Connect with us

News

OPINION: Federal Republic Of Loans

Published

on

By Suyi Ayodele

Reasonable people borrow for production; we borrow to fund contracts of bloated values!

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Lord Polonius is heard advising Laertes, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend”.

Advertisement

Shakespeare is saying here that borrowing does no help; that what it does is to damage the financial situation of the borrower and his friendship with the lender. More tragically, it ruins, as Polonius further advises, “And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” Husbandry here suggests innovation and deep thinking. Borrowing kills both.

Why work hard to make money when you can borrow and default in payment? You can read that again!

One of the reasons why poverty walks the streets of Nigeria in a three-piece suit is the reckless way the government borrows money to fund corruption and consumption. Unfortunately, our all-yes-men National Assembly under the watch of Godswill Akpabio is readily available to approve anything from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. As we get suffocated with the previous loans, Akpabio and his gang are there to approve more loans!

Advertisement

For instance, in a recent article by the Economy Post on Nigeria’s indebtedness under the current administration, President Tinubu is said to have borrowed N56.6 trillion in his first 23 months in office. The article says: “… is N18.7 trillion or 75.2 percent less than N75.26 trillion loans taken by former President Muhammadu Buhari in the whole of 8 years. Under President Tinubu, Nigeria’s public debt has jumped from N87.379 trillion as at June 2023 (one month after Mr Buhari’s exit from power) to N142.319 trillion as at September 2024. The debt reached N144.67 trillion ($94.23 billion) in December 2024. With the World Bank’s approval of a fresh $1.08bn loan to Nigeria to support education, nutrition, and economic resilience in the country, the total public debt is now above N144.67 trillion, which is a worry to financial experts.”

And when one tries to draw the attention of the government to this alarming situation, the usual refrain from those in power is that Tinubu inherited a badly managed economy from Buhari! What escapism! Who is deceiving who here?

Last Tuesday, May 29, was a frenzy day in Nigeria. It was the day the administration of President Tinubu turned two years old. The political class did not disappoint. Government hangers-on, favour-seekers and lackeys alike tried all they could to outdo one another. Praise-singing the ‘performing’ President was not in short supply! President Tinubu, no doubt, savoured the occasion. You can’t blame him. Who wouldn’t, given the gullibility of the blind followership system we have here? Nigeria is a cruise, let us eat our popcorn and lick our ice cream. That’s how we roll!

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: How Long Can The President Run From His Shadow?

Some state governors also enjoyed the moments as their praises were sung into high heaven. If we were to go by the celebrations, Nigeria should be a paradise on earth. But it is not; Nigeria shares borders with the hot hell, going by the palpable pain on the streets! If all the praises showers on President Tinubu were true, why then the pain in the land?

I read some comments from some people in the government. I listened to a few praise-singings from those who are close to those in government. Nothing confirms the paddy -paddy nature of the government of the day more than the drums rolled out for the President and the state governors that day. It is, as a multi-billionaire I know is wont to say, ‘a case of someone helping someone.’ Sycophancy has never been scarce here, we have more than enough of it!

Advertisement

The biggest lesson for me in it all is in the saying of our elders, to wit: Àrùn tó ún se Lémibájé kó ló ún se omo rè, Lémibájé ún sunkún owó, omo rè ún sunkún oko – what ails Lémibájé is different from what ails her daughter, while Lémibájé cries over lack of money, her daughter laments her lack of a husband. We don’t suffer the same ailment as our leaders.

Truth be told, our leaders are far away from the reality of the situation of the people they claim to lead. The Aso Rock Villa and other Government Houses across the country are simply too impregnable; too impenetrable for the occupants to feel the heat on the Nigerian streets. Aso Rock Villa is too soundproof to hear the agony from the streets.

The BusinessDay of that same May 29, 2025, ran its Editorial on the topic: “Nigeria’s Electricity crisis is a national Security Threat.” Above the Editorial was the paper’s cartoon for the day. The cartoon tells more graphically, the attitude of President Tinubu to the litany of woes confronting the nation under his watch.

Advertisement

The cartoon is the caricature of the President watering a flower bed with the inscription: “2027.” Behind him is a house branded “Nigeria”, on fire. Rather than stretch the water hose to combat the conflagration ravaging the Nigeria House, the President is seen watering his 2027 second term bid! For all that matters, Nigeria can burn as long as the second term of the President is secured!

That is exactly what is happening in the country today. Governance has receded to the back seat. The Villa is no longer interested in what is happening to the masses. In all the states of the Federation where the governors are in their first term, their attention has shifted from governance to their second term ambitions. Ambition is, indeed, the last refuge of failure!

This is the season of endorsements. This is the season of rent-a-crowd support pulling devices. The level of political ‘realignment’ or ‘reengineering’ is alarming! Governors, senators, federal legislators and members of the states houses of assembly are falling over one another as they move from their opposition parties to the President’s ruling party. In all, President Tinubu is playing God! His aides and supporters are telling him that his ‘good’ works are attracting the opposition to his fold. Who will tell him the truth?

