MANY Nigerians are angry. They discovered that their prized garri, the cassava flakes staple food they assume proprietorial ownership over, is being imported from India! The outrage seems justified as we produce eighty percent of world cassava (Manihot Esculenta) across 33 of our 36 states. Also, we are the world’s largest exporter of cassava.

THE Babangida military regime which shot itself into power on August 27, 1985 was a deceptive one. Early in its life, it asked Nigerians to debate whether to take or reject an International Monetary Fund, IMF, loan and its enslaving conditions. Nigerians overwhelmingly rejected the loan. General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida in a nationwide broadcast, acknowledged the decision of the populace. But he went on to get into bed with the IMF.

ROBERT Gabriel Mugabe, the Pan Africanist and internationalist who was elected Zimbabwean Head of State thirty seven years ago, was 93 this Tuesday February 21. He had for decades championed the slogan “Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans.” Under this, he got the economic control of his country transferred from the minority White racists, to the majority Black population. This was more impactful on the land issue which his neigbours in the Region; Namibia and South Africa are still grappling with, without any solution in sight.

If Saro-Wiwa had a quiet, reflective side, Ilenre was it, often, you could see them together in Lagos; in those days, if you ran into Ilenre, Saro-Wiwa was not likely to be far away, or Ilenre could tell you what part of the world his bosom friend could be found

TURMOIL. That is South Africa’s state of mind. The manifestation of this, is violence at all levels; from the streets and campuses, through xenophobic attacks to last week’s battles in the hallow chambers of Parliament. The country is caught between Post-Apartheid Reforms that have in a quarter of a century, failed to deliver promised change, and implementation of the core principles of the 1955 Freedom Charter, a document which has been largely, side-stepped.