I went to a meeting in Abuja with the visiting Western Sahara –Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic- Foreign Minister. It was arranged by Ambassador Brahim B. Buseif, the country’s ambassador in Nigeria. I was received by Buseif and a friend, Mohammed Yeslem Beisat. Since 2020, he had been Sahrawi Ambassador to South Africa and Lesotho, and for the past one year, we have been communicating. Previously, he had served in the United States, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and is quite knowledgeable about Africa. We embraced and I almost asked him what he was doing in Nigeria when it occurred to…
Author: Owei Lakemfa
Three events made Monday, June 16, 2025, a sobering moment for me. On that day, back in 1976, news filtered that the killer Apartheid security forces which had been terrorising African countries like Zambia, Botswana and Lesotho, had turned on unarmed school children in South Africa. The Nigerian society was so conscious then that I recall adults in Lagos, explaining to us that school children like us were being gunned down. This is what became known as the Soweto Massacre. Then, the iconic photograph by Sam Nzima surfaced. It was the image of the lifeless body of 12-year-old Hector Pieterson being…
Twenty years ago, I got a message that Uncle Sam Amuka-Pemu, the publisher of the Vanguard Newspapers, could not be found. It was his 70th birthday and plans to mark it were in place, but the celebrant was not responding to calls. He seems to have simply vanished. I placed a call and he picked. I congratulated him and asked him where he was. “Departure lounge,” he responded. “Which airport, Sir?” “…Of the world. Once you are 70, you are at the departure lounge, waiting for your flight to be called.” He similarly dodged the celebration of his 80th birthday.…
Africa has been so torn by violence that it has witnessed some of the most stupid wars in contemporary history. One that deserves a gold medal in this wise is that in Sudan where the Sudanese Armed Forces, SAF, and its offshoot, the Rapid Support Forces, RSF, conspired to deny the civil populace its April 11, 2019 victory in ousting President Omar al-Bashir. The military leaders had opportunistically aborted the uprising and shared the political offices amongst themselves. The SAF chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was made the Head of State and the RSF leader, General Mohammed Hamdan ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo…
They were five days that began to reset the world. Days in which significant steps were taken to redress years of senseless and mind boggling genocide against hapless peoples while the rest of humanity watched unconcerned. The five days of May 27 to June 1, 2021 provided some relief, and assurance that humanity might yet throw off its garments of denial, acknowledge its gory periods and try to make peace with itself. It began on Thursday May 27, when President Emmanuel Macron made a soul searching visit to Rwanda where he saw hundreds of skulls; all that remained of kids and the elderly, children, men…
Abdulrauf Adesoji Aregbesola, the Minister of Internal Affairs is an enigma with a knack for attracting youths and maintaining devoted followership. Since his days as the chief mass mobilizer in Alimosho-Lagos, Works Commissioner in Lagos State, berthing in Osun State with his ‘governance unusual’ and current station, his work and charisma entice many and of course, attracts antagonists. He has a Mandela sense of history, a Magafuli streak of stubbornness and audacious courage. Even within the ruling All Peoples Congress, APC, he does not back down from a fight he thinks is inevitable. During the February 2019 Presidential campaign rally in…
ON the eve of Africa Day, this Monday, May 24, 2021, soldiers went to Malian President, Bah Ndaw, not to salute him, but pick him like a chicken. They did the same for the Prime Minister Moctar Ouane. The duo was taken to the Kati Military Camp, Bamako. The soldiers were carrying out the orders of the Vice President, Colonel Assimi Goïta. The next day, Nigeria, the giant in the region issued a feeble statement signed not by the Foreign Minister or any high official, but by the Ministry’s Spokesperson condemning “the detention” when even high school students knew what…
One day I shall always remember is May 11, 1981. Nigeria was in turmoil. There were protests across the country while some cities were deserted. Factories were closed as were offices. There was hope in the streets and fear in government houses. The country was in the grip of a general strike organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC for the establishment of a National Minimum Wage. Then there was a news break. Bob Marley, the international soldier of oppressed peoples worldwide, tireless fighter for human rights, Pan Africanist and humanist was dead at 36! It was unbelievable. If there…
THE last time I was in Chad was in 2014. In its capital, N’Djamena, I couldn’t resist the feeling that I was in a big rural village. Many of the side streets I went, were either un-tarred or in need of some repair and in some cases, water logged. Desperation was written on many faces as poverty played widely popular football marches on the streets. One day, one of my hosts came to pick me. Not far from the hotel gates, he pointed at what looked like a road tunnel and asked me if I knew what it was. He…
How do you react to a preventable war in which just in Lagos alone – one of the thirty six states in Nigeria -700,000 human beings are annually taken prisoner, and worldwide, 229 million are taken prisoner with over 400,000 yearly sent to early graves? That is the situation with the ancient human war against malaria. Yet humanity has for over 70 years been in a position to win this war but fails to do so largely due to the failure of governance, lack of interest and sabotage by those who profit from this human calamity. This Sunday, the World Malaria Day was held, with the usual speeches…
I have a confession. Sometimes, I have caught myself thinking about the world and what humans have done to it. Many times, I have been lost in thought about humans and what they have done to other human beings. Several times, I have caught myself debating who have been the most vicious colonialists who for lust and greed and in order to plunder riches, sent millions of other humans to early graves. Does this infamous trophy go to the British who massacred the Kikuyus in Kenya for daring to demand freedom? Even after the massacres and defeat of the people,…
HADIZA Bala Usman, politician and social activist, was until last Thursday, May 6, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA. But on that day, President Muhammadu Buhari yanked her off and ordered an investigation of her stewardship in the agency. As in almost all such cases, the report of the investigation may never not see the light of day. Usually, such investigations are to keep the concerned official quiet while the report will be kept handy, in case the need arises to descend on such officials. In Nigeria’s dog-eat-dog system, the father can devour the daughter and life…