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The Ɠhomid In The Tears Of JAMB

But the reality on the streets is alarming. Nigerians are going down by the seconds as poverty keeps shooting arrows of economic depletion at them. The masses are not just at the receiving end of the malady going on in the political circles. They are the victims of the insensitivity of the locusts in power. There appears to be no solution in sight. We are hooked!

Yet, Tinubu cares less. Rather than being sober, he is taking the ‘battle’ to his ‘enemies’ and ‘perceived enemies.’ Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State was the president’s latest victim. You need to watch the video of how the President openly embarrassed the Lagos State governor at the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway event over the weekend! Nothing can be more condescending, nothing can be more unstatesmanlike! But nothing spoils; that is why Tinubu is Tinubu!

Advertisement

While the President thinks of himself as the best thing to happen to Nigeria and his Hallelujah orchestra are drawing the cord of the harp in his praise, those managing our economy are saying the obvious; Nigeria is going down the drain! What do I mean?

Get a copy of the Nigerian Tribune of Monday, June 2, 2025. Read the screaming headline: “Manufactures lament mounting challenges.” Check out the riders: “Say 767 manufacturing companies shutdown in 2023”, “Over 18,000 jobs lost in 2024”, “Cost of imported materials surged by 118%” and “Spending on alternative energy hit N1.11trn in 2024.” Then weep for our dear fatherland.

Segun Ajayi-Kadir, the Director-General, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), who gave the alarming figures at the Businessday Manufacturing 2025 Conference held in Lagos, said that apart from the exchange rate depreciation in 2024 by 53 percent, manufacturers paid a whopping sum of N76.64 trillion in 2024 to import raw materials, an amount he calculated to be an increase of 118 percent from the 2023 figure!

Advertisement

The manufacturing sector, Ajayi-Kadir lamented, “…is now facing the combined storm of FX losses, rising raw material costs, high energy prices, multiple taxation, escalated borrowing costs, infrastructural deficits and policy uncertainties”,
adding that “It is not surprising that the sector’s growth has been on a decline for years, falling to 1.40 per cent in 2023 and further dropping to 1.38 per cent in 2024. The sector’s quarter-on-quarter growth reflects a similarly negative trend.”

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: The Ibàs Of Rivers State

The above and many more that the MAN boss mentioned are the true report cards of President Tinubu, the media razzmatazz of his second year in office notwithstanding! The Presidency may live in self-delusion; the suffering masses can feel the heat. If “767 manufacturing companies shut down in 2023”, one can imagine the numbers that joined the league in 2024 and what to expect in the current year. It is a sad situation, only the President doesn’t know that!

Advertisement

We are still waiting for the Vuvuzelas in government to tell us that it is not true that factories and other business ventures spent N1.11trn in 2024 to source for alternative energy when Aso Rock Villa itself is on the verge of spending N10 billion on solar power for the President and his family living in the presidential quarters!

That is the level of insensitivity we have in this era. How it never occurred to the policy maker that such a venture is an open declaration of lack of trust in the National grid beats one’s imagination! How the Presidency failed to realise that the simple message in that singular act is an open resignation to fate and a signal to the populace that all is lost with the National Grid, is another low for the government.

Nigeria did not get to this parlous state in one day. Not even in one decade. It is also not true that the present administration of President Tinubu is the sole cause of our woes. The bitter truth, however, is that this government and the immediate one before it, have taken the nation deeper into the bottomless pit of penury!

Advertisement

It doesn’t matter the number of spin doctors out there defending the present administration, those in government, in their few sober moments, know that they have done more damage to the nation’s economy than any other person before them!

Unfortunately for the supporters of the government, the figures are there to show that no government has been this brazen, tactless and reckless as the Tinubu administration in formulating pain-inflicting policies. That the president gets away with all the shenanigans going on in his administration and is most likely to get away with more clueless policies will not change that!

The Economy Post’s piece in reference here situates the issue properly when it submits that: “However, while Mr. Tinubu’s debt has been monumental, the effect of naira devaluation cannot be ignored. President Tinubu has taken some external loans from the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and other multilateral financial institutions. But that is at a time the naira exchange rate has weakened against other major currencies.

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Ganduje And China’s Execution Noose

“As at the time President Buhari was leaving power by late May 2023, the exchange rate was less than N800/$. Data from FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the naira exchanged at 775 to a dollar on May 26, 2023. Mr. Tinubu came to power on May 29, 2023. Hence some of former President Buhari’s external loans were taken when a dollar exchanged at less than N800. However, President Tinubu has taken some of his loans at a point when the naira exchange rate is at over 1,500 to a dollar. The naira was quoted at 1,552.53 to a dollar on Thursday at the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). In fact, the naira has weakened by over 70 percent since May 29, 2023, when Mr. Tinubu came to power….”

