Calypso: Enslaved African gift and its Mighty Sparrow, by Owei Lakemfa
Slinger Francisco, better known as Mighty Sparrow, the “Calypso King of the World”, flew away on September 27, 2026. He was ninety. Calypso music was invented in the seventeenth century by African slaves in Trinidad who had mainly been taken from the Ibibio, Efik and Igbo peoples in present-day Nigeria and Congo. It is generally […]
The democracy of letter writing
I WAS one of the Nigerians stunned on New Year Day 2020 when our quite busy President Muhammadu Buhari wrote us a letter. Yes, Nigerians, high and low, the powerful and the commoner, received a letter from their President and Commander-in-Chief.
Rethinking our world in the shadow of the powerful
MANY parts of the world were in festive mood this Wednesday marking Christmas, but thousands of Australian volunteers were at war, fighting hundreds of fires ravaging their country.
Noble birth, troubled adulthood
MURITALA Ramat Muhammed was the charismatic General who emerged Head of State following the July 29, 1975 coup. In a counter-coup on February 13, 1976, he was cut down in a hail of bullets. The frightened regime which survived him was shocked it had no inkling such a coup was in the offing. It, therefore, decided to establish a secret service which would combine internal security, local and foreign intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence and propaganda.
Rethinking our world in the shadow of the powerful
MANY parts of the world were in festive mood this Wednesday marking Christmas, but thousands of Australian volunteers were at war, fighting hundreds of fires ravaging their country.
Guardians of the State, enemies of freedom
IN the heady days of the Babangida and Abacha military regimes, the State Security Services, SSS, frequently invaded the Imaria Street, Anthony Village, Lagos office and home of Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti, BRK, leader of the pro-democracy movement in the country.
