History ● Conjectures ● Insights
While inaugurating a judicial panel for the church under his watch last Sunday, Pastor Poju Oyemade provided as background for his action the system that Moses the Lawgiver had implemented thousands of years ago, following the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro. The perceptive old man had come visiting his son-in-law and his family, whom he had not seen in a while when he observed that…
We went back to Avengers Endgame this week, to watch it all over again, after news broke that the movie had surpassed the record once held by Avatar as the top gun on the list of the top ten grossing movie of all time. I wanted us to have a discourse on the astonishing fact that a non-crude oil export, a single movie, has generated…
Why do snakes hiss, seeing they have no ears? Why do they give what they cannot receive? Why do they produce what they cannot consume? Why do they annoy others with the high pitch of their hiss but prefer quiet and undisturbed living? Who are those who give what they cannot/will not receive? Who are those who produce what they cannot/will not consume? Who are…
An egalitarian Nigeria is one of those beautiful ideas. It sounds so enchanting, so desirable. Some even think that a democratic Nigerian society will be the same as an egalitarian Nigerian society. That democracy makes an egalitarian society possible. But that is not true. Since the beginning of time, historians, philosophers and other curious minds have been fascinated by the possibilities that exist in an…
It’s been more than four months since Marvel Studios released the blockbuster movie, Captain Marvel. In the action packed piece, Jude Law dropped the unforgettable line that ‘humour is a distraction’ during a fighting practice with Brie Larson, the lead character and super hero in the movie. He directed his dart at Brie Larson but he could well have been speaking to humour merchants everywhere….
Why are photos, diaries, maps and similar objects important? Why do we invest our emotions, energies and time in them? They hold memories, thoughts, experience and other things we consider valuable. They are symbols, like our green white green flag. How many remember what the green and white stand for in Nigeria’s flag, or the elements in our coat of arms, for that matter? These…
Since Prof Chinua Achebe let us in on the top survival strategy of Eneke the bird in his novel, Things fall Apart (which for those who do not know, says that since hunters have learned to shoot without missing, it has learned to fly without perching) many variants of the philosophy have since emerged, including the famous ‘Cunny man die, cunny man bury am.’ And…
As I tried to process the pain I felt from news of the death of Peter Owolabi, the youth corps member serving with Channels TV as a reporter in Abuja, who was shot during the Shiites/Police clash yesterday, I remembered Denzel Washington’s ferocious performance in the movie, Equalizer 2. In the movie, the famous actor had returned to Turkey, on the trail of a gentleman…
At first I thought I heard him say Kunta Kinte. I strained my ears to be sure I heard him correctly. When I heard him say Akaunta Biliti once more, I knew this was not Kunta Kinte. Legend has it that the fellow used to live within the precincts of the former cabinet office, near the now famous Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos. He attended…
70 years ago, Nigeria’s first female vice chancellor, Prof Grace Alele Williams gained admission into Nigeria’s premier University, University College Ibadan to study Humanities. Among her classmates were Mrs Mabel Segun, Mrs Christiana Amachree, Iphigenia Soluade and others. She decided early on to face the mother of all sciences, mathematics, which was a core part of her course, with the highest measure of tough self-love…