Society

It is no longer news that the Nigerian political class does not care about Nigerians. For one, it became one of the world’s poverty capitals while its politicians remain among the richest in the world. In Nigeria, rigging is routinized and normalized as part of the political process. With the 2027 Nigerian elections approaching, it is […]

I became afraid of Molue buses the day my mother told me how my closest cousin, Anifa, lost her parents. It was an accident: a molue lost its brakes at the Oshodi-Abeokuta expressway and rammed into their car, injuring and killing several people. I remember riding on the bus a few times with my mom, […]

Please join us from October 31 to November 3 at ART X Lagos for the unveiling of Black Orpheus Exploration Project our year-long project to explore, examine, and engage with the legacy of Black Orpheus to African literature, art, and culture production. Read more about the project here. The ART X Exhibition, featuring a few […]

Mọlará Wood Even now, decades later, Gbọ́láhàn Ọlálẹ̀mí cannot go to sleep in a dark room. It is a residual anxiety of the psychological trauma of the dictatorial regime of General Sani Abacha, when Ọlálẹ̀mí was detained at the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in Apapa, Lagos. They had come for him on the morning […]

[Lecture delivered on September 1, 2023 at the Freedom Park, Lagos.] ÌSẸ̀ṢE has come, but not gone. We salute all those – human rights activists, community leaders, affronted citizens, advocates of equity, and all –  but the state governors most especially – who have taken history to task and boldly formalized a level praying ground […]

My teacher and friend. A memorial was held today 8 August, 2023 in South Africa where he settled for most of the past 30 years. Kole was one of the earliest Nigerian academics to move to SA. He left Nigeria as soon as apartheid started thawing, ahead of independence. I first met Kole as a […]

It appears that the news is true, that the writer-director, author of Burma Boy, Biyi Bandélé, has passed. This is a heavy sentence to type because I knew him. Harder to refer to him in the past tense; we still talked on the phone over a week ago, planning to meet in Lagos whenever he […]

A young police officer is standing with a woman I assume to be his mother. She is praying for him loudly, at a major junction on the streets of a Lagos suburb; speaking in tongues unashamedly while passers-by stare, some in admiration, others, not so much. The young force personnel is shy, hiding his face […]

In early October 2021, I was reading a book on Wattpad titled, All Good Things, written by a Canadian author named Renee Racine. It was a lighthearted read—because laughter is something I desperately needed—and I found something rather unexpected in it; I found myself. To give you a wee bit of summary, the story is […]

NIGERIAN SUBSIDY AND THE REAL  SUBSIDISERS Here, in plain, unsubsidized language      Are the basic facts   About the fabled Nigerian “subsidy”      Whose endless lies have besieged our ears We the Nigerian people subsidize      The rampant CORRUPTION of our rulers We the Nigerian people subsidize      Their fatal incompetence and prodigal greed We the Nigerian people subsidize      Those […]