Quite often, things don’t go the way you planned or the way you expected. Things appear to go awry. You appear to be the lonely man in the theatre, or the lonely voice in the wilderness. You seem to be alone in the train, because you have missed the road. Nothing can be more frustrating…

I love music because, most times, it provides me with a stable anchor when there are inconsistencies and instability. Music provides me the inner peace and strength with which to navigate the turbulent storms of life. I always remember the slaves that were shipped away from Africa. As they laboured on the Tobacco or Sugar…

Quoting from Ephesians 5, Pope Francis of the Catholic Church, once spoke of ‘Speaking the truth with love’. When one looks at the prevailing circumstances in Nigeria, one is likely to wonder whether we as Nigerians know what the truths are. When you read through what our Social Media disseminate, it becomes difficult to separate…

Nigeria is at a crossroad.  Yes, at a crossroad between yesterday and today.  At a crossroad between defining what should be and what path the country should take going forward.  First, there’s confusion about where we are going as a country.  What is the vision of our destination from socio-economic, political, and socio-cultural perspectives? Second,…

Former Vice President, Professor Yemi Osibajo, was the Guest Speaker at the Graduation Ceremony of Lead City University, Ibadan a few years ago. It was an excellent speech, as is usual of him. In that speech, he told two stories.  The first has to do with an Assistant Lecturer in his Department when he was…

Everything has not been exactly what we want it to be in Nigeria. Nor has it been exactly what we thought it will be. I guess it has been like that since 1960. Nigeria has become a country where the best is in yesterday. We look at yesterday with a sense of nostalgia. We wonder…

I remember this story clearly even now. It happened over 40 years ago. It happened to a celebrated figure, the first Nigerian to become a Professor of Mathematics in the University of Ibadan, Professor Adegoke Olubunmo. He died in 1992. He, along with Ezeilo and Chike Obi constituted the trio of Africans that shook the…

The sad thing is that the debilitating mental poverty or impoverishment affects not only Leadership in Government and Unions. I recall now a Yoruba worship song that captures beautifully the essence of our discourse. It says in English “THERE IS THE LORD AS IN THE PAST. WE ARE THE ONES NOT WORSHIPPING GOD AS IN…

Mental poverty has become a problem in Nigeria and indeed in the whole world. Just as mental impoverishment has become a serious national and global problem. Mental poverty or impoverishment is not something related to mental health. To me mental poverty is a refusal to change and trying better ways of thinking, do a task…

A common saying is that no one plans to fail. No political, business or corporate leader plans to fail. They all hope to excel. They all hope to leave excellent legacies behind as monuments of history. But the truth is that many of them fail to plan and they ended up in calamitous failures. The…