RiverNaija

By Dr Lade Adunbi Nigeria is in a state of rot. A rot caused by being held hostage by a cabal that is bent on destroying the country. A lens through which to see Nigeria is that of a sick person who suddenly found himself in a hospital. At the hospital, he was given wrong diagnoses and of course wrong prescription. Each time the patient takes his medication, his condition keeps getting worse and the physician keeps conducting tests upon tests without the patient realizing that the physician is actually not a trained physician but a fraudster parading himself as one. This is the situation in which Nigeria, a country rich in human and natural resources has found herself today. In spite of the abundance of those with the right expertise to tackle Nigeria’s problems, the cabal that has held the country hostage will not allow Nigeria, the sick patient, to be treated by a trained physician. Until the patient frees himself from this fraudster, he will continue to fall sick while his peer...

Sometime in the late 1980s, I found myself studying inside Ahmadu Bello University Library. I love libraries. I particularly liked this one because it was well stocked compared to most libraries of universities in the Southern parts of Nigeria. At Ahmadu Bello University library, William Shakespeare, for instance, had three rows of book shelves dedicated to his works and works on his works. In the course of my peeping into books, I came across this book of poetry called, The Hallowed Men by T. S. Eliot. As I flipped through this book, I found few lines that have stayed with me ever since. I have quoted them to virtually anyone who had the misfortune of speaking to me for an hour or more. The lines go thus: Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow… I know that the shadow is important but I did not know how important it is until I saw the book called The Shadow Effect by Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and Marianne Williamson. This book writte...

What Lord Lugard thought about Nigerians "In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of...

Written by Olufemi Adefolaju August 24, 2007 The man Harold Smith is not new in Nigerian history. He is one of the architects of colonial foundation that midwived Nigerian independence in 1960. I met him in a meeting three weeks ago where he opened up a bit about the lingering problem in Africa especially; Nigeria unbalanced protracted social political situations. We asked if he could make this known to the media. His response was “I am in my 80s now; I have agreed but in the past ‘they’ did not want me to say anything, but now I don’t want to go to my grave without telling the truth about the atrocities perpetrated in Africa by the colonialists. Brothers and sisters; on Ben TV last Thursday, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene before the independence. The Oxford University graduate had this to say about his role in Nigeria pre and after independence era. ‘Our agenda was to completely exploit Africa. Nigeria was my duty post. When we asses...

Society where you exist influences your character. Your personal circumstances, the people around you and the prevailing ideology within your environment informs the way you do things , the way you see things and in summary classifies your principle and the opinions you form about life. It is a known fact that Nigeria has produced so many negative characters due to the Nigerian misery molding machine; put in place by the people and their leaders. A lot has formed principles that are self destructive without knowing it. Pitifully these principles were formed in order to beat the agonies associated with living in Nigeria . Unfortunately every newly devised way of beating the grief riddled nation brings us very close to another undesired melancholy

The great minds of Africa have always been overwhelmed by the majority of the people whose minds run on low capacity. Regrettably, that minority cannot effect the needed change required to move Africa forward, because the       I Q handicapped majority will always hack down any idea of change, which of course their brains couldn’t assimilate; more so coming from just a handful of the African society. The majority will always carry the day. That is why Africa remains a dark continent. Please read up the travails of Patrice Lumumba.

                                                                  On death About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that ...