Baba Aye's

Angry youths took over the streets in cities and towns across Nigeria in October, calling for disbandment of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force, whose operatives were trained and supplied equipment by the British government from 2016 to 2020. The largely peaceful protests were drowned in blood on Tuesday 20th October. In the wake of the massacre, there were violent clashes with scores of police stations torched, several jailbreaks and a festival of ‘looting’. The restoration of law and order in the dying days of the month might however not translate into a restoration of the pre-EndSARS normality in the country. SARS was established in 1992. Its plainclothes operatives were meant to infiltrate robbery gangs to nip their operations in the bud. By the turn of the century they started apprehending online scammers as cybercrime became common.  Young men with tattoos or dreadlocks automatically became ‘419’ (online scam) suspects. Having an iPhon...

Response to Osaze Lanre Nosaze's open letter It is quite unfortunate that not once in the 4,407 words of Osaze’s letter is there even the slightest mention of the defining issue of today i.e. the COVID19 pandemic. It shows how disconnected from changing the world his penchant for interpreting it is.* Anyway, I have neither the time nor the disposition for a long-drawn response, for the moment at least. But there are some outright distortions that need to be clarified and a few issues which I will summarily put in perspective regarding the claims and accusations made in his open letter. 1.        On “our phone discussion” and related matters -           Osaze claims that I or as he puts it, the SWL merely “wanted a CORE meeting held where the question of developing a programme for the organisation would be finalised and an expanded leadership established”. This is a half-truth.  -    ...

Kuli kuli is a delicious peanut-based snack. It is probably the most celebrated accompaniment for “smoking” garri, or cassava flakes if you will. It is also known for being so temptingly delicious that it could teach youngsters thievery, as one of those songs we sang in Yoruba as kids went.   Kulik kuli was also the Friday back page column of Mr Femi Adesina in The Sun. He has since then become a lead spokesperson for the second coming of a dictatorship under General Muhammadu Buhari. With lucid style, the column contributed to national discourse. There was an echo of truth in its lines. The past half a decade has however helped show Adesina for what he is, as he now writes and speaks for “the inside”. Does this have to do with supernatural powers, abi na demons in Aso Rock that like (to waste) our local snacks? Just a few years back Reuben Abati informed the world of these spirits and their taste for boli , the plantain snack which is supposed to help turgidity of that thin...

Comrade Ayodele "Iturity" Akele The death of Ayodele Akele marks the loss of one of the fiercest and most consistent class fighters in Nigeria, over the last four decades. From June 1980, when, as a students’ leader at Yabatech he emerged as founding Secretary General of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) he trod a path of self-sacrifice and unrepentant struggle as unionist and socialist activist. At the time of his death, he was National General Secretary of the National Conscience Party (NCP). As a quantity surveyor, he worked at the Lagos State Property Development Corporation (LSPDC) from where he was elected Lagos State Chairman of the National Union Public Corporations Employees (NUPCE) in the late 1980s till 1996 when NUPCE along with CSTWUN and RSEU, merged to form the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations Civil Service Technical and Recreation Services Employees (AUPCTRE). Beloved by rank and file workers who had implicit trust in ...