Niyi Olarewaju

It is with a great and joyous heart that I write to congratulate you, I am particularly thankful to God Almighty for sparing our lives to witness the occasion of your Swearing-in for a Second-term in office. I pray God grants unto you good and sound health to see you through your tenure and the rest of your life on earth,   I also congratulate you on your remarkable victory at the poll in the gubernatorial election conducted in our dear Sunshine State in October last year. The victory is an empirical affirmation of your political wit and astuteness. No doubt Your Excellency, you are a very intelligent politician who a lot of youths look up to seeking political mentorship, you are a classical example of a well-grassrooted politician, a fact which most of your die-hard political antagonist will not dare to contest. The wealth of experience you promised to bring into governance in Ondo State was one of the reasons I opted to support you in the 2007 gubernatorial election as a 10...

Edited by Lanre Asiwaju   As you go through this piece, I don't want you to see it as an attempt to denigrate the church or our men of God, rather it is just a piece that enables us look inward. Our Churches nowadays teach us to be docile, subservient and humdrum. They teach us to leave all of our issues to God, they teach us to pray and put the whole of our trust in God without laying equal emphasis on the virtue of handwork thereby crucifying the "Work and Pray" ethics The modern day churches are no longer seen as the custodians of morality just as our Pastors are not seen as perfect role models for our growing kids . Corruption cases in our churches are mindboggling. Our men of God are untouchable as they are guarded by the biblical immunity. One can barely talk about a man of God before being quickly reminded of Psalm 105 verse 15, “Touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm”. This is a fallacy; it bothers on the gene of fallacy called Argumentum ad ba...

  Having taken time to critically appraise the state of the Nigerian nation and the appalling situation we found ourselves as a people, I began to dwell on the dual virtues of moral and conscience in governance and how the disappearance of these two important virtues have caused us to lose our pride among comity of nations. Our country is indeed a blessed one, vastly blessed in both human and material resources which will readily catapult us to not only being the big brother of Africa but also a veritable force to reckon with in the world. Unfortunately, the lack of sound moral etiquettes and conscience on the path of our leaders remain one of the biggest contributing factors to the malfeasances which continue to pose great threats to our continuous existence as a nation. These problems bother on negligence on the path of our leaders and those that are being led. On a daily basis, we hear cases of gravious allegations against our leaders; but all that follow are mere count...

I heard you will be having an interview with our President, Mr Goodluck Jonathan tonight, so I had to hurriedly put up this piece to you. Well, I don't know what the agenda or scope of the programme is but the only clue I saw on your twitter handler was your tweet "After Mali and Algeria, can #Nigeria get a grip on its own islamic militant group?" With this, I know you will be talking about the state of the Nigerian nation, and the progress made so far under Mr Jonathan. I have been sampling my mind and trying hard to guess the other questions you will ask Mr President. One thing is sure, you will not talk about Nigeria without dwelling on some of the fundamental issues such as Agriculture, Power generation, job creation etc that pose huge challenges to us as a people. I do not doubt your pedigree to ask Mr President salient and genuine questions, but, all I want to tell you is that you must not believe any of his lies. Though, our culture does not permit...

Nigeria is a country whose present population stands at about 158million people with vast expanse of fertile lands has find it very difficult to make an headline in food production. Agriculture which remains the only way of producing food for human consumption has been totally relegated to the backdoor in a nation where there is a gross preference for white collar jobs.   This has begun to raise questions on what the future holds for our dear country in terms of feeding our massive population. Reports have shown that the present average age of farmers in the country falls between 55 to 60 years of age, the report further projected that unless something is urgently done to encourage young people into farming, the average age of farmers will be 75 to 80 years by 2030 and our population by then will be over 250 million people. As a nation, we are very blessed; our vegetation cuts across six vegetation belts which support the cultivation and rearing of all tropical plants and lives...

Today marks the First year anniversary of the #OccupyNigeria protest which followed the January 1, 2012 announcement of the total removal of Subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly called "petrol". Nigerians did not receive the announcement on a good note as the majority of the populace saw it as uncalled for as they are still battling the hardship caused by failure of successive governments and their policies. There was a sharp response as the people defied the multi-dichotomies and divides that have characterised our way of lives in our almost 100years of existence as a nation. The turnouts were large as both young and old came out en masse to reject the policy which will increase the hardship that thrives in the country and also leave more funds in the hands of the government which at the end of the day will fail to give account for such fund. This action pitched the populace against the government as they seek revearsal back to the old-pump price. The #OccupyN...

“When all think alike; no one thinks very much”. Walter Lippmann, 1889-1974. (VANGUARD BOOK OF UOTATIONS p. 245). What a coincidence it has turned out to be. Just last week under the new addendum to my columns “CHIP SHOTS”, I made reference to the fact that the President of Nigeria had ten aircraft in his fleet; more than any other President in the world. Bearing in mind that our country is ranked 39th in the world in terms of GDP, and one of the poorest on earth, when we take into account that 70 per cent of our people live below the global poverty line, Nigeria’s Presidential Airlines should enter into the Guinness Book of Records for presidential impunity. At Unijankara, while sharing in the national anguish that President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR, is our duly elected leader, we take solace in the fact that we warned Nigerians not to vote for him. Even highly intelligent people responded with the refrain, “I voted for Jonathan; not PDP” – as if it made any difference. Now we all ...