Tag: Festus Adedayo

Kemi Badenoch: Shettima as flutist with ‘gègè’ on his neck, By Festus Adedayo

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This past Monday, Nigeria’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima, held the fèèrè (flute) and blew it admirably. However, bystanders listening to the rhythm of his flute didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. Moyo Okediji, Assistant Professor of Art at the Wellesley College, Massachusetts, in his “Art of the Yoruba” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, (Vol. 23, No. 2) described the flute held by Shettima as a symbol of the trickster god Esu, also known as the divinity of the crossroads. According to Okediji, Esu was so powerful that he…

Between Farotimi and Afe Babalola By Festus Adedayo

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The question of whether the law of defamation is a hindrance to freedom of speech and a curtailment to democratic process confronted the Burkinabe, a few years ago. Lohe Issa Konaté was Burkina Faso, that landlocked West African country’s own Dele Farotimi. He was a journalist with the newspaper, L’Ouragan (The Hurricane). Like a tempestuous hurricane, on August 1, 2012, Konaté published a series of articles in the weekly newspaper attacking the conduct of a local prosecutor in a money counterfeiting matter. A week later, Konaté doubled down on this…

Reuben Abati and Davido as “cockroaches” By Festus Adedayo

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In 1992, Leon Mugesera, a senior politician in the then Rwanda ruling party, gathered a crowd of supporters at a rally held in the town of Kabaya. At the rally, Mugesera labeled the minority Tutsi “cockroaches,” who must be eliminated. He then asked this East African ethnic group to go back to its place of birth. He was quoted to have said: “Anyone whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut your neck.” This “cockroach” typecast glued to the Tutsi ethnic group. Two years later, about…

Obasanjo and Tinubu’s Tańtólóhun dogs By Festus Adedayo

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In 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘐𝘴 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘦 – 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘺 𝘐𝘴 𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘦, 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘏𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘴 𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘖𝘸𝘯 𝘓𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤: Essays by Ulli Beier, edited by Wole Ogundele, (2001) Horst Ulrich Beier, famously known as Ulli Beier, had an engaging narrative about the power and powerlessness of dogs. He entitled the narrative, Dog Magic of Yoruba Hunters. In it, Beier related how his dog, which he provocatively named Tańtólóhun, (who can compare with God?)’s weird tantrums, which occurred in Osogbo in the early 1960s, could mirror the insufferable power and…

The Fuji music house of commotion By Festus Adedayo

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Like every lover of Yoruba traditional music, language and culture, I have of recent been inundated with requests to lend a voice to the newest raging fire in the Fuji music genre. Since the passage of Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Ayinde Barrister or Agbajelola Barusati, there have been longstanding tiffs on whom of the trio of Ayinde Omogbolahan Anifowose, KWAM 1; self-named King Saheed Osupa (K.S.O.) and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, was the “King.”   These musicians’ recent quest for supremacy is not new. From time immemorial, supremacy…

Lagbaja: When Generals, the Olúóde, die By Festus Adedayo

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The Yoruba believe in the law of causation, a principle of philosophy which says that, every change in nature is produced by some cause. To buttress this, they posit authoritatively that a tree will never fall in the forest and kill peasants at home. Following this causative trail, they also say that rafters will never sink and kill a passerby (Igi kìí dá l’óko kó pa ará ilé; àjà kìí jìn k’ó pa èrò ònà). Sakara music lord, Yusuff Olatunji, appropriated an ancient Yoruba words of incantation while paying obeisance…

Remi Tinubu, what has God got to do with it? By Festus Adedayo

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The above was the question asked by Britons and the rest of the world in the afternoon of May 22, 2013. Close to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, Southeast London, two young men of British-Nigerian descent, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, had attacked a 25-year old British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby and killed him. Rigby was of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. It was a case of religious extremism. The soldier had been on off-duty and was walking along Wellington Street. His attackers mowed him down with a…

Ayinde Barrister, North and Tinubu’s VAT Bill By Festus Adedayo

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In a gripping but evergreen musical rendition of a Yoruba folklore, late Fuji music lord, Ayinde Barrister, once deployed the canvas of the forest to paint the inequality of the world. In his Fuji New Waves album, he also depicted the acrimonies that follow the sharing of jointly hunted games. What the anecdote tells us is that, if we listen to the unspoken voices of the forest, humanity may find answers to some of its knotty matters. The narrator and about eleven of his friends, had gone on a hunting…

Dupe Baruwa-Dada: I lost a sister By Festus Adedayo

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In 2011, less than six months into the birth of a new government in Oyo State, a proposal was brought for the celebration of a festival in the state. The memo got to the topmost decision-making organ of the state, the Executive Council. A the Exco, a very suave and articulate man marshaled points on the need for the festival and everybody who spoke gave the memo thumbs-up. However, I constituted the one-man kanda, the stone in the bowl of his rice. So, I raised my hand and the governor,…

The Guardian’s dog and rape of Lady Justice By Festus Adedayo

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As I was concluding this piece, my eyes caught a presidential sledgehammer which landed on the head of Conscience Nurtured by Truth – The Guardian. In a release issued by the State House yesterday, authored by erstwhile Editor-in-Chief of TheNews, Bayo Onanuga, the newspaper was accused of a crime almost similar to what General Sani Abacha accused it of in 1994 which led to its closure. The “NADECO government” of Bola Tinubu merely rehashed the allegation. I will address this presently.   All over the world, the Lady Justice is…