The summary of the Economy Post’s article is that President Tinubu should stop the blame game, wake up and smell the coffee of poverty his administration is brewing for the poor masses to drink! He who goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing, goes the saying. The Presidency should allow that to sink.

Advertisement

Even as I penned this, the President had transmitted another set of requests to borrow to the pliable National Assembly. The new requests amount to N34.15 trillion in external and domestic loans. And guess what the loans are meant to address; a domestic bond issuance of N757.9 billion to settle outstanding pension liabilities and a new external borrowing plan of over $21.5 billion, (N33.39 trillion)! at the official exchange rate of N1,590 per dollar.

By the time the approvals come, Nigeria’s public debt, analysts said, would exceed N180 trillion! For a government that recently ‘celebrated’ a great feat of paying off the nation’s IMF loan, one begins to wonder if President Tinubu’s mission is to make poverty go global, as they say in our street lingo!

The most damaging part of the Economy Post’s piece on the Tinubu’s penchant for loans is the aspect where the article dwells on the Nigeria’s total debt, where it submits that the “Nigeria’s total public debt increased to N142.3 trillion as of September 30, 2024, representing an increase of 5.97 percent (N8.02tn) from N134.3 trillion seen in June 2024.

Advertisement

“Data from the Debt Management Office (DMO) showed that external debt in dollar terms increased from $42.90 billion in June to $43.03 billion in September 2024. However, the total sum has not factored in Mr. Tinubu’s recent loans, especially from the global lender, the World Bank.”

If the people in my place were to give a befitting name to President Tinubu and his followers as they are clinking wine cups in celebration of the President’s two years in office amidst soaring debts, they will simply be christened: Amúgbèsèsewà – he who uses debts as ornaments!

Advertisement

News

JUST IN: Okpehbolo Appoints New VC For AAU

Published

on

Edo State governor, Monday Okpehbolo, has approved the appointment of Professor (Mrs.) Eunice Eboserehimen Omonzejie as the new Vice-Chancellor of the state-owned Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma.

A statement issued late night by Secretary to the State Government, Umar Musa Ikhilor, said her appointment takes immediate effect.

According to the statement, Prof. Omonzejie was appointed amongst the three names submitted by the Governing Council of the university to the state government.

Advertisement

READ ALSO: Okpebholo Approves Construction Of 500-room Hostel For AAU

The statement partly reads, “Professor (Mrs.) Eunice Eboserehimen Omonzejie
Professor Omonzejie is a distinguished scholar of French and Francophone African Literatures and a long-serving academic in the Department of Modern Languages at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma.

“She is a prolific researcher and editor, with contributions to African and Francophone literary studies, gender studies, and cultural studies.

Advertisement

“She has served as the President of the Ambrose Alli University Chapter of the National Association of Women Academics (NAWACS), where she has championed mentoring, research, and advocacy for female academics and students.

“Professor Omonzejie has co-edited several seminal works including French Language in Nigeria: Essays in Honour of UFTAN Pacesetters and Language Matters in Contemporary West Africa, and is the author of Women Novelists in Francophone Black Africa: Views, Reviews and Interviews,” the statement added.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

OPINION: Every democracy ‘Murders Itself’

Published

on

By Lasisi Olagunju

In ‘Jokes and Targets’ by Christie Davies, a Soviet journalist interviews a Chukchi man:

“Could you tell us briefly how you lived before the October revolution?”

Advertisement

“Hungry and cold.”

“How do you live now?”

“Hungry, cold, and with a feeling of deep gratitude.”

Advertisement

This sounds like Nigeria’s malaria victims thanking mosquitoes for their love and care. Between democracy and its opposite, reality has blurred the lines.

Last week, a group of White House pool reporters travelled with President Donald Trump on Air Force One as he returned from his U.K. state visit. At the beginning of the journey, actor Trump sauntered into the rear section of the plane, the traditional part for the press. He granted an interview and ended it with a morbid wish: “Fly safely. You know why I say that? Because I’m on the flight. I want to get home. Otherwise I wouldn’t care.”

Ten years ago, if a US president said what Trump told those poor reporters, his presidency would suffer immediate cardiac arrest. But this is Colin Crouch’s post-democracy era: the leader, whether in the US or in Nigeria, in Africa or elsewhere, is the law; whatever he does or says, we bow in gratitude.

Advertisement

I live in a Nigeria of gratitude and surrender. In the North-West and the North-East, traumatised communities are grateful to bandits and their enablers. They invite them to the negotiation table and thank the murderous gunmen for honouring the invitation. A grateful nation anoints and weeps at the feet of terrorists. In emergency-weaned Rivers State, its remorseful governor is effusive in appreciation of a second chance. The reinstated is ever thankful for the favours of a six-month suspension. From the North to the South, on bad roads and in death-wracked hospital wards, sonorous hymns of appreciation for big mercies ooze. The legislature and the judiciary, even the fourth estate, are all in congregation, singing songs of praise of the benevolent executive. Is this still a democracy?

American political scientists, Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman in 2020 wrote ‘The Fragile