Last week, we advised governments at all levels to come up with programmes to stem the increasing youths’ unemployment. But youths also need to help themselves because “private victories must precede public victories.” Many youths do not live purposefully and are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to take advantage of available opportunities.

The pro-Biafra protests have entered the second week. What started as unco-ordinated voices of dissent reached a crescendo last week when the arrested director of radio Biafra was not released by the DSS. Many reports claimed that major cities in the South-East were shut down by the protesters although at least one Governor has come out to say the phrase ‘shut down’ was overstretching things a bit.

“W riters, like teeth,” according to Walter Bagehot, “are divided into incisors and grinders.” He should know. He was the editor of the time-honoured journal, The Economist, for more than a decade until his death in 1877.

I am a big man, so I bark orders, talk at people, put them in their places. When I froth , they fawn . I get attention and give back indifference and insolence. That locks them into servility. I dish arbitrariness, it feels godlike. Reckless unpredictability leaves those around me nursing my moods, makes them live lives guessing my moves.

The writings of D.O Fagunwa in Ibadan, encouraged the writings of Amos Tutuola, a barely literate man, who was born in 1920 in Abeokuta, but lived his life in Ibadan, until his death at the age of 77 in 1997. Amos Tutuola, was a Store keeper, with the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1956. Despite his short formal education, he joined the Ibadan Writers Elite- the Mbari Mbayo Club of Ulli Beier and Wole Soyinka. He was the author of the popular book “The Palm-wine Drunkard” in 1952.