Category: Opinion

If we were Christian in my family, Christmas would have been for us a mixture of joy, mourning and remembrance. But still, it is. When others celebrate Christmas, I mourn my mother. We call it celebration of life; it is a forever act that undie the dead. She died just before dawn on December 24, 2005. But she lived long enough such that even I, her second to the last child, enjoyed her nurture for over forty years. She died happy and fulfilled. She was extremely lucky; she even knew…

Many things happened in Nigeria last week that will trend for a time. Among them were two weighty revelations, one of which led to two ‘juicy’ resignations. There was the revelation by Aisha Buhari, the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, that the former president began locking his door to keep her out of his room. Reason? That he heard Villa rumours that she wanted to kill him. An old General fearing the woman who has been married to him for over 30 years!   The other was by Aliko Dangote,…

As we walked into the venue of Professor Abimbola Adunni Adelakun’s mother’s 25th memorial in Ibadan, Oyo State, last Thursday, two conflicting perceptions warred for territorial possession of my mental faculty. For context, Adelakun is the award-winning columnist with the Punch newspaper whose Thursday offerings are a delight to gobble. Until recently an Associate Professor in the Department of African/African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, in July, Adelakun became an Associate Professor of Global Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. With me at Adelakun’s…

It was a privilege to witness the commissioning of the Ekiti Agro-Allied International Cargo Airport last week. It was a momentous, uplifting occasion – truly an experience of being part of history in the making, for reasons that go far beyond the tarmac. Key for me is that Ekiti is finally ready to become a logistical hub for the region. What was witnessed on December 10, 2025, in Ekiti State, when Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO) inaugurated the N49.77 billion airport, was a reconfirmation. It reconfirmed that a deliberate economic…

The credibility and sincerity of Nigerian scientists, both as individuals and as organised professional bodies, are presently on trial. Sadly, their collective silence in the face of a clear statutory breach has exposed an uncomfortable truth that when it truly matters, Nigeria’s scientific community, particularly those in the biological sciences, appears either unwilling or unable to stand up for the integrity of its own profession.   At the heart of this crisis is the appointment of Mr. Bello Bawa Bwari, a lawyer, as the Director-General of the National Biosafety Management…

When the custodians of tradition; the kings, obis, emirs, Obas who still command unquestioned moral authority in towns and villages across Nigeria, begin to use their offices to denounce drug abuse and hand over suspects to law enforcement, something fundamental shifts in the fight against narcotics. Under Brigadier-General Buba Marwa’s stewardship of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), that shift is happening. What had too often been framed as a problem for police and hospitals is being recast as a communal crisis that requires chiefs, religious leaders, parents and…

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, may the blessings and peace be upon our beloved master Muhammad, the last of Prophets, on his family, and all his companions. Dear brothers and sisters! The above headline in today’s piece captures an Islamic principle of trusting in divine justice and avoiding excessive confrontation with someone who has invoked Allah’s name. It implies that the sin of a false oath is so grave that the individual’s accountability is best…

Nigeria is once again confronted with an uncomfortable but necessary question: how does a nation battling economic hardship reconcile public service with lifestyles that appear far removed from public earnings? The recent allegation involving Engr. Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority(NMDPRA), has triggered widespread debate after Alhaji Aliko Dangote publicly questioned the source of funds allegedly used to educate four children in Switzerland at a reported cost of about $5 million. The controversy is not merely personal. It goes to the heart of…