Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Give our Benin Bronzes back The Smithsonian marked Indigenous People’s Day last week by holding a ceremony to give 29 Benin Bronzes back to their rightful owners. It wanted the ceremony to be symbolic and substantive in equal measure. The Smithsonian is the latest institution heeding Nigeria’s demand to return artifacts British forces plundered. Most notably, Germany agreed last… Read more.
I am bemused and humbled in equal measure every time I read about Pied Pipers (aka social-media influencers) who have millions of people clicking on their pages, like Pavlovian dogs, every day – often many times a day. Because I’m all too mindful that, more often than not, the only thing people get from those… Read more.
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, protesters around the world marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters in the United States. But it was always understood that protesters in predominantly white countries, especially in Europe, were also marching to protest police brutality against local Blacks. Overlooked, however, was that protesters in… Read more.
It’s an oxymoronic feature of chronically poor countries that the politicians who govern them are often their highest paid professionals. Nowhere is this more the case than in Nigeria. Public shaming forced rich corporations in America to return millions from this country’s Covid-19 Payment Protection Program. Remarkably, the same forced rich politicians in Nigeria to… Read more.
Because, if you think African migration is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The Nasarawa State Governor, Engineer Abdullahi Sule has said that only corruption is stagnating Nigeria from competing with other developed countries like the United Kingdom and the United States. … ‘Nigeria by all intent and purposes is not a poor country,… Read more.
Terror group Boko Haram incited international outrage four years ago when it kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. In fact, no less a person than First Lady Michelle Obama led the viral protest #BringBackOurGirls. Yet, just two years later, you would have been forgiven for having no clue this infamous kidnapping… Read more.
Thursday marked the second anniversary of the kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, by the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram. This kidnapping incited universal outrage. Never mind that this outrage manifested in little more than people – most notably celebrities like Rihanna, Madonna, and Michelle Obama – posting #BringBackOurGirls on their social media pages.… Read more.
I find this illustration so poignant because it gives the impression that the boy could also be kneeling at his bedside praying with an equally aggrieved look. The point for me, of course, is that his letter/prayer couldn’t be any less effective than a bunch of American celebrities – who couldn’t tell Boko Haram from an Arab… Read more.
The following excerpt – from “Checkmated on Crimea, Obama Plays for Rest of Ukraine,” March 7, 2014 – reflects the kind of criticism I’ve been leveling against John McCain for years for displaying a rash and bellicose temperament that is unbecoming of a U.S. senator, let alone a U.S. president: A number of you have… Read more.
My commentaries on terrorism are replete with remonstrations about the way Western media and political leaders hasten to call any murder perpetrated by a Muslim an act of terrorism. But I am convinced that the reflexive way they conflate murder with terrorism in this context only ensures more of both. For example, there were 16… Read more.
