Izuu's Turn

By Pius Adesanmi Copied from this ever-truthful professor! Crawling gradually back into Nigeriana after a busy week, I hear with one ear that the mental carburetor of the average career Jonathanian has been overheating this weekend because of some incident involving their spiritual leader at OAU. I have to read up on that and return with my two and a half kobo later. I also hear that Nigeria's former Foreign Affairs Minister, Gbenga Ashiru, has died in a hospital in South Africa. I am sorry to hear this news. Whatever you may think of him and his political choices and affiliations, he was a fine Nigerian technocrat. However, I am not sorry to hear that he died in a hospital in South Africa. We are getting to a point where the only criterion that the WHO will use in gauging the development of a country's healthcare sector is the data on members of Nigeria's rulership who go there to die. Your hospitals will be deemed underdeveloped only if there is no kn...

After watching the grand opening of Governor Akpabio-led administration's stadium at Uyo, certain questions began to jostle for prominence in my mind. My ind immediately went straight to Governor Akpabio's next door neighbour at Abia. Uyo is just about an hour drive from Aba and if someone happens to drive to the opening yesterday through Aba, one will think he just emerged from pre-historic to a digital society. I have come to conclusion that the problem with a good number of Nigerian politicians is not political party affiliation but the absence or presence of one item - shame. The difference between Akpabio and Orji is not party since both belong to the ruling PDP. What I think is that one has shame and the other has none. If Orji is blessed with the virtue of possessing an iota of shame, he would have resigned a long time again and allowed better people to run the affairs of his state. Aba is a complete eye-sore and it is in an oil-producing state. Other south eastern gover...

Assuming air is a commodity like water, found in different quantities at different locations. In a country like mine, how would it be distributed? There will surely be serious shortage because even with a dam, Water is not sufficient, Electricity is epileptic Fish is inabundant But flooding is most welcome Environmental degradation is rampant And huge sums of money, by way of visible abracadabra, disappear into private purses, pockets and personal possessions. We are a people who take pleasure in lack amidst plenty Assuming air is fuel, gas, kerosene or any of the derivatives we have in abundance In a land like ours, how much of it can an individual have? Of course, we have dysfunctional refineries In God's Name, how does one build, not just one referinery, but many of them With huge sums of money, only for every one of them to break down To the point of no "mmekwatalism?" All we get is stories, always from reliable sources on conditions of anonymity And I ask, what is wr...

Many things have been written and documented about the ten-year administration of Professor Abdullahi Mahadi at the Gombe State University, Gombe. People who know him more than I do and those who met him even before I was born have variously eulogized this great manager of people and resources. I have never met him one-on-one, but having worked under him in the past six years, I wish to say a few words to mark the end of his tenure at Gombe State University, Gombe. I joined Gombe State University in 2008. By that time, the University has existed for four years. I still remember the first time I walked through the gates of this great institution to attend my interview. I was shocked to see a well-planned environment that beat all my expectations hands-down. I am aware of how new universities in my country are: run-down facilitates, make-shift everything, and run-down uncompleted/on-going projects which may never be completed. With this kind of inchoate milieu, it is very improbable...

I've been away from here for quite a while. Reason: don't actually know. Maybe it's brain fatigue. Or the numerous trips I've been making recently from my kitchen, to the living room and all the other rooms in the "new house" as my older soon will call it. So much has happened also since the last time I was here. As much as I try not to see the news channels I always find myself scrolling back to Al Jazeera, Euronews and CNN. I don't know whether my mind has been remotely paired with bad news - wars in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan. Then Ebola in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and over a thousand dead already. Then, in the spirit of negative black comradeship, Patrick Sawyer decided to invent the deadly disease to my dear country. Since then, so much has happened! From bitter kola, to salt solution and while the whole world is waiting for the American Zmapp, our honorable Minister for Health tells us we are royals who must use precious ornaments - in came ...

The dog is known for eating faeces in our climes. But there is no how it will end its enterprise and the goat will go and brush its teeth on its behalf. Likewise, no one take Panadol for another person's headache. Incidentally, not Nigerians. We sabi take Panadol for another person's headache even when we have severe diarrhea ourselves! The war between Israel and Gaza has been hyped and reported variously by the global media, of course with their usual side takings. The West, CNN especially, with its pro-Israel stance demonizes Gaza and it's people by highlighting the missiles which are undeniably being launched into Israel while downplaying the casualties on the other side. What I call the Muslim media, on the other hand, epitomized by the Iranian Press TV, suddenly becomes the voice of Gaza by emphasizing the heavy civilian casualties in Gaza and downplaying the military prowess of Hamas thereby making it look as if the people of Gaza (sometimes portraying them as 100% Mu...

By Femi Aribisala (on June 03, 2014 at 12:22 am) Note: This is not my write-up. I can't match the eloquence of the writer. I can't help agreeing with him either - Izuu  I was fifteen years old when the civil war broke out in Nigeria.  Although we were living in Ibadan in the South-west at the time, my sympathies were totally and unequivocally with the Igbos.  When a people have been so brutally butchered by their countrymen as happened to the Igbos, I felt they had no choice but to insist on leaving the country.  Therefore, I understood why the Biafrans went to war and what they were fighting for.  But I could not, for the life of me, understand what those on the federal side were fighting for.  Why would anybody fight for Nigeria? I lost a first-cousin fighting on the federal side during the civil war.  I wish I could have found out first-hand from him why he gave his life “to keep Nigeria one.”  Did he really believe in Nigeria?  I doub...

