“Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?” Harold Pinter, The Homecoming, 1965 Some days back I was a guest to the “association of free newspaper readers” at a popular Newspaper vendor in town, to as usual sample the opinion of the ordinary Nigerian. It was a discussion of life full of its difficulties and obstacles, such that I wondered what actually our leaders have done for the nation. Loads of all kinds of perception. The President speaking to the Sultan and others said they were addressing the concerns of youths, the youths, on the other hand,…
Author: Prince Charles Dickson PhD
It’s not only Nigerians that deserve a new Nigeria; Nigeria also deserves New Nigerians! Let me start my admonition with the story below, as carried by Fox News American hostage rescued in West Africa by SEAL Team 6 in daring raid The rescue took place earlier Saturday in northern Nigeria An American hostage has been rescued in Nigeria by SEAL Team 6 in a daring raid, Fox News has learned. The elite commandos jumped out of a U.S. Air Force transport plane a few miles from the target. Without suffering any casualties, the SEALs rescued Philip Walton, 27, after killing…
It is well…even in the well It was Tracy Chapman’s Telling Stories that was playing…For Nigerians it has been almost two weeks of telling stories, what started as a noble idea to demand accountability from our leaders using the theme #endsars resurrected tears sorrow and blood as thugs, hoodlums, state and non-state actors in cases hijacked an otherwise noble cause. Like many things Nigerian, it has opened the perennial ethno-religious, regiocentric coloration, and the Nigerian state is on fire. So we were listening to Tracy on the small radio… There is fiction in the space between The lines on your…
While in prison, Mahjoub wrote poems to elevate himself and to inspire those around him. Despite the prison walls that surrounded him, he never lost his blinding smile. Born are the beautiful children, hour by hour With brightest eyes and loving hearts, Adorning the homeland, they come. For bullets are not the seeds of life. We need not renegotiate our unity but to understand it as a bond of cohesion, one of humanity with shared commonality and interdependency not some state policy. The gods are angry, the land is soiled, leadership has failed, again the nation is at 11:59 and…
Often people ask me why I write on certain topics and issues all the time, like bashing governments at all levels and the band of ‘confusionists’ that run them, my take on the education, health and power sector, arguments on ethnicity and the indigene question amongst others. My answer is that I do because I believe that such subjects are important for Nigeria and Nigerians as they are for other nations, but when it appears to me that Nigerians and our leaders particularly do not react to these topics the way they should, I repeat them in new essays to…
The North-South Dichotomy is not a subject within the shores of this nation that one talks about without understanding, it evokes a lot of passions from the heated debates, and arguments which it generates, everyone holding dear to their views, values, idiosyncrasies and what not. A lot has been written, on old perspectives likewise new viewpoints…more are still being penned down. Onyedikachi Ponfah I have written quite a sizable on this topic on the Nigerian subject matter, and as we continue in the celebration or otherwise mourning of our a non-existent statehood. It is important I revisit the topic; given…
Let me start this conversation in this manner, don’t ask me what took me where I am going, or who was responsible for my small research on how to steal meat from the pot. 1. Enter the kitchen, look left and right if somebody is coming. Our leaders make us look like we are all in this together; we are all looking left and right, waiting our turn to steal… 2. Check the position of the spoon on how you found it so you will not make any mistake while leaving. Our leaders look for our vulnerability, they know us,…
What is logical in politics is not always practical, what is practical is not always right. What is right is not always ethical, what is ethical is not always desired and what is desired takes us back to what is not logical… The Nigerian youth is a victim of power, property, prestige, popularity and pomposity…it is these ‘p’ factors that make it impossible for the Nigerian youth to do that which should be done, it is the illogical, the wrong that becomes ethical. Let me start this way…One should keep one’s eyes on where one is going, not where one…
A Tarokh adage translates, a child lacks wisdom, and some say that what is important is that the child does not die; what kills more surely than lack of wisdom? (A foolish child is not much better than a dead child). On a day like this, seven days had passed, several rains, many of which were heavy, 19 years ago, 0ver thousand innocent lives had been lost, the closest one could come to an understanding is to watch either Hotel Rwanda, or Something in April…ours was sometime in September 2001. This is the concluding part of my essay which I…
Thus our fable goes to sea, and he who will smell its perfume first, will go to heaven.” From September 7 to 13, 2001, Jos, the capital of Plateau State in central Nigeria, was the scene of mass killing and destruction, the meanest in her recent history. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands displaced in less than one week. Violence suddenly erupted between Christians and Muslims in a city where diverse communities had coexisted peacefully for years and which had prided herself on avoiding the inter-communal violence that had plagued neighbouring states. Till date, the exact figures…
