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When lie leads and truth lies in state with Fola Ojo

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This ancient story, I once heard. Some faraway twin brothers named Truth and Lie. They both stood by a river just outside of their small village bantering off. Then, Lie challenged his twin brother Truth to a race. “There is no faster or better swimmer than me in the history of this village. Truth, I can swim faster across this river than you”, Lie said. “What are the rules?”, Truth asked? Lie laid out the rules. Both of them must strip naked, and at the count of 1, 2, 3.. dive into the freezing cold water splashing and stroking to the other side and back. They both got ready and steadied their gaits. Lie, always boisterous and forward, counted to three. Trusting Truth jumped in the river, Lie laughed and lingered at the banks. He did not jump. Truth kept stroking on across the river. Lie grabbed Truth’s garments laying on the ground and strapped them on, strolling back to town. Lie stole the identity of Truth, and proudly paraded himself around town as his brother. Having won the ...
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How God saved me from being executed after Dimka’s coup – Col Ogbebor

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ARGUABLY, Col Paul Osakpamwan Ogbebor (rtd), 70, is the first Nigerian to be enrolled into the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA. Among the 61 cadets of Course 1, he was one of the 34 that graduated. He is also one of the 18 who are still alive.He fought the Nigeria-Biafra civil war of 1967-1970 and opines that the war has cemented the country’s unity. Although at the NDA, he was one of the best in academics, sports and soldiering where he won many laurels, Ogbebor was one of those whose military career was short-circuited by high-wire intrigues and witch-hunt that characterize Nigeria’s military and public service.Ogbebor’s love for the military had no bounds as he envisioned and worked hard to be enlisted. He bore no one ill-feelings over how he was detained, tortured and finally eased out of the army because of his efforts to save General Samuel Ogbemudia (rtd), a former military governor of Bendel State, who was roped in, in the coup that killed former Head of State, General Murtal...
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A half century of banditry in Nigeria, By Chidi Odinkalu

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Since well before Nigeria’s return to elective governance in 1999, the country has been overtaken by a progressive escalation of what Hannah Arendt in her classic On Violence called “a massive intrusion of criminal violence into politics”. In contemporary Nigerianism, the word for this is “banditry”. “Bandits” is a conveniently capacious bogeyman for insecurity in Nigeria that precludes necessary questions as to the provenance of the descent into lawlessness. It captures diverse elements that may include terrorists, cultists, herdsmen, kidnappers,criminal gangs, and militants. Originally applied to the motorcycle gangs who perpetrate carnage in different parts of Nigeria’s North-West, bandits have now become the trope for an intolerable toll of destruction by mostly non-state entities as well as the inexplicable haplessness of Nigeria’s Federal Government that has never been known to cringe at the thought of exterminating significant numbers of its citizens. This lamentable situatio...
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The tragedy of low ambition, By Donu Kogbara

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I’ve always been fairly unambitious and selectively lazy. My mother wanted me to go to one of the two most elite universities (Oxford and Cambridge) in the United Kingdom, where I grew up. And, if I say so myself, I certainly possessed the brains to make her happy and make it to either of these globally revered groves of academe. But while I was willing to stay up all night voraciously reading books that interested me (quality fiction, tomes about history, anthropology and classical civilizations); I couldn’t be bothered to study for the intellectually challenging Oxbridge entrance exam. And I wound up cheerfully going to a respected but less prestigious university that had considerably less stringent entry requirements. My mother pleaded with me to do law because she reckoned that a legal career would provide me with prestige and a decent income. But I wasn’t having it. Perish the thought! Too much like hard work. I did a considerably less arduous combined arts course instead and d...
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Inventiveness

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WHAT CAUSES CREATIVITY 1. CONFIDENCE : ABILITY TO QUESTION WITHOUT FEAR 2. OBSERVATION : SEEING PROBLEMS/IDEAS 3. HUMILITY : KNOWING YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING 4. MINDFULNESS : THINKING ON HOW TO THINK 5. CURIOSITY : EXPLORING AND EXPERIMENTING 6. RESOURCEFULNESS : SOMETHING TO TINKER WITH 7. ENERGY : TO EXPLORE AND TINKER 8. ACTION : NOT JUST THINKING, BUT DOING
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Never tell a successful Nigerian you are thirsty (II) By Sonala Olumhense

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In 1996, following a peacekeeping stint with the United Nations mission in Somalia (UNOSOM II), I undertook a series of fixed-term appointments in the Department of Information (DoI) in New York. Two years later, I joined the Security Council Affairs Division (SCAD) of the Department of Political Affairs. That was a dream come true as I had always wanted to learn how the council functioned. The department was headed by a United Kingdom diplomat. Naturally, I wanted to join the secretariat staff, but I would apply to agencies and bodies of the organisation as well. As anyone knows, who has tangled with the UN, in practice, merit is rarely the most important quality required of job applicants. For instance, in 1998 at SCAD, I trained an intern from the UK. Within weeks of completing his degree programme in the UK, he was curiously on the UN payroll in New York. Within a few more years, he had vaulted into the P5 cadre.But corruption in the UN is a different file. This one is abou...
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Our Ancestors were not saints- Africa and what you must know about our past history

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It has become clear that our ancestors were deceived with goodies from Europe (Hot drinks, Mirrors, Combs and Ornamental cloths and Shoes). Our ancestors had never seen these items before Europeans arrived. Our ancestors were high on this excitement and was fighting over themselves to acquire them, so that they can distinguish themselves as superior to other members of their villages and settlements. The Europeans then introduced cowries (a form of money) which they used to exchange for these products whenever the Europeans berthed on African shores. Subsequently in the 17th century after the invention of muzzle-loading guns, they started equipping some of the tribes with guns to go and sack perceived enemy villages in other to capture them as slaves, so that they can exchange them with Cowries and Ornaments from Europe. Some of our ancestors who were privileged to be in close proximity with the shores of the Atlantic ocean took advantage of this new found opportunity to raid hinterla...
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