I am appalled, my country has become a country with the highest number of "heroes" on the planet. Everyone that dies is officially extolled as being patriots. Am not surprised because even at the centenary celebrations, the GEJ government gave merit awards to people who we honestly do not want our wards to emulate. And with these deaths also, everybody is a hero ... and what are the criteria? 1. You must be rich 2. You must have been in/close to government 3. You must have stolen the nation blind 4. You may belong to the ruling party 5. You must be an elder statesman even when your age mates are youth leaders in the same party 6. You must die in London; or at least, don't make the mistake of dying in Nigeria Once you possess any of these, even your victims must find religious or ethnic grounds to exonerate you of all your crimes while alive and then re-direct their accusations to someone else especially the incumbent. And what is that one doing? Pardoni...

In the last post, I said "To be continued ..." Not because I expected a follow-up so soon, not because I know I that Nigerian political discourse can hardly be exhausted. It also cannot be captured in its entirety by a single perspective as minuscule as mine. But even when my opinion pales out in the face of more than a hundred million others, I still have a right to be heard. No matter how insignificant it might seem to the next person whose reasoning is clouded by solely hearing him or herself, I still have the right to be heard even though I may be ignored. Those who are on Tweeter, Facebook, and other social media throwing up tantrums about what happened, did not happened and/or could have happened in Ekiti are right to express themselves but in doing so they should also understand that like me, no one has all the facts of the matter more than the two elephants involved. The Yoruba race has always shown itself as the most civilized of all of us in the manner they manage t...

Another election, won and lost in a nation where electioneering brings so much tension. I remember when it was Anambra's turn, people hyped it to the point of calling it a litmus test for INEC's readiness to conduct credible elections in the country. When Ekiti's turn came, another round of claim and counter claim surfaces from nowhere. After the polls itself, one terse comment of a friend of mine on FB made me to realize very shockingly that those of us who always profess to be unbiased are often the most pathetic of bigots. Using Ekiti polls, there are certain recurrent issues on our political sphere which often escape our notice. The first one is that whenever our favored candidate fails to win, the election results become suspect. In the case of Anambra, when Senator Ngige failed to win, a lot of people (some of who cannot even locate Anambra in a map) made some remarks I consider very silly especially knowing that they are being propelled by their party affiliations...

I read yesterday what the Kano governor has to say about the situation in his state since the enthronement of SLS as the new emir of the ancient city. In the interview, he purportedly pointed accusing fingers on Abuja for the on-going "sponsored" protests in Kano and the siege on the Emir's palace. To say that I am disappointed by the tone of the governor's utterance is an understatement. The manner of disrespect for a sitting president is so unbecoming of someone who is also vying for the highest position in the land. Would he like to be addressed the same way if and when he becomes the president at any time. With the growing insecurity in the land, those in positions of authority in especially volatile areas like Kano, should know how to keep the peace by making guarded statements. And as if the governor's misguided vitriolic isn't enough, the voluble ex-minister of the FCT, this evening remarked on his Facebook page that paid mischief mak...

Your Royal Highness, accept my humble congratulations on your turbanning as the new Emir of Nigeria, sorry, Kano. You must forgive me for that error because somehow, amidst the hullabaloo of your royal exaltation it sounded more like we have dispensed of the presidential system and was installing you as the new regent in charge of all our affairs. It is just by sheer providence that I was still able to make out that you were just becoming the Emir of Kano; a post in my reckoning, that is well beneath and much less lucrative than the one you so unceremoniously exited. As a firm believer in the principle that no leader becomes one if not installed by the Most High, I wish you well and do sincerely pray that you succeed. One thing I love so much about you is the fact that you are fearless and you say the "truth" no matter whose ox is gored. This leads me to my next cautionary point. "Truth" is always a relative term. As such it pays to have all the fac...

Diet is everything They say, "You are what you eat." And I agree I sent someone very close to me  What I ate for dinner last night And the response I got was: "Is that food? It looks just like snack." Of course, I understand the import of that question and statement... We are used to heavy eating When it is carrots. We make sure that the weight of the Hausa man's barrow of "karros" is considerably reduced before we let him go. We don't normally deal with broccoli.  But judging by what we do to other vegetables  I am sure a piece of broccoli in a plate of food Served my grand parents, for instance, Might cataylse catastrophic altercations And pasta? We can take a whole packet, depending... But that place of curry stew With diced, well-cooked salmon, I tell you... is yummy My topic directly refers to another meal Actually, dessert that we had somewhere else Someone was going to tell another person... Note: none of t...

The success or otherwise of a nation is predicated on the value it places on the lives of its citizens. It then follows that a leader's acceptability is dependent on how the death of just one citizen affects his or her decision. Regrettably, in my country, our lives are worth nothing above are meddlesome horde of cockroaches whose lives need be snuffed out by a spray of insecticide. Scores of innocent, law-abiding citizens died in the first Nyanya bombing. Their leader visited the scene promptly and shed tears for the camera. Moments later, he was in Kano dancing to re-election songs. Those potential voters who died that morning have suddenly ceased to matter. But a week later, his deputy's brother died and a whole Federal Exco Council meeting was shelved in his honour. And you are telling me these people care about me? Isn't it obvious that the only thing they care about is their purses and themselves?

I have this friend that I am very fond of He is a Nigerian; a good one at that! One day, recently, he told me that the reason Insurgency is thriving in his part of the country, Is because there is still sympathy for the rebels. He told me about his mother And her sympathy for what is going on But he ascribed her predilection to her lack of Western education! I laughed and quickly told him something... Something I haven't thought about till I said it . My heart goes out to these innocent girls Who have been forcefully abducted for what we don 't know! My heart goes out also to the innumerable innocent Citizens of this land who have died from bombs, Bullets, assassinations, decapitations, etc As I reminisce on these unpleasan t thoughts I am also forced to remember countles s Nigerians Especially, people of Igbo extraction Who have been variously targe t ed and killed In different parts of northern Nigeria in times past Every...