So let me start this way, this essay was originally written some seven years ago, under the original title “Northern Nigeria And Her Mythical Realities”. I have looked at it again and come up with a remake of it. Not many of us want to take responsibility for anything, from personal, to family or national life. The blame is on the system. We do not need to create demons out of our leaders because they are specimens of demons, so we hang our sins on them appropriately and inappropriately too. And unfortunately, their behaviour has made it easy for the…
The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood, and they thought it was one of them! As a young child I marvelled at an obvious contradiction in life: why do we have shops filled with food, and yet see hungry people on the streets? It was a question of enormous significance; but in time the question dissipated into the fog of moral ambivalence, as various explanations were used to obfuscate the clarity of the youthful mind. The most bewildering explanation is that hungry people cannot eat because they have…
2023 is far, but in politics, it is tomorrow, and tomorrow is far, we are seeing the opinions fly…The fear of other people’s opinion is called allodoxaphobia The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, a fortnight ago said he had no interest in becoming the president in 2023 and would not support a northern candidate for the presidency. I know when politicians lie we believe them, they expect us to believe them, after all they believe themselves…what’s that thing in sociology about telling the truth with a lie…well I have not accused anyone of lying, neither have I said that…
Monsieur Dupont calls you uncultured because you cannot say who was Victor Hugo’s favourite grandson. Herr Müller has started to scream because you do not know (exactly) the day that Bismarck died. Your friend Mr. Smith, an Englishman or Yankee, I cannot tell, exploded when you write Shell. (It seems that you eliminate an l and, what is more, pronounce it chel.) Well, what of it! When your turn comes, ask them to say Cacarajícara, and ask where the Aconcagua is, and who was Sucre, and in what part on the planet Martí died. A favour: Ask them to speak…
Two-point-eight-billion naira Oil money is still missing Two-point-eight-billion naira Oil money is still missing Them set up inquiry Them say money no lost o Them dabaru everybody Supervisor Obasanjo Them say make him no talk o “Money no lost,” them shout again Inquiry come close o E no finish, e no finish, e no finish Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s army arrangement I hummed to the song…and reflected sick politicians, sick followership, sick nation, but we keep moving one day at a time. We won’t die, we have a strong resolve, we don’t die, and we believe that it cannot end just…
‘The monkey is trapped not by anything physical, but by an idea, unable to see that a principle that served him well has become lethal’ Writing on the topic, “Thoughts on yesterday’s men” last Friday, Dan Agbese, one of the grandmasters, wrote, “These days when I feel overwhelmed by the mediocrity of the present, I mentally trudge down the path of the profundity of the forgotten past. I do so to make some sense of the present and convince myself that there is a universal agreement that progress for nations and individuals means moving forward. It is a healthy exercise,…
A few years ago I told a friend, and lawyer Barrister Madaki that Nigeria was (and still is) a wonderful and funny place. I told him anytime God wanted to watch comedy He did tune in on Nigeria 101 on the satellite for the best of laughs…not just serious comedic and clowning laughs but those laughs that are as a result of the fact that you cannot cry. He sees the horrors of Syria, the wars of militias across to Talibans everywhere and groups from India, Libya, Southern America and even a tiny bit of Nigeria but nothing is bitterly…
It is easier to wake a man sleeping than a man pretending to be asleep…these are the words of our elders I had closed my eyes in sleep some nights back and I saw a vision of an experienced President the man I saw had seen the good and also the bad, a man with both experiences that would have been able to guard the Nation against itself. Such that we would have been on the course of building a new political edifice, one that would be truly Nigerian. A system that works and is suited to our needs, and…
Everything has beauty not everyone sees it—Confucius So over the week, I had the pleasure of some wonderful Fulani guests, two males and two females, they were all ‘full’ Fulanis, but one was black…Black Fulani are not an everyday sight. At the end of three hours they were the sweetest people on earth I had interacted with…they were Mr. Buhari’s family…no they were not, Mr. Buhari is Fulani Katsina, have you seen Fulani Sokoto? Here I was seated with ‘killer’ herds people (sic). Settlers, Landlords, Landowners, Migrants, Indigenes are words, which have become familiar in our national discussion for no…
You don’t ask a toad to give you a chair. You can vividly see it’s squatting. To say that Nigerians are easily excitable people is stating the very obvious and indeed our political players do not spare any effort in providing the much-needed entertainment. The fever is intense, everyone is talking about Edo, and Ondo states, Adams, Iyamu, Obaseki, Tinubu, the Presidency, APC, PDP and 2023 and you will be forgiven to think that it is a repeat of 2014, or 2019. In our clime when everyone starts talking even patients at Psychiatric homes air the views. Many analyst have…
