Lekan Fatodu affirmed on the publisher’s page that Check Out magazine will liberate travellers from the old ways and chart a new path that will offer ‘more than what you think you know’. It would be an all-informative and entertaining experience with broad appeal to Nigerians whose loop of catchment area is expanding but without a unique migrant-centred magazine to bring expatriation information for both inbound and outbound travellers.
Is it not outrageously amusing that we could continue to be a nation without sense and even people without social and political discernment? If only we could be wise, patient and discern what the end would be for Dora? How could we doubt the possibility that one woman, a witch for efficiency, superwoman Dora, could rebrand the destiny of 140 million Nigerians? Why are critics saying that Dora is faking her rebranding orgasm? Would any Igbo woman fake an orgasm?
From an unremarkable upbringing in Bermondsey, a gritty part of South London, she eventually moved on to become a businesswoman, girlfriend, wife, mother and a TV star. The melodrama of her life to stardom was typically the stuff of Western media relentless projection and of dusting up a wannabe and turning such into a noonday icon. That same melodrama has now morphed into the forbidding genre of tragedy which took Jade’s life away.
Yearly, Ibadan provides me a rural dream, a chance for creative recuperation, some community participation and a passion for the needy Ramonus, Laniyans, Lasisis, Lamidis, Lanihuns and Lahans of this world. Today, I am carrying the banner for my hometown. The old Ibadan world has to collapse. Its old certainties must also be re-examined. I cannot continue to stand, albeit geographically, as a powerless bystander and watch Ibadan being striped of its honour, statehood and independence.
The terrible price of perceived failure and imminent rejection by family and friends back home will not persuade our Ade, Emeka and Nosa to return home just like that. The pressure to succeed and show the world that one’s years of ducking, hiding and diving, both in winter and summer, is now in concrete form at Lekki or Dopemo is soul killing.
Brixton that night was turned into hunting zone. Every moving black man was a suspect. Black men were being hunted down like animals. I would soon fall into the hand of my oppressors. I had left home to buy my cooking stuff unaware that such an incident had happened along Atlantic Road. The moment I set my foot on Atlantic Road, a policeman picked me up instantly and added me to other statistics already taken to the station. I protested my innocence. I raved and ranted but the police man...
I never knew that an experience that would change my life for good was on the way. In 2001, I decided I have had enough of the UK and I decided to return to Nigeria. If I must tell you the truth, an average Nigerian in the Diaspora still nurses this dream of returning back home some day. Why is it so? I think most Nigerians love their country and are passionate for social and economic change but the corruption and leadership emptiness make them stay longer abroad. So, in 2001 after 13...
And to protect the dignity of public intellection, Abati keeps a dignified silence on the land acquisition. That has turned out to be an expensive risk. Every turn of another day, there is revolting innuendoes and nauseating accusations that a dreadful myth is about to unravel. Is Abati unravelling then? Why are we all gobsmacked by the paralysis of his silence? Why is he smothering the possibilities of live debate through snobbery?
I was once the moral leader of the United States. I developed an abiding devotion to reconciliation and not victory. As a result, a grateful world gave me a deserved Nobel Peace Price, a national holiday and my name imprinted forever on the conscience of humanity. In order to change the world and after post-Montgomery, I changed from my old florid style to Hegelian dialectic for persuasive engagement with the reactionary forces arrayed against me as a civil right leader.
Life abroad has given me security of life and limbs. I drive around the streets of London in my gleaming 4x4 Lexus with a soft, modulated and jazzy voice of Pamela Williams serenading my satisfied soul. At weekends, I let loose my hair and cruise around in a sexy, sturdy-looking, fearsome, silver Mercedes Benz which comes complete with customised 18inch alloy wheels and 12-CD changer. The fear of being wasted by ubiquitous red-eyed monsters we called armed robbers are gone forever. The...
