En masse, broken Nigerians trooped out to exercise their franchise in the just-concluded presidential election. In previous elections, many of these voters would have preferred to recline on their couches while surfing through activities from polling units on their gadgets. A badly-led Buhari administration had provoked their tears for the past 8 years, hence their massive turnout for this year’s election. In 2007, the voters’ rate declined from 57.4% to 53.7 percent in 2011. In 2015, it made a further decimation as it reduced to 43.6% and later to 34.75 percent in 2019. However, the 2023 election had 87 million…
Author: Hashim Yussuf Amao
Welcome to Nigeria. Emotional folks and “God’s representatives” will attend to you shortly. But before they do, let me tell you a little about them. Look, they are sinners. Hypocritical sinners who cast aspersions on fellow sinners. Reason: the latter sin a different way. They publicly feign innocence to corruption and bad acts, but behind their charming exteriors are bitter, corrupt souls. My dear, I do not mean to unclad them; I do not even mean to cut them with an unfriendly tongue, for I am one of them. I only want you to have an idea of their hypocritical…
His victory, his loss—none would diminish him or strip him off his previous achievements. He is made, set indelible records, and etched his name in the historical folklore of Nigerian politics. In Peter Obi, many hopes are currently stashed. Supports that cut across tribes and religions. Groups among the Igbos, Afenifere among the Yorubas, Coalition of North East Elders for Peace and Development (CNEEPD) among the Northerners are attestation to the belief in a budding Nigerian 001 – if fate would beam a smile on him in the coming election, or ones to come. In spite of disparaging political views,…
Hashim Yussuf Amao, Ibadan Bedeviled, unkempt, and hunger-stricken; so dispiriting it is to see innocent children unleased on the streets of Northern Nigeria to beg around for food, when they should be in school learning towards securing a better future. Coined from “Al Muhajirun” which translates “an emigrant”, Almajiri simply denotes a seeker of knowledge who migrates from his home to an Arabic school or to a teacher “Mallam”. The archaic Al Majiri practice, without doubt, has birthed more bad than good, especially in the 21st century, where seeking knowledge has advanced with the aid of reforms and technology. The…
Hashim Yussuf Amao, Ibadan Years beyond recall, the advice and guidance that come with mentorship have always helped shape the lives of young people positively. Across academic, personal, spiritual, and professional lives, the rising need for youths to have mentors is deserving of attention. Unfortunately, many young Nigerians seem unconcerned about finding themselves worthy mentors, which has made many of them derail from good paths and ruined their chances of success in life. At crucial stages of life when a single mistake – if taken wrongly – can make any young person slip off track, a mentor’s wise counsel on…
Two small sachets of Bournvita and a sachet of Dano milk I had just mixed to regain my weakened self, when an inspiration knocked and directed my right thumb to hit the screen of my phone, incalculably. “Seyi Makinde and my conscience at war,” it first typed. But beyond the personified expression, what could have really triggered a war between Seyi Makinde and my conscience? Will Seyi Makinde defeat my conscience? Will my conscience rather tremble beneath the crushing weight of Seyi Makinde? Soon, I will avail you of answers to these lingering questions. Recently, while brooding over the sad…
Chief speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has promised that President Muhammadu Buhari will intervene in the ongoing concerns over the October half salary received by ASUU. He had, in a statement signed by him on Monday, appealed to ASUU and the general public that he, alongside the president, would intervene in the ongoing imbroglio. Part of the statement reads, “When the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) called off their industrial action three weeks ago, it meant that academic activities could resume in our nation’s public universities, and students could return to their academic pursuits after the prolonged interruption. This decision was…
Despite being PDP’s carrying member, Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom, has again fumed at the presidential bid of Atiku Abubakar. In a meeting held in Makurdi with other PDP governors from Abia, Oyo, and Rivers, Ortom again made his stance clear against supporting Atiku at the expense of Benue state insecurity challenges. He said, “To hell with Atiku and anyone supporting him. They should go and tell him. You want me to be a slave for a Fulani. It is better that I die. Anybody supporting Atiku is an enemy of Benue” “My tenure ends in May, and you can…
Mubarak Isa Muhammad, also known as Uniquepikin, and Nazifi Muhammed, both of whom have been detained in Kano custody for calling Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje “corrupt” will receive 20 strokes of cane each for abusing the state governor. The two are online skit makers who leverage TikTok to put a smile on the faces of their fans and viewers. However, in a comedy video they recorded which had gone viral, the two were seen demeaning governor Ganduje. News Chronicle gathered that the duo said in the comedy “whenever he (Ganduje) sees a piece of land in Kano he is…
In the spring of 2020, a Nollywood movie producer wanted me to fly to Instanbul, Turkey to work with a top organization whose social media handles are verified. She maintains a cordial friendship with a don at the organization, and her words had injected belief in me: the best writer they needed at the time. She gave assuring words to ease my movement over there. I could feel her genuine and elderly love, but some contradictory thoughts crept in, and they got the best of me for many reasons. Two months ago, a very dear friend of mine whose mentor…
