Tag: Festus Adedayo

When pharmacies sell death for a penny By Festus Adedayo

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Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature, William Butler Yeats, aptly put it in his famous The Second Coming. When things fall apart, wrote Yeats, not only can’t the centre hold, even the falcon cannot hear the falconer. I find a corollary in this cause and effects thesis offered by Yeats in the narration of Reverend Richard Henry Stone. Stone was one of the earliest American missionaries to come to Africa during the nineteenth century. He was a representative of the Southern Baptist Convention and spent…

The Akpabio-provoked N30b Intifada By Festus Adedayo

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So at plenary in the senate last week, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, rushed naked out of the bathtub. He raised his hand up. In the presidency’s search for scapegoat, Akpabio suddenly became Archimedes. Last week, he came forward to shout “Eureka!” He had found the No 1 Nigerian enemy! Ancient Greek scholar, Archimedes, was the author of a find similar to but of sterner stuff than Akpabio’s. Archimedes had proclaimed “Eureka! Eureka!” immediately he stepped into a bath and discovered that the water level immediately rose. This led him to…

Women who wanted to beat up our president By Festus Adedayo

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This is what Kurumi’s Ijaye looked like after it was attacked and defeated by Ibadan forces in 1860/61: “Old people, men and women and young children were being carried to the river Ose to die,” wrote John Iliffe in his Poverty in Nineteenth-Century Yorubaland. He continued: “Whilst many others were left to perish in the streets. There being no food for them, that many, in order to obtain the means for subsistence, put themselves and children in pawn and others even sold their relatives to procure food to eat.” A…

Yoruba kings as kidnappers’ supper By Festus Adedayo

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The porcupine is a large rodent that is clothed with a thick coat of sharp quills, spines. The spines protect it from rampaging predators. When it feels threatened, the porcupine shoots the arrows of its spines at its assailants. These deadly quills pierce the intending attacker, allowing the animal to escape harm. So, in their confidence about the mystical powers at the beck and call of their kings, Yoruba say that when hunters talk about pursuing, capturing and gripping an animal to death with bare hands, that animal can never…

Ibadan blast, Abuja kidnaps and calamities By Festus Adedayo

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Big calamities seldom knock before opening the door. Calamities’ sneaky essence is articulated in one song by grand old Odolaye Aremu, Ilorin, Kwara state-born Dadakuada song minstrel. While philosophizing the concept of calamity, which Yoruba call “eemo”, Odolaye sang that surprise and swiftness are primary features of calamities, holding tight to them like leeches. So he sang, “Peki laa k’eemo,” (calamity is met suddenly). The singer points at horses used in races and in ancient wars meeting their end unprepared during races. It is the same with soldiers who mount…

Ogboni cult in Beta Edu and T.B. Joshua By Festus Adedayo

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The “Edan” is a Yoruba Ogboni cult insignia, an emblem of membership in the Ogboni society. It is a cylindrical duality of male and female brass figures with iron stems attached to it. Mostly joined at the top by an iron chain, the edan is said to signify old age, experience, knowledge, and wisdom. The female edan also has a beard motif. It recreates the image of the goddess, Edan, a manlike woman, an “Obinrin bi okunrin” who possesses the wisdom of a Babalawo – diviner – and the epicenter…

Akwa Ibom’s N32 billion Yamoussoukro Basilica By Festus Adedayo

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One single thread links Umo Eno, self-styled pastor governor of Akwa Ibom State, his predecessor, Emmanuel Udom and Felix Houphouet-Boigny. It is the religious bigotry and senselessness behind the Akwa Ibom International Worship Centre and the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire. While Eno and Udom constructed a worship centre said to have gulped a frighteningly high N32 billion, Houphouet-Boigny also constructed a monumental architectural edifice in his Yamoussoukro village worth $300 million between 1985 and 1989. Yamoussoukro was regarded as a provincial town that boasted…

Life, Akeredolu, Na’Abba and the “Ebi npa wa” shame By Festus Adedayo

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For the Algerian journalist, editor and editorialist, playwright and director, novelist and author of short stories, political essayist and activist, Albert Camus, life is meaningless and absurd. To him, it is inexplicable why we live, struggle all through and die. The meaninglessness of life is explained in his book The Myth of Sisyphus where he captures the absurdity of the god, Sisyphus struggling to push a rock up the mountain. The rock is pushed uphill; the rock rolls back in an endless, fruitless fight of forces. It is what human…

The “Af’eyinpin’ran” intervention in Rivers By Festus Adedayo

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After President Bola Tinubu intervened in the seismic crisis that rocked oil-rich Rivers State last week, one thing and two people unraveled. By their unraveling, pretentious veils were lifted off their faces. They were, the president himself, the nature of Nigeria’s presidential democracy and the governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara. Nigerians distrusted the piece of paper that emanated from the Tinubu intervention. To them, it reeks of the proverbial partiality of one entrusted with the task of deploying their incisors to halve a piece of meat called the “af’eyin…

Emefiele’s execution in China By Festus Adedayo

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We wait to hear what the fallen former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele has to say on the lurid report of a probe of his years at the apex bank. The report was leaked on Friday and is the sensation in town. Emefiele himself is said to have perfected his bail conditions and has been released from prison custody. Whatever it is, we are sure of weeks of circus shows akin to that of Sambo Dasuki. Meanwhile, all manner of epithets are today being used to describe…