So when there is no shooting inside the Presidential Villa, involving the aides of the First Lady, (an office itself which is a subject of demystification of this administration and the head of it) and the presidency, there is the drama of the First Lady versus members of Mr. Muhammed Buhari’s family. Well, let me start here that Mr. Muhammed Buhari is not the first President to be demystified. If you know, you know the gap-toothed one was demystified, after he dribbled Nigerians, he must have forgotten where the goal post was, and the duration of the match, and along…
The water between us remembers, so we wear our history on our skin, long for a sea-bath and hope the salt will cure what ails us –Deborah Jack (St. Martin) 2016 Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) and the National Council for Arts and Culture have condemned the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in the United States, and police brutality, and racial discrimination against Africans in the Diaspora. Mr. Floyd’s death more than a fortnight ago has triggered a global wave of activism that has spread to more than 50 countries, including Nigeria and other African countries.…
Who would want to be a Nigerian, in the bitterest moments he finds humour, in action, in words, most times beyond the usual. It’s in us, like that epic advertorial for a lactose brand. The US of A has again proved what a few of us are not ignorant of, that racism is real and still underneath the fabric of their society. If you think it’s only the US of A then you are possibly not exactly not schooled in these matters. Go to the UK, Italy, Spain, check about monkey chants targeted at black players and all that. I…
The full moon looks like burnt bread—Sukanta Bhattacharya The old English reverend Thomas Malthus was wrong when he wrote that, for eternity, food production would grow arithmetically (1-2-3-4) and that populations would grow geometrically (1-2-4-8), with the needs of the population easily outstripping the ability of humans to produce food. When Malthus wrote his treatise in 1789, there were about a billion people on the planet. There are now almost eight billion people, and yet scientists tell us that more than enough food is produced to be able to feed everyone. Nonetheless, there is hunger. Why? On 21 April, the…
Elean Thomas (1947-2004), a founder of Jamaica’s Workers Party, in her book Before They Can Speak of Flowers: Word Rhythms (1988) thought about how often she had been asked not to interfere in politics, or – as she put it in the clever Jamaican variation – in politricks. Neither hunger nor ill-health have to do with anything other than politics since it is through political decisions that resources are stolen from people who then suffer the indignities of poverty. How I fe no deal with politics? when Politricks a deal with me. Take for instance… the good book says…
Gambu You dey sing for thieves Gambu You go sing for me Person wey befriend rat go chop shit but I go Still dey follow you if you you swim for shit Love only me and be my own, Gambu Gambu Make we no climb ontop the hill Gambu Up like a cool, koyemi! Person wey befriend dog go chop shit but I Go still dey follow you if you swim for shit Love only me and be my own, Gambu Gambu You dey sing for coups Gambu You must to sing for me I no get stolen boots to…
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is not far away, there are changes, is Nigeria ready, great country, great people, poor people, and very fragile nation. In the midst of an unprecedented crisis, it can be hard to see more than a few days into the future. It’s as if we were wandering around in a dense (and deadly) fog. Some commentators are predicting that this will change the way we live; one even predicts that it will “change us as a species.” Perhaps, but in what way? We will certainly remember this time for the rest of our lives.…
“It is very tiresome on the body, as well as scary on the mind.” A few years ago during the Ebola crisis, my friend Dr. Chris Kwaja had done some work for the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS on health security, public health emergencies and those big-sounding words that we academics use in rattling small minds or making a matter complex in the first place before we give a solution, so let me open with his thoughts. “The governments and communities caught in the Ebola epidemic demonstrated an inability to act in a timely and proactive manner, indicative…
Once the palace was built, they hired a guard to keep us out. We slept in the dirt, with the sound of our craft; Our heartbeat pounding with exhaustion, Bearing the picture of the palace we built in our tightly shut eyes. The day still melts on our heads like before, The night pierces our eyes with black arrows, A hot air blows tonight. It will be impossible to sleep on the pavement. Arise, everyone! I will rise too. And you. And you too. So that a window may open in these very walls. Kaifi Azmi (1919-2002) Italian author Francesca…
Let me start this way, a man was trying to get some rest in his home, it is the say at home, stay safe ere, the following conversation ensued with his wife. Wife: Hermann? Husband: Yeah? Wife: What are doing? Husband: Nothing Wife: Nothing? Wife: Why nothing? Husband: I am doing nothing Wife: Nothing at all Husband: Nothing Wife: Really, nothing at all? Husband: No, I am sitting here Wife: You are sitting there Husband: Yeah Wife: But you must be doing something Husband: No Wife: Are you thinking about anything? Husband: Not really Wife: It wouldn’t hurt if you…
