Tag: Festus Adedayo

As Fubara presses the nuclear button By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

If Nyesom Wike had read the character portrait of the Ijaw man as sketched by Dr. Percy Amoury Talbot, an early 20th century British historian and colonial administrator, he would most probably have thought twice before settling for Simnalaya Fubara as his third term placeholder. Wike was a two-term governor of Rivers State and today, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. In his highly authoritative 1926 book, Peoples of Southern Nigeria: a Sketch of their History, Ethnology, and Languages, with an Abstract of the 1921 Census, Talbot reserved an unflattering…

Osoba, Ajasin and reporters of death By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Last week, in the ancient city of Ibadan, Oyo State, two bedfellows, journalism and history, became objects of attraction. The duo have always existed in Siamese matrimony. As a way of emphasizing this liaison, some scholars have defined journalism as history in a hurry. So, this day, Thursday, November 30 to be exact, inside one of the halls of the University of Ibadan, everyone gathered waited for the arrival of Chief Olusegun Osoba, former governor of Ogun State. It was akin to waiting for history and journalism entrapped in the…

Adedipe: Still space at the top By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

In 1995 when I joined the Tribune newspaper and “squatted” with a friend in Odo-Ona, one of Ibadan’s slums, I met one young boy in whom I took interest. His mother was a dedicated teacher and a devout Christian. His father then lived in the northern part of the country. He was a second year student of Government College, Ibadan. He was precocious, inquisitive and held promise of a tomorrow. In decades to come when we met, he reminded me that he was then a science student and that, perhaps…

Dangote, BUA’s destructive trade war By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

  Yes, it is a season of claims and counter-claims. Yet, cost of living is hitting the roof. Hunger is pelting the bellies of both the righteous and the infidel. Living life is almost becoming a rocket science. Charles Soludo, luxuriating in public acclamation of “one of the most cerebral Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governors,” is in his season of pontificating. Last week, he offered an escapist defence of the Nigerian establishment which citizens’ hunger could not penetrate. Soludo’s latest proffer for the people’s hunger is that the current…

A requiem for my mother By Festus Adedayo

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Last Friday, November 24, around 1pm, I was getting pleased with myself for having scaled the hurdle of yet another chapter in a school dissertation I was writing when my phone rang. Before then, I sat cross-legged like someone who had just won tombola, thinking of further routes to take to arrive at the final destination of this academic obsession I wangled myself into. These days, when my younger brother called, I was always seized with trepidation. Thirteen years ago, September, 2010, to be precise, he had similarly called me.…

Lamentations of Nuhu Ribadu By Festus Adedayo

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Here, Ribadu reminded me of two aphorisms. One came out of folktales in pre-colonial Yoruba society and the other was a famous quip to remind those who left what ought to have been done to gather moss, belatedly running a race to fill in the gap. The first wise-saying is, “Igba yi laaro, t’arugbo nko’gba.” Literally translated, it scolds the old man who allowed his prime age to fallow without making use of his brawns and who now began to dig mounds and heaps at his senescence. At that old…

Osun CJ: Advising Adeleke’s advisers By Festus Adedayo

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With my knowledge of the geography and contours of state government operations, Governor Ademola Adeleke of Osun State may have last week fallen victim of one of three sets of advisers that a political power base in government is exposed to. One is a set of competent advisers who are tainted by politics. Second is a class of advisers who are competent but are not bold enough to give right pieces of advice. These ones are too cowardly to advise right. The third set is a band of advisers who…

Jolaoso: Dividends of responsible parenting By Festus Adedayo

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Whenever I sneak into the premises of the Ibadan Tennis Club in the capital of Oyo State, the life of one elderly man named Ebenezer Adewale Jolaoso (also known as Alani) fascinates me. As they say in Christendom, I use him as my prayer point and his life a piece of mentorship. I always use him as pulpit material to sermonize to parents on the dividends of being a responsible parent, the clan of which is becoming extinct in the Nigeria of today. Pa Jolaoso clocked 80 years in September,…

Nigerian Tribune: Salute to the elephant at 74 By Festus Adedayo

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When a child pours libation and gives iba (respect) to the shade of the farm, our elders say he will till the land till evening in comfort. I owe the inspiration to write this piece to one of the few surviving icons of the Nigerian newspaper press, hugely venerated Lade Bonuola, a.k.a Ladbone, ex-Managing Director of The Guardian. He is one of the ancestors who trod this path of column-writing long before those of us, today’s masquerades, knew the way to Igbo Igbale, the sacred grove. Seventy-something-year-old Bonuola’s piece, published…

Why was Wike admiring Adedibu’s bust? By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Apologia: Though the most trending issue at present is the yacht yaks, my offering today will not dwell on it. Nor will I want to talk about the army of deliberately befuddling narratives on the yacht from the Nigerian authority. Today’s is also not about the familial invasion of the hallowed chambers of state last week, nor the previous presidential speech from Iya L’oja, the First Daughter, with the Nigerian flag flying, warts and all. Nor is it even about the automobile palliatives for the First Family. Like the Georg…