ON the one hand, Africa is the foot mat of the West and United States,US. When going out or coming in, they wipe their feet on Africa. On the other, Latin America is their backyard where they play games including hide and seek.

HONOURABLE Oladipo Olatunde Adebutu, 57, is a wealthy Nigerian. He seems to have everything going well for him. He was elected into the National Assembly  in 1992, at 30. A Commissioner in Ogun State from 2007 and currently a member of the National Assembly from which he is aspiring to become the Executive Governor of Ogun State. His chances seem quite bright given the fractious state of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

GEORGE Jackson was in 1960, an 18-year-old American youth accused of robbing a gas station in Los Angeles and stealing $70. A wrong legal advice saw him pleading guilty ostensibly for a light sentence. But he was given a one year to life sentence. Which meant he would be eligible for parole in one year? 

By Owei Lakemfa I WAS at a friend’s place in Lagos in December. As I arrived, I overheard him having a discussion with a mutual friend. As I entered, he turned to me and asked: “Owei, what is the difference  between the truth and what is factual. I replied off hand: “The truth can be subjective, […]

AFRICA this Tuesday, January 15, scored a stunning victory at the Hague against the International Criminal Court, ICC,  a contraption  of the West to maintain a neo-colonial strangle hold on the continent. On that day, the ICC like hot potatoes, dropped the contrived charges against Lauren Gbagbo, the anti-imperialist politician and immediate past President of  Cote d’Voire, and ordered his immediate release.

AS a former newspaper Editor, I would not have published the Daily Trust lead story of January 6, 2019 titled: Military prepares massive operation to retake Baga, others, which led to the newspaper’s invasion by armed soldiers. My editorial judgement would not have been based on the army’s fairy tale that the story violated national security, but because it was primarily, a rehash of information that was already in the public space. I would have asked the reporter to provide fresh information or a new angle to the story.

THE United States (US) like a country under bombardment, scrambled its National Security Adviser, John Bolton and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo into the air. Their flights are taking them through the Middle East primarily to reassure their allies that they are still committed to the fight against the Islamic State, ISIS, a Frankenstein monster they collectively reared and nurtured.

THEY were not advised visits. But the Pro-Democracy Movement had become badly depleted. The Abacha regime had forced quiet a number of activists underground. Some, like our leader, Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti and Shehu Sani had been given life jail sentences, Ken Saro-Wiwa had been executed with eight other Minority campaigners, some activists had fled into exile and a number were in detention without trial

IN March 1952, three months before general elections, soldiers in a small country, Cuba, overthrew the government. The coup was led by a candidate and former military dictator, Colonel Fulgencio Batisa. Cuba itself was essentially a gambling and tourist country for fun-loving Americans whose mafia led by Charles Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky also ran the gambling and prostitution rings. The coup which enjoyed the approval of America seemed a settled matter. But some young Cubans, including students and young ladies, decided  enough was enough; no longer would their country be played around like football. They decided to arouse the populace to an insurrection.

By Owei Lakemfa BROTHER Seriake Dickson, Governor of Bayelsa State  has made a call on President Muhammadu Buhari  to set the tone for a debate on  restructuring in the country. I don’t know why people like teasing the President who had said he does not know what restructuring means even when it was in his […]

AMERICAN President, Donald Trump was four when the Korean War broke out in 1950. In three years, the war sucked in more than 40 countries, most, under the United Nations, UN, banner. Two and a half million people died in the war. America suffered 36,568 dead and  103,284 injured. All the countries returned home except America which today, maintains 23,468 combatants in Korea. This is 68 years later.

IT was like a coup announcement when on December 4, the Nigeria Army broadcast  it had ousted the  United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, from the North-East where the country is flushing out Boko Haram terrorists.

FIVE thousand, five hundred angry marchers tramped through the streets of Brussels on Sunday protesting against the United Nations Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.  Their claims include  that the Pact would encourage migration and criminality. They also claim that the Pact blurs   the distinction between legal and illegal migration.  For them, it is time Belgium shuts its borders against migration of any kind.

THE  Nigerian elite leading the country to the February, 2019 general elections have reduced the contest essentially to personal squabbles and a contest of insults rather than ideas. This is not unexpected as in almost all cases, the colonialists created for us, zombies as elite.  An elite class incapable of basic reflection, one that accepts foreign dictation and is alienated from the people it leads. In turn, the people are alienated from the state; they do not have  the same attachment or loyalty they had  to  their pre-colonial societies. So a corrupted culture has developed in which people see the elite from their communities who loot the national treasury, as heroes bringing back their  share of the ‘national cake’. In many cases, the thieves are given chieftaincy titles, turbaned or knighted.

IF the famous Williams Shakespeare had written his 1596-99 play, Merchant of Venice in this generation, he would have been accused of hate speech, condemned, sidelined and declared a racist. That is because the play centred on a greedy and conscienceless Jewish money lender, Shylock, who insisted on slicing a pound of flesh from a debtor despite offers to pay him double the money he had advanced.