By Frank Aigbogun That day in 1984 when Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor were both driven from a Lagos courthouse in a Black Maria to begin their jail term, I had just started my career as a young reporter at The Guardian. It was a fearful start to what I considered a life-long calling as a journalist. As I went back home that evening, however, I was stoic in my desire to continue my life as a reporter yet worried for my country and for the profession I had chosen…
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By Femi Fani Kayode When the Crusaders, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, took Jerusalem from the Muslims in 1099, they butchered every single Muslim and Jewish man, woman and child that they found in the city, and they pulled down all their places of worship. 100 years later, in 1187, when the Muslims, led by Salahudeen Al Ayyubi, took the city of Jerusalem back from the Crusaders, every single Christian man, woman and child that they found in the City was given safe passage to leave, not one of them…
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By Sonnie Ekwowusi Last week, precisely on the 13th of July 2021, some Nigerian soldiers in a shameless display of putrid military barbarism, swooped on the defenceless Igbo spare parts dealers at the popular Ladipo Market, Mushin Lagos and pointedly shot five Igbo traders there dead on the spot on the unfancied allegation that they (soldiers) bought a fake car engine from one of the traders at the Market a year ago and had come to the Market to have it replaced. While the soldiers were mowing down the traders…
Read MoreBy Ikechukwu Amaechi Former Lagos State Governor and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, made a profound statement when he paid a condolence visit to the family of elder statesman and Afenifere leader, Reuben Fasoranti, in Akure on July 14, 2019. Fasoranti’s daughter, Funke Olakunrin, was gunned down two days earlier at Ore junction on the Sagamu-Benin highway, and her driver, Tayo Ogundare, said hooded men emerged from the bush to attack them. Announcing the tragedy the same day, the then Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, blamed herdsmen…
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By Tai Emeka Obasi. One of my greatest sources of pride as an Igbo man is having come from same tribe with Chinua Achebe. And God blessed me further with coming from same state with this literary iroko. Imagine what people from Ogidi, his community, had but seemingly didn’t and evidently don’t appropriately appreciate. This is a matter for another write-up. His novel, Things Fall Apart, is known by any literate or even semi-literate African and beyond. That great work of creative art mainly draws its flowing appeal from just…
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By Femi Mimiko I read the press statement put out by DSS on its early morning invasion of Sunday Igboho’s abode and couldn’t stop wondering what was happening! How could a surprise armed attack by an agency of the State, on a man’s premises, and without a search warrant, constitute the appropriate response to his rascality? How many hideouts of bandits and sundry highly disruptive elements wreaking havoc and making a boast of slaughtering soldiers has the DSS stormed in similar manner? Aren’t we aware that some State governments sit…
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By Tunde Olusunle, PhD Martins Oloja, Managing Editor of The Guardian, graciously donated his column today Sunday July 4, 2021, to publish my rejoinder to his backpage column of Sunday June 27, 2021. It is shared below. Inside Stuff With MARTINS OLOJA, Sunday July 4, 2021, Back Page Martins Oloja’s typically detailed and characteristically incisive piece in his Inside Stuff column in The Guardian on Sunday of June 27, 2021, practically took out from my mouth, an issue, which has agitated my mind in recent weeks and months. Titled, Nigeria…
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By Duro Onabule Against Secession: A Testament To Yoruba Leaders And Promoters Of Oduduwa Republic I saw a video clip of a group of young Yoruba elites canvassing the creation of Oduduwa Republic. The spokesman claimed that they are not even interested in restructuring, that it is late in the day, but the outright creation of Oduduwa Republic. Carrying placards, they insist they are fed up with Nigeria and that Nigeria has been a setback for the Yoruba’s because in 1949 when Yorubas had the television, even when France has…
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By Bola Bolawole “There be three things, which are too wonderful for me, yeah, four, which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon the rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wiped her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness” – Proverbs 30: 19 & 20. As the Acting Deputy Editor charged with the…
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Late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (left) and Late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Okukwu By Odumegwu Ojukwu “How does a son begin to assess, for posterity, the virtues or otherwise of his own father? In asking me my opinion about Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha, you have, as it were, put me in a very tight spot – nothing I say can pass the test of objectivity. Here is a man, I have known all my life; a man I was brought up to give even more respect than to my father;…
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