Logic. Emotion. The two mental impulses that trigger man’s reactions. They excite and incite. Sometimes, they excite good; sometimes, they incite ruins. While logic actuates reality, emotion instigates hypocrisy. Depending on the direction in which a man drives his “mental motor”. Ace author, Mark Manson, in Chapter 2 of “Everything is F*cked”, gave a telling analysis of man’s thinking and feeling brain. Mark likened our thinking brain to the logical brain, and our feeling brain to the emotional brain. While the thinking brain tells a man what the reality is, the feeling brain only wants him to be emotional,…
Tongues wag. Lips beat. Pens bled. They wanted to chop him raw – into insignificant bits. He’s old, weak, insipid. He slurs words. He’s unfit. ” Harshly-agog ‘obidients’ – many of whom were in the bellies of their genitors – when Asiwaju was at the forefront of nationalism struggles, wanted to cast a stone of criminality at him. They praised their candidates to the high heavens but wanted to maim Asiwaju to pulp level. Even when their masters are the pitfalls Nigeria should avoid. Yesterday, they wailed under the aegis of a self-agitation body in the Eastern part. Today, they…
“The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.” ~ Nelson Mandela The unending news of child rape and defilement is one that continues to send sadness down the spine. The need to wake up to this gory act before it festers beyond total control propelled this piece. In a report by UNICEF, “six out of ten Nigerian children experience emotional, physical or sexual abuse before the age of 18”. In 2020, the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Sports Development also recorded 2,154 child abuse cases, with sexual defilement topping the list with 1,005…
Dismissed. Dekitted. Deforced. Lately, these were some of the words that kept popping up on the screens of our mobile gadgets. It’s from one news of an extortive police officer being dismissed from duty, to that of another corrupt one being dekitted by the Nigerian Police Force. Beyond whitewashing, corruption has badly bared its shameful fangs among the Nigerian Police. In 2017, the National Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime declared the Nigeria Police as the most corrupt institution in the country. In 2019, the World Internal Security and Police Index also ranked the…
Momental noise, thunderous applause, cheerful encomiums, all spurting from a colourful events centre in Rabat, Morocco. Nigeria’s very own, Asisat Oshoala, has again etched her name in the historical folklore of African football. The Ikorodu-born star had just bagged the award for African Best Female Player for a record fifth time. A feat that no African player has yet to achieve. Just when fans thought she would take a little break, three weeks later, the superb lady again made it to the list of Fifa Balloon d’Or Nominees. This, again, made her the first African female footballer to achieve that…
August 9, 2022 could have been a random day across the world; in faraway Kenya, it’s a special day for over 50 million citizens to vote for a president who will steer the affairs of their country for the next 5 years. The question of how President Uhuru Kenyatta’s two terms in power had fare, or how his successor, Willam Ruto, would rule is not the crux of this piece; rather, the many lessons Nigeria should learn from the just-concluded election in the East African country. Unlike in Nigeria, where citizens who live abroad are disenfranchised during election seasons, Kenyans…
Dear Asiwaju, I believe by now, if anyone tells you you’re going to win the 2023 election effortlessly, you would fix the person with a scornful look and probably bury your hand in his face in strike of a feral slap. With his gross incompetence, the Buhari you shoved down our throats has wrecked havoc on Nigeria, while you’re acting unconcerned. Dear Jagaban, as a frontline patriot, you had promised that Buhari’s experience as a military leader would easily combat Nigeria’s insecurity. Unfortunately, his nepotism in selecting the top brass across the military parastatals has done us great harm. The…
Comedy: a revival of hopes, relief from woes, wine for the soul. When sadness ravages the mind, a thrilling comedy could ignite joy, bubble in the belly, renew hopes, and make life worth living again. It sometimes wets the cheeks with tears: not salty tears that emit at the happenstance of sorrow, but reflex tears that discharge with the “dimorphous expression” of irresistible laughter. “With our hectic lives, a dose of comedy is a must.” asserted Anita Reddy, the notable Indian actress. Away from its function as solace, comedy pumps money into pocket. It bestows fame on jokesters. Societal value,…
Across sectors, the tempest in Nigeria had doubled – and in cases – tripled with the failed administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Sai Baba is not the sui generis of Nigeria’s woes, but he has forced Nigerians to tread more throes. Like Umar R.A would smile and sob anytime he remembered the dark days he made his god with Meccan dates, worship and still feast on it when hunger visits; anytime this writer recalls the days of his stellar support for the “godsend Buhari”, the superficial things he did to sell Buhari to his people, laughter and sadness would knock…
Marilyn Mason, with his insightful messages, maintains a spot in the league of iconic singers. The American musical maestro, in one of his essays -“Is Adult Entertainment Killing Our Children? Or Is Killing Our Children Entertaining Adults? “- posed a thought-provoking question to his fellow artistes across the globe, and societies that seem unbothered about the immorality children are exposed to via music – “music that fails in ethics and ethos”. If Marilyn’s sermon and those of well-meaning others fly around making impacts, they most likely took a pause at the Nigerian borders in fear of the deafening ears and…
