Author: Gbenga Oloniniran

In 2015, the ruling class of Nigeria sold Buhari as the messiah for Nigeria under the “Change” mantra. For the unsuspecting masses of Nigeria, it was either Buhari or no one else that could save the sinking ship of Nigeria. Upon the assumption of Buhari, the hope was very much high. I remember that I was a 100 level student at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. In Angola hall Block F room 6, we were always having time to time arguments on the capacity of Muhammadu Buhari to take Nigeria to the promise land. In my room there were political…

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TAKE IT BACK MOVEMENT – OYO STATE The Oyo state TIB has observed keenly, the lackadaisical nature of the Oyo state’s department of state prosecution (DPP) in handling cases involving the common masses. It is much worse to know that most of these attitudes have cost enormous number of victims and their families both psychological and material losses. We have it on authority how cases in the state suffer little or no attention, and transfers from one office, hand or court to the other without any meaningful result. Worth mentioning among series of such cases, is the embattled case of…

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Increasing spate of insecurities has rocked the North of Nigeria more than any other part of the country. We have seen killings getting little or no attention. It was almost becoming norms until this air of intolerance began to blow like hurricane. If nothing else, we have seen that what keeps the uprising in Nigeria from becoming yet a full blown revolt is the calmness in the boiling atmosphere of the North. The people are held down against their wills by powers that be – the Kings in the north. The ruling class’ repression on public education in the north,…

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The Seyi Makinde regime in Oyo state appears to be a political focus point in the country. While the PDP is using his regime for a facelift, his media arms are doing quite some good PR – work. Indeed, for anyone who has left Oyo state for a while or that has not been to to the state before, and gets picture of the Adamasigba stadium, the traffic lights and car park at Challenge among other media attractive projects of the government, such would think Ibadan is now the London of Nigeria. For what it’s worth, a government can…

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In just about a week, after the media trended the rising traffic of Ibadan for us, as we speak, there is a most recent demolition of MRS filling station at Challenge roundabout. The roundabout structure itself is gone too, now a plane ground, awaiting new development. The MRS station had been a popular landmark at that junction for decades, it is the last bus stop at challenge. For me, and for as many that are familiar with that route, that such major landmark would eventually vanish into the thin was almost a shock, but for change being a constant factor,…

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If you are not coming through the ports, the ancient and Nigeria’s largest city by geography, Ibadan, remains your major funnel from any part of Nigeria to enter the megacity and most populous city of Nigeria, Lagos. Ibadan and Lagos share such close proximity that the relationship between the two states is so intertwined and had birthed an age long cultural saying that, ‘bi e ba wa mi de Eko, ti e ko ba mi n’ile, Ibadan ni mo wa’ (if you seek me in Lagos and cannot find me at home, I am in Ibadan). The Lagos-Ibadan expressway is…

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Krishna Priya Pallavi, an Indian editor maintained that, albeit strange, the rain had been a respite from the heat. No doubt, dwellers of the tropical regions like Asia and Africa are forced to quickly align with it as a respite. Of course, the weather has been too hot, and as a Nigerian who has usually taken the sun as a second skin, the weird rainfall has surely been a cool off too. Some social media users took it up sarcastically with funny memes. For some, the raining December is yet another weird phenomenon about the year 2020. For some other,…

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Ending rape is not a protest against men by women or against women by men, lest it becomes another gender war, another division, like racism, like xenophobia. It is fine that we call out the evil excesses of men to men, but it is finer that we take cognizance of the institutions that strengthen these excesses. Many governments across the world are racists and rapists in themselves whom we do not have to wait for their outright pronunciations of themselves as racists before we call them out. From calling Africa the “shit hole” countries and labelling a global pandemic as…

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If one is to begin by listing data of academic-related suicides in tertiary institutions, the essence of the points intended here could be defeated so soon. Obafemi Awolowo University’s recent data of such suicides would be enough to exhaust a whole page, and this piece would have been boring to the lovers of the deceased students, who might read and find the names of their loved ones listed here again. It would be a sad reflection. As conscious and concerned students of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), not less than four years of our stay on the campus did we spend…

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Gladly, human reasoning continues to advance, mental awareness and criticality continue to grow, gratitude to the ability of men to seek knowledge more and more, and the civilization that comes with this. Africa is no longer left behind also, perhaps we are the Black Panthers advancing, ready to question numerous anomalies as we develop. Our challenges remain only in leadership conspiracies, compromises, mismanagement, the mother of which is corrupt governance. The poverty of developmental ideas consciously portrayed by the ruling cabals drastically limit the black human resource, potential greatness and consequently transform into material poverty of the teeming population. The…

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In 2018, during our struggle against  evictions of this manner, the popular and hypocritical propaganda of the university was that we were against renovation exercise to be carried out by them as we chose to remain in the hostels. Renovations could be done systematically with students’ understanding, only when there is a cordial discussion with them. That would never happen because respecting the opinions of students has never been in their modus operandi. Again, that tells how ridiculous the incivility of our citadel of learning is, because without being overemphasized, these students constitute the major stakeholders of the institution, and…

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In response to Goodluck Jonathan’s untold hypocrisy, it is necessary to always point out their flaws in this manner even if we cannot always be chanced to engage them in persons. Politicians whether serving or had served, should not continually be spared of the mockeries they make of the people lest they continue to rape our senses and make us feel guilty for the hopeless situations they created. In his proud assertion, Jonathan maintained how Nigerian universities have become breeding grounds for cultism. This statement reaffirms to us one more time the important reason why we the people must also…

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Barely forty eight hours after the expulsion of Babcock student over viral sex video, Edo State Polytechnic followed suit by expelling another two students for ‘sex offence’ similar to that of Babcock’s. A brief sex clip of some UNILAG students having sex around the hostel compound had equally surfaced in no distant time. Similar to these clips above was another viral one involving a female student of OAU about three months ago. Not more than a week too did we see a viral video showing violent student-to-student corporal bully at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), with the students…

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Having read of a late Adeniran who was a corps member in Oyo state, I drew some conclusions to the theme of this article out of emotions. He could have passed out with his colleagues in October 2019. Unfortunately, just yesterday, his family was paid 1.9 Million naira by the Oyo state INEC chairman to compensate for the loss of Adeniran’s life which was lost during the electoral process in the state in February. That was the life insurance policy by INEC and government for a person’s life lost while serving the ‘government-father land.’ The recently conducted Kogi election was…

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“All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” This proclamation in George Orwell’s Animal Farm attempts to reveal the wall that unravels between democracy and bourgeois politics. In the ancient Rome, the statue of the “Lady Justice” as in today’s law, represented the peak of justice, her eyes are blindfolded so as not to be biased by what she sees; a set of scale on one hand measures evidence for or against an accused; the sword on the other hand depicts that justice is cut once, it is swift and final. Today in Nigeria, with the character…

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On the 7th of November, I was also privileged to be, and to address at a Lagos colloquium which witnessed presence of the likes of Senator Shehu Sani, Femi Falana SAN, Dapo Olorunyomi, Chris Isiguzo (NUJ President), Richard Akinola, Chido Onumah and quite a number of other influential personalities, including but not limited to veteran journalists (Fisayo Soyombo inclusive) and other social activists. It was a conversation on the shrinking media and civic space in Nigeria. The colloquium like many of its such and other social engagements that have trailed the Senate’s passing of social media bill is one of…

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