There is a saying that there is nothing new under the sun and for every tragedy, there are countless greater tragedies! Pain however can’t be classified or eulogised with fancy words and one thing I find very unbecoming is the comparison of tragedies. It would be better to stay away than to visit someone who is grieving and start telling them about someone who has a bigger problem than they do

In the past, a surname change naturally followed every wedding, particularly in this part of Africa. In fact, the name change was anticipated by every single-lady because it was considered the most cogent emblem for one’s status.

At the Aka-Ikenga dinner celebrating the founding of this association of Igbo fat cats in Lagos, Governor Raji Fashola, either out of postprandial volubility, or in a bid to be charming among friends, or even as some have suggested, enhance the political fortunes of his friend and fellow partisan, Dr. Chris Ngige in Anambra, offered what had been termed an “unreserved apology” to the Igbo. His apology was for the apparent mischief of selectively targeting and “deporting” some Igbo to Onitsha in one of the most unprecedented constitutional gaffes in Nigeria.

Although the visit was cancelled eventually, it did not prevent the Kano riots in which scores of Ndigbo were murdered. Therefore, it is very clear that during the colonial period and shortly after independence, the British colonialists were obsessed with maintaining what until now is euphemistically referred to as “One Nigeria” for her own neo-colonialist agenda, notwithstanding the centrifugal forces of ethnicity and religion pulling in the opposite direction.

‘I have been to morgues. There is no siren there. There is no posing in the morgue. There are no celebrities there. You put people under six feet and you realise that cars and houses do not fit in. I have come to understand that when people die, nobody has jumped into the vault to say bury me along.