Agony. Bleak. Tears. In Ayo Fayose’s verbal rendition, Nigeria is in “severe pain”. Pains that continue to wreck destruction on her. Nigeria’s neck is strained, insecurity is gruesomely kneeling on her. Gory scenes, teary pictures, terrifying videos; as though they were from the Rwanda Genocide or Civil War. Alas, they were from St Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State. Agents of doom struck yet again in a ‘mass killing’, this time, not in the core North nor in the South East, but in Owo – a city that literally translates as ‘honour’. Owo was dishonoured by stony-hearted criminals. The…
Nigeria is a home to shining talents, unfortunately, many talented Nigerians are not getting enough support from the Government, which makes many talents go down the drain, while the remaining ones get exported to other countries for appropriate use. Hashim Yussuf Amao, Ibadan The talent stream in Nigeria is ceaseless, however, the nonchalance of the Nigerian government towards shining talents has caused mass exodus of talents from the country. An average talented Nigerian now wants to travel abroad by all means, as Nigeria fails to be a fertile land to their talents. Musa Sani, a 7-year-old boy from Kano…
Declination – flash fall from glory is a no prayer point for any artiste, especially, artistes who just had their ways to limelight. This, over the years, has been a reason newbie artistes choicelessly maintain silence, even when their rights get usurped by their records label, boss, or promoters. For, standing to claim their rights at early stage of their career could halt their music glory and revert them to nothingness. But for Habeeb Okikiola, it seem a different case as he “unbotheredly” challenged Pocolee, a professional dancer who also played a significant role in his journey to stardom. Iwe…
God is amazing. Truly, He is. One of His psychological programming in children is their instinctive brain, that processes new information, sometimes, faster than adults’. A typical kid’s brain can process fastly, wide-ranging meanings from just a few pieces of information it had read, heard or watched. ScienceNewsForStudents, a fact-driven and Scientia organization posited that Young children and teens use both sides of their brain to process and understand information. But as they approach adulthood, the brain only uses the left side for this task. One among reasons behind this stance is that children are devoted to learning about the…
“To my Chelsea friends and family. You now know that I will be joining Real Madrid. It’s no secret that it was my dream to play for them since I was a young boy just scoring my first goal… Now, the Clubs have reached an agreement I hope you understand I had to pursue my next chapter, just as each and every one of you should when you have the chance to pursue your dreams.” After seven years, 352 games and 110 goals for the Chelsea, Eden Michael Hazard, one of the finest footballer of his generation bid a farewell…
The APC/PDP In All Of Us The tidings of good bullets in artilleries has yet to reach me. Glistening, rough or colourful, no one prays to be at the receiving end of any bullet. Destructive and withering, there’s no fair or good of it. The talk of which party is the good and which is bad between APC and PDP is funnily like the comparison between two bullets; there’s no good of the two parties: they are both destructive and have withered Nigeria to her marrow. This brings to mention, the word of the Former INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega,…
“Never Put Too Much Trust In Friends” is the second Law of Robert Greene’s 48 Law Of Power. With the torrent of heart-wrenching reports of rituals that marked 2021, the need to advise Nigerians – especially youths – has become imperative. Hopefully, they won’t cock a deaf ‘un to my words. Waned are the days when dignity and labour had no line of demarcation between them; the good old days when the financial solace dwelled in legitimate work. “Isẹ logun isẹ” Work is the antidote to poverty, a salient song matched with action was the one that moistened the lips…
I read betwixt sadness and soliloquy, the news of Protesting Police Officers, who protested over non-payment of their gratuities at the just concluded Anambra State Gubernatorial Election. It knocked my mind with a troubling question, “who will arrest these protesting police officers?”. I know policemen arrest protesting citizens, especially, the ones that halt the smooth running of public activities. Recently however, the policemen engage more in the same act they arrest others for. In the past, they have held protests in Kaduna, Delta, Yola, Ogun and many other states. Also, the Nationwide protest held on November 8, 2020 by the…
The dew had just descended and night unfolded to where went the nights of “yesteryears”, when I set out to climb a bike that would convey me to a nigh location. It was a bumpy ride as usual, of course we plied one of the many abandoned Nigerian roads. During the course of our ride, a short communication ensued between myself and the bikeman. I had lamented the poor condition of the road and how uncomfortable I was, plying the road. I was in a tizzy to see the bikeman, like many of his cohorts, hurl abuses on Buhari being…
There’s a thick line between a Ruler and a Leader. While the former decrees aggressively, the latter leads or guides compassionately. In faraway Europe, Asia and America; Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse Tung, Joe Baptista and a host of others have been averred by historians as rulers – given their tyranny, bloodshed, power drunkenness and inhumane treatment of people. Muammar Gadafi, Sani Abacha, Omar Al-Bashir and a host of others wore the thorny crown, here in Africa. Rulers who breathe and eat wickedness, high-handedness, tyranny and lack of compassion for the ones they rule. Galore of credit to history, for preserving…
