Ibadan kidnappers and long tale from Ogbomoso terrorists, by Rotimi Fasan
The entire drama that featured the abduction of Mrs. Olaide Busayo Adegoke John-Paul and her 12-year-old twin boys lasted for just three days, between Wednesday and Saturday. Those were tension-soaked days that served mostly to highlight or add to the pressure on a federal government that many had come to see as the very symbol of […]
Tinubu should take this ‘’protest” as a warning shot, by Rotimi Fasan
SHOULD it go ahead as planned or advertised in the media in the last few weeks, the so-called #EndBadGovernance protest would as likely as not end with a whimper rather than the bang that many of those who had canvassed for it and others in government who have opposed it had anticipated. The fact is that […]
Nigeria and the lessons from American politics, by Rotimi Fasan
JUST hours after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, an anonymous “travel advisory” found its way into the internet. It was at once satiric and tongue-in-cheek in its advice to Africans, not citizens of particular countries of the continent, to be wary of travelling to America at these times. The advisory expressed concern about the […]
Wole Soyinka, the grand old man of African letters, by Rotimi Fasan
“…I reflected that there was something to be said for birthdays and began to look forward to mine. My only worry now was whether I would have recovered sufficiently to go to school and invite all my friends. Sending Tinu seemed a risky business, she might choose to invite all her friends and pack my […]
Why Atiku may never become president, by Rotimi Fasan
NIGERIANS know it was President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who famously said he had nursed a lifelong ambition to be the president of Nigeria. It was Tinubu who lent voice to his ambition and for some Nigerians that statement displayed all the signs of hubris, a sense of entitlement that they find insufferable. The statement is of […]
Shehu Sani, Atiku and the growing Northern conspiracy for power, by Rotimi Fasan
DR. Doyin Okupe, I think it was, who first called attention to the nature of the gathering of the Northern Nigerian political elite that met in the Daura country home of former president, Muhammadu Buhari, ostensibly to pay him Eid homage. He said pointedly that it was a political gathering. A galaxy of politicians across party […]
Who are the bigots? By Rotimi Fasan
A NEW word has apparently entered Nigeria’s political dictionary in the last one year. The word in question – bigot and its nominal variant bigotry- is, in fact, anything but new, yet it has taken on a new valence and semantic twist in the charged atmosphere of Nigeria’s identity crisis and politicking in the advent of […]
What makes a mandate popular? By Rotimi Fasan
The 2023 elections were characterised by violence and voter intimidation in certain places. This is not entirely unheard of in times of electoral contests in our part of the world. Violence, intimidation and voter suppression are, in fact, part of what make our elections and their outcome what they are- a fraught process that leaves huge question […]
Nigerian media must stand firm against dictatorship, by Dele Sobowale
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arms are always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking and writing [the truth] – John Adams,1735-1826, US President, 1797-1801. The Nigerian media, print, electronic, main line and online, except the traitors in the industry, is under attack now as […]
A national anthem, a people and their leaders, by Rotimi Fasan
After nearly two weeks of political controversy, grandstanding and mudslinging, it’s beginning to emerge, I believe, that the reintroduction of the national anthem that ushered Nigeria into the comity of independent countries in 1960 was after all not entirely the brain child of either one-man or the complacent national legislature that appears to be at his beck […]
President Bola Tinubu’s scorecard, one year on, by Rotimi Fasan
Today makes it exactly a year since Bola Ahmed Tinubu stepped into office as Nigeria’s fifth president in the post-military years. Within minutes of his inauguration, the president made the very consequential decision that has for the most part directed the course of his administration and defined his presidency as a costly political entreprise in the national […]
