Tag: Festus Adedayo

Has rescue come the way of our University of Ibadan? By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

In April of this year, I penned a piece, which became serially discussed, on the University of Ibadan, entitled Who will rescue our University of Ibadan? In the piece, I collated the views of several alumni and stakeholders of this premier university on the slide in its affairs. I do not have to remind us of the very rich pedigree of academic excellence that UI, as it is fondly called, wears or wore on its lapel. It is not just the oldest and the first university in Nigeria; it prides…

Malami’s State of Emergency and Chiwetalu Agu’s arrest By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Either out of acute ignorance of the law, diffidence towards it, naivety or a consuming passion to appear hyperactive in the eyes of Aso Rock, the Nigerian security establishment will not stop exuding sickening optics in its operations, to the shuddering embarrassment of the world. Last week, it was another time for the advertisement of this gross lack in mental capacity. Nollywood star, Chiwetalu Agu, was arrested by some officers of the Nigerian Army at the Upper Iweka, Onitsha, Anambra State. His sin and as could be seen in a…

Jonathan, Buhari cuckolding in time of war By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Last Wednesday, Muhammadu Buhari and his newfound friend, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, locked each other inside the sacristy of the Nigerian presidential Villa, christened Aso Rock. When they came out afterwards, both wore the visage of 3-year old Syrian girl, Salwa and Cuckold, a 1997 book written by Indian, Kiran Nagarkar. Cuckold, a historical novel patterned after the narrative of Maharaj Kumar, may in a way explain the recent hot and adulterous romance between Jonathan and Buhari.   In the book, Kumar had attempted to win his wife, Mira’s affections in…

Buhari’s October 1 rhetoric, Mailafia and Akunyili’s murder By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

I find a symbolic similarity between the travails of Dr. Chike Akunyili and Reverend Richard Henry Stone, (1837–1915) the latter’s which I picked from his memoir that contained his missionary activities in Nigeria entitled, In Africa’s Forest And Jungles. Stone was an American missionary who came to Africa during the nineteenth century to represent the Southern Baptist Convention and who spent years among the Yoruba-speaking people of Western Nigeria. He lived in Ijaye, Abeokuta, and Lagos and traveled to “Ibadan, Lahlookpon, Ewo, Ogbomishaw, and Oyo” in his own words. For…

Inside Nigeria’s huge heist, the COVID-19 IGR Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic came a widespread global misinformation about it. One of this was that there was a deliberate attempt to depopulate the world through the virus’ escape from its epicenter in the Chinese city of Wuhan. From one conspiracy theory to another, so many other theories have been spurned in the process. Right here in Nigeria, the pandemic has also attracted so many. It began from claims that it was a cash cow for so many state governments which were in a frenzied competition to…

New LASU VC’s triumphal entry Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

After all the hoopla about her appointment, qualification or under-qualification as the ninth substantive vice-chancellor of the Lagos State University, (LASU) as well as some sexists’ feeble attempt to criminalize her biology as incapable of being appointed into office, Professor Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello was eventually driven into office on Monday, September 20, 2021. From viral video and media reports of her triumphal entry into the Ojoo campus of the university, it was a celebratory, carnival-like entry, just like the biblical Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. Ushered in a…

Nigeria’s huge market of blood and human sacrifice Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the torso of a young boy by the bank of River Thames in London. On September 21, 2001 to be precise, this dismembered body, found near Tower Bridge in Central London, United Kingdom, was putting on an orange-colour girls’ shorts. Paraphernalia of voodoo enveloped his remains. Sighted by an IT consultant, Aidan Minter, the Metropolitan Police immediately rallied its marine support unit to retrieve it but, 20 years after, the limbs and head are yet to be recovered. This find…

Bawa, FFK, Shehu: Of slump, slum and somersault By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

Last Thursday, when the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) reportedly slumped at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the story of the late enfant terrible of Oyo State politics, Busari Adelakun, sidled into my memory. Media reports said that Bawa slumped at an occasion commemorating the National Identity Day. Same last week, Nigeria was back to her English class session. Occasionally, some fortuitous occurrences force this country, a product of Mrs. Flora Shaw’s taxonomic ingenuity, to go learn some basic language meanings. This time, Nigeria had to contend…

My Osun State story By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

On Friday, July 2, 2021, I had the opportunity of taking a shuttle back into my past. I had met Chief Akinwande Akinola, former Managing Director of International Breweries Limited, Ilesa at the Ibadan Recreation Club’s conferment of Merit Awards on recipients, among whom was Akinola. While the din of music was blasting the ears, I walked up to the podium ingenuously called the “high table” in Nigeria to meet Akinola, now an octogenarian. After exchanging measured pleasantries, the type you give a stranger, I asked him if he could…

Tale of VAT, the lazy grasshopper and the ant By Festus Adedayo

Emporium Reporters

There is this ancient fable of the ant and grasshopper that best explains the Nigerian fiscal federalism duel. Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, amplified it recently. Ants, you know, are one of the most hardworking, organized and purposeful animals on earth. Extremely hardworking and industrious, myths that have existed for ages about these insects talk about their tireless industry and empathy for one another. Ants are also seen as the closest neighbor of man. In them is a unique prowess and organizational power that have survived centuries. The pervasive presence…