John came back from his village recently. For some reasons he has not been there since the new millennium. His trip was a mixed bag: happy to be back to his root, but came away with a cultural shock: Many of his relatives and age mates had 10 or more children with some having many wives. But that was not his concern; his concern was that many of them are poor and unemployed, with those employed not earning more than N15, 000 monthly. “What goes on in these people’s minds? How do you just breed without thinking about how to cater for them?

At the time of writing, APC delegates’ votes are still being sorted at the APC Convention venue in Lagos, so I cannot offer Vanguard readers any comments about the APC’s Presidential candidate because I don’t yet know which of the aspirants will win. And if I hang on any longer to await the result, I will not be able to complete this column before the printing deadline for Friday’s paper.

THE title of this article may suggest the topic I am treating is already stale. This is because the result of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, which started yesterday at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere Lagos, will already be known, especially these days of the internet when news circulates across the globe just as it is breaking. But you will soon know why I settled for this title.

THERE are very few spectacles on earth that compare to Nigeria’s season of politicking. And what is politics without the intrigues; the suspense; drama and colour and the inevitable dollop of treachery? I returned home last week to run into a headstream of politicking as the posturing for the 2015 elections began to take a much more concrete shape. The most consistent stream of contemporary politics is the relative lack of substance in the political party system.

ON entry into new offices, government officials take various oaths. Quite often these oaths are respected only in the breach. This past week, the All Progressives Congress, APC, added yet another new dimension to the abuse of the undertaking and oaths processes when the presidential aspirants were required to sign undertakings that if they lost at the primaries, they would not defect to another party. Not only does this typify the medicine after death syndrome, it also attempts to kill the patient beyond death.

THERE’S palpable panic if not fear in the land. For those who know, Nigeria is heading for an economic precipice that should get all of us truly worried and looking beyond the false hope being hawked around by the Goodluck Jonathan government. The price of crude oil, Nigeria’s one and only economic mainstay, is crashing with the rapidity of a pack of cards.

Internet has affected virtually every aspect of human lives, and the increasing way at which children immerse themselves in this new order, opens new challenges making parenting.

By Femi Aribisala Bola Tinubu is not a democrat, has never been a democrat and will never be a democrat. There is a popular Yoruba song that says: “Eko o gba gbere rara o.” It means: “Lagos does not take any nonsense whatsoever.” It is high time for Lagos to fulfil the intent of this […]

THE hottest issue in the U.S. today arguably is police brutality and its impact on race relations. But, it is not a new topic. Like a dormant volcano, it was activated by the gruesome and apparently unconscionable killing of two African American men by white policemen. Even more infuriating was how the bodies of both men were recklessly allowed to lie in the streets, stripped of any form of human dignity or decency.

I suddenly found out that I was repeating myself, sounding like a scratched record. Jarring a menace to the ears and a nuisance. The gramophone pin had to be lifted from the record. I was tired of saying that at the end of the world cup, our football story had run full cycle and there was a need for a reappraisal; auto criticism. That you could not do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.