Wole Olaoye
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Past articles by Wole:
2023 poll: Audit, don’t cancel!, By Wole Olaoye
I don’t agree that the admittedly flawed 2023 presidential election should be cancelled, as requested by some people. → Read More
Wanted: An African as World Bank chief, By Wole Olaoye
While all our attention is focussed on the forthcoming Nigerian presidential elections, events of global proportions are shaping up elsewhere in the world. Since time will not wait for anyone, and considering that we all have to live with the consequences of those other events whether we pay attention or not, the wise thing to […] → Read More
Sunny side of political jujitsu, By Wole Olaoye
Politics is like Jujitsu, the Japanese martial art which employs holds, throws, and paralysing blows to subdue an opponent. If your opponent is big and throws his weight around, you skilfully allow him to make a move and use his weight to trip him; his strength thus becomes his weakness. All that is on display […] → Read More
A life in the day of citizen Muda, By Wole Olaoye
Citizen Muda is an incurable Nigerian optimist. For every minus that confronts him in his daily grind, he rationalises the situation and thinks of the resilience of the underprivileged even as the bells of penury are jangling around their ankles. His worldview is conditioned by the diet of hope he had been fed from childhood […] → Read More
Of cobras and mongooses, By Wole Olaoye
“Did you call me a hunchback?” “Me? Why would I do such a thing? I was only talking about that other man with a hill on his back and chest.” The above dialogue is an approximation of how many people interpret the denial of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that his recent salvo in Abeokuta was […] → Read More
Nigerian youths, stand up to be counted!, By Wole Olaoye
In calling on Nigerian youths to seize the moment and live up to the forthcoming generational challenge, I am not romanticising youthfulness. → Read More
God’s Rottweiler?, By Wole Olaoye
“What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived; it is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead”. — Nelson Mandela When Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was elected the 265th Pope on 19 April 2005, he was the oldest […] → Read More
G5: Before the night market, By Wole Olaoye
The rumour mill was abuzz recently with news that Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike and his four other colleagues who constitute the G5 group of dissenting governors in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), had concluded negotiations with the candidate of the rival All Progressives Congress (APC) with a view to campaigning for the APC in […] → Read More
Soccer’s greatest? It’s Pele!, By Wole Olaoye
As Qatar 2022 kicked off, Arabophobiacs went on overdrive with unsavoury stories about the host country. The stories ranged from deaths recorded during the construction of the various facilities to ‘human rights’ (read: gay rights) concerns. Those who thought nothing good could come out of that region were roundly disappointed in the end. Qatar gave […] → Read More
How to out-rig your opponents, By Wole Olaoye
There are many ways to skin a cat. No one is more aware of this than the Nigerian politician. If power seekers devote 10 percent of the time they spend meticulously planning how to grab power — if they devote just a tiny slice of that time to governance when they are eventually declared winner, […] → Read More
Can anything be more evil than stealing a baby?, By Wole Olaoye
When strange things happen repeatedly and the abnormal begins to wear the toga of normalcy, it is time to raise the alarm. Aside from informing, educating and entertaining us, the media also help society set its agenda and fulfil a much needed surveillance function to keep the society inviolate. In our politics, the lines between […] → Read More
Favoured by benevolent gods
By Wole Olaoye For some inexplicable reason, the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the title of Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi’s memoirs, “The Road Never Forgets”, was a quick throwback to Wole Soyinka’s world-acclaimed play, “The Road”. The word, road, has had a loaded meaning for me on various metaphorical levels since I acted in a production of the play in the early ’70s at the SS Peter and… → Read More
Favoured by benevolent gods...
By Wole Olaoye For some inexplicable reason, the first thought that came to my mind when I saw the title of Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi’s memoirs, → Read More
Favoured by benevolent gods…, By Wole Olaoye
"The Road Never Forgets", Ogunbiyi’s 516-page offering, comes in 12 chapters and is deservedly dedicated to his wife, Iyalode Sade. → Read More
When death stalks…, By Wole Olaoye
Away from the grandiose promises of politicians in these testy times of electoral campaigns in the midst of insecurity, let’s just pause for a moment and consider how parts of our country came to look like Libya where warlords determine life expectancy. I am not aware that any of the leading presidential candidates has shown […] → Read More
Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense!, By Wole Olaoye
My name is Government, in case you don’t know. You underrate me at your peril, Teacher. You, a mere pen and paper wielder, exam marker, lecture deliverer, knowledge vendor. A hunter of antelope can’t compare himself with a hunter of men. Only the Government can delete you from circulation — and even find your corpse […] → Read More
Enter the bulldogs, By Wole Olaoye
As political campaigns for the 2023 presidential elections gather steam, the various parties have started unveiling their programmes. They are promising to take Nigerians to the moon and back. You have to give it to the Nigerian politicians: They know how to re-say the same thing others have said in the past and still appear […] → Read More
Between Afenifere and 'Afenifere', By Wole Olaoye
When a knotty matter farts in your mouth and laces it with a pinch of salt, you don’t want to swallow the gas of the fart nor do you want to spit out the salt. To spit or not to spit? Dilemma! In Africa, when young people quarrel, the elders weigh in to resolve matters. […] → Read More
SAPZs: Solution whose time has come, By Wole Olaoye
Don’t give up on the rural areas as Nigeria’s food basket yet. Help is on the way. That is the message of the recent launch of the Special Agro-Processing Zone initiative led by the African Development Bank (AfDB). For too long, we have come to accept the notion of rural areas being centres of poverty […] → Read More
Thieving frenzy and debt slavery, By Wole Olaoye
At the rate Nigeria’s patrimony is being pillaged by known and unknown but well connected rats, the Guinness Book of Records will have to be updated to recognise our frog leap to primacy in thievery. Imagine, the Antwerp diamond heist used to be considered one of the largest robberies in history in which loose diamonds, gold, […] → Read More