It’s nothing to laugh off, however tempting. If the movies imitate life, we may not be as far away from an African pope. It happened in The Conclave, a film by Peter Straughan released in 2024, based on the novel by Robert Harris.  Through the intrigues, rivalries and scandals of the plot, Adeyemi, a Nigerian cardinal […]

I don’t know how many readers saw the video of the birthday cake of Africa’s richest man but it went viral enough. It was a replica of his refinery, the world’s largest single train refinery which finally came on stream last year after daunting setbacks. I don’t know much about cake baking, and I know […]

I felt so alarmed and insulted when a State Of Emergency was declared in my home state, Rivers, on March 18 that I hastily set up a protest group called Rescue Rivers. Please find below a letter we wrote to the head of state and copied to the National Assembly and ‘ International Community: Dear President Tinubu, […]

Two pejorative terms are used to describe the phenomenon of Nigerians emigrating to other countries. One is “japa”, a word that became so popular it has entered the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the OED, to “japa” means “to leave Nigeria for another country (esp. one in Europe or North America) in search of further education, […]

I met Quadri Alabi, the child of destiny, on Tuesday, at the News Central TV in Ogba, Ikeja. They – Quadri, his lawyer, Inibehe Effiong and Ms. Hassana Nurudeen, co-founder of Ray of Hope Prisoner Outreach – were coming out of the studios after an interview as I was stepping in for the newspaper review segment […]