed under an emergency. One of the earliest accounts of census was given by Dr Luke in his Gospel in which he wrote that Emperor Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a […]