We cannot reduce malfeasance to party politics or party propaganda alone in Nigeria or any nation on the planet, anonymous and faceless special interests play a bigger role. Military rulers as well as democratic politicians have all contributed abundantly to this disaster called Africa. Democracy is supposed to create far…
Year: 2014
President Jonathan, What Are Your Spin Doctors Doing?
President Jonathan, What Are Your Spin Doctors Doing? Hashtag disaster has hit the Nigerian President and it because someone created the unfortunate and ill-advised #BringBackJonathan2015 hashtag as a campaign device. But it is not the end of the world for President Jonathan by any means. Sometimes the greatest of presidents…
The Ontology of the African V: The Exploitation & The Blindness
The ontology of the African is an emergent creature of exploitation, historical and contemporary. It started with slavery and colonisation. The late Dr Abdul Rahim Tajudeen, former head of the Pan-African Movement, was a fierce opponent of do-gooding foreign aid and charity. To him, when the African adopts the attitudes…
A New Kind of Thanks: To Goodluck Jonathan
After the the image-shattering debacle of the #BringBackJonathan2015 campaign, a new kind of thanks to a national leader has emerged. Many people especially the sycophants, spokesmen and usual suspects are queuing up to thank President Goodluck Jonathan for swiftly taking the courage to order the pulling down the sacrilegious campaign posters. Would…
Goodluck Jonathan & the Ontology of the African
Can Africans in power ever get it right? They can but choose not to for reasons of venality and mediocrity and sometimes sheer stupidity. I concur with the fact that resorting to insulting a President or anyone for that matter via social media, especially cheaply is an incorrigible practice. But…
The Ontology of the African IV: The Antinomy
The Ontology of the African IV: The Antinomy The claim to being knowledgeable and intelligent as well as acting in denial of knowledge and intelligence, simultaneously, is as Antinomy of an unusual kind. Knowledge is power only when it is usefully and unarguably applied. Is knowledge power to the African?…
The Ontology of the African III: The Leaders
The African leader like the African he rules has a derisory ontology. With billions of dollars stashed away in foreign accounts, endless terms in office and the excessive paraphernalia of power, these have become the identifiers of the African leader. The one destined lead African nations seem unable to escape…
The Ontology of the African II: The Youth
The derisory ontology of the African has not gone unchallenged. At the forefront, intellectuals, civil society leaders, freedom fighters, artists, activists, missionaries and politicians of African descent have chosen innumerable paths and approaches to reverse or negate the derisory ontology of the African to produce a more if not thoroughly…
The Ontology of the African
The Ontology of the African Someone genuinely dismayed that some sincere African intellectuals say nothing about the derisory status of the African among other human beings in the world. It is the stuff of an ontology that remains the same today as it was in yesteryears. Sources of occasions for…
The Lion and The Jewel: Soyinka’s Most Enduring Work?
The Lion and The Jewel: Soyinka’s Most Enduring Work? Today is the 80th birthday of Wole Soyinka. I may not be a fan of his but his work and achievements have their own stories. Written in 1962, the play The Lion and The Jewel is probably Soyinka’s simplest and least-known work but…