De Patriot

By Suyi Ayodele Crime and criminality are not gender biased. Nigerians should have no doubt about it. Whatever a man can do, a woman can do better, goes the saying. The veracity of the age-long axiom came to life in Yola, capital of Adamawa State on Sunday, April 16, 2023. That was the day the NTA beamed live to us, the ‘victory’ cum ‘acceptance’ speech of Aisha Dahiru, who is also known as Binani, the candidate of the APC in the March 18 inconclusive governorship election and the supplementary election held on Saturday, April 15, 2023, in some local governments of the state. Binani must have been a strong believer in miracles. We all serve a God of miracles. A miracle is an unexplainable occurrence in the life of an individual. It just happens and onlookers are left flabbergasted.   The collation of the results of the supplementary election was still going on when Binani’s miracle happened. An unusual personality, Yunusa Hudu-Ari, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (R...

By Lasisi Olagunju  Land grabbers would seize your land at gunpoint and ask you to go to court. What would make one of INEC's Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC) do what he did in Adamawa State yesterday (Sunday) other than the effrontery of land grabbing? Who asked him to do it? Declare a winner even while vote collation is on and let whoever is aggrieved go to court! It is a step that has taken the shamelessness of this democracy a notch higher. Fortunately, the REC's employers were not in bed with him; they promptly annulled his impunity. We saw it before. It didn't end well and we've not recovered from it. In 1979, at the end of the first ballot, none of the five presidential candidates was found to have got all that the law said they must get to be declared elected. Section 34 A (I) (c) (i) and (ii) of the Electoral Decree No. 73 of 1977 as amended said a candidate must have the highest number of votes cast at the election and must also have "no...

’ By Suyi Ayodele “…I do not stand here as the man who gave your land to the people of Idanre. I stand here as your servant, the servant of all children of Oduduwa in Nigeria. What we have planned is for the good of your children and therefore your own good too. Education is the only way in which we can make progress in the new world. It is this education that my government promises to give your children, free of charge to all of you. I want you all to go and register your children who are over the age of six for this opportunity. Don’t let anyone deceive you, it is not a trick to cheat you. It is for the good of your children”, Chief Obafemi Awolowo declared and waited for a response. The dateline was 1950. The venue was the palace of the Deji of Akure. The reigning Deji of Akure then was His majesty, Oba Afunbiowo Adesida. The account of this event states that the Deji “was brought, carried to the throne, frail and weak”, to receive Chief Awolowo and his entourage. The t...

  By Suyi Ayodele Barring strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) or the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU), medical students spend an average of six years in the university. Upon graduation, they go through one year of Housemanship. Thereafter, they observe the one-year compulsory NYSC programme. So, to become a medical doctor in Nigeria, one must have spent a minimum cumulative eight years! Eight years in the present-day Nigerian environment is closer to hell and its fiery furnace. Now, after the rigours of the eight years, some efulefu in Abuja are saying that an additional five years will be added before the licence to practice will be given. The proposed five years, in labour euphemism, is called labour bond. But the real name is pure Forced Labour or, better still, Modern Slavery. The first time I heard about labour bond was when the GSM came to Nigeria, newly. The telecommunications companies then devised means of retaining their w...

By Lasisi Olagunju  My mystery Hausa friend has been busy with me lately. He has been firing a series of probing (invasive) messages. Sometimes, he asks questions; other times, he comes plain and provocative. On March 28, my friend told me “Igbos and Yorubas have been Nigeria's problem since colonial times. They are still the problem. They heat up the polity unnecessarily. Easing them out is the solution.” I knew he was fishing for my 'trouble' or for clues to something for whatever purpose, and so, I had no response for him. But he came back: “Yoruba-Igbo (wahala) didn't start today. You guys have ruined our country. Easing you out is the only and final solution.” I gave him a one-word response: “Good.” We drew the curtain. On Sunday, April 2, my friend was back. “I told you the other day that Igbos and Yorubas should exit this country. They can form a country together.” Again, I had no response. Then he called. I laughed; he laughed and repeated the statem...

By Suyi Ayodele Alfred Thompson "Tom" Denning, Baron Denning, popularly called Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls, was a British jurist who died on March 5, 1999, at the ripe age of 100. During his stints on the Bench and at the Bar, Denning was a defender of the principle of natural justice.  In a 1968 matter he adjudicated between the Metropolitan Properties Co (FGC) Ltd vs Lannon, the man who answered the sobriquet ‘the people’s judge’ summarized natural justice thus: "Justice must be rooted in confidence and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking: 'The judge was biased'." On another occasion, the late jurist said: “The law is to see that truth is observed and that justice is done between man, and man”. Together with another jurist, Lord Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (Lord Acton), Denning popularized the twin fundamental principles of natural justice to wit: hear both side in a matter (Audi Alteram Partem) and no o...

By Lasisi Olagunju  Like Nigeria's multiple-award winning poet, Professor Niyi Osundare, I am also “farmer-born, peasant-bred.” Like him, I “encountered dawn in the enchanted corridors of the forest.” A powerful pastor once came to our village with drums and flutes. It was supposed to be a one-off visit but that first arrival was a harvest of blessings for his ministry and so he made his coming a daily affair. Every day, Pastor came in the evening when men were back from the farm and women had finished their buying and selling. Pastor grew popular; he was reverred, feared and worshipped by almost everybody – and we were a community of majority Muslims. Some called him Pastor but for many, he was simply Wòlíì (prophet). He had with him girls who sang the songs he dictated. There were evening revivals at which Pastor offered buckets of stream water spiced with anointing oil as solution to every affliction of the body and soul. One afternoon, Pastor came with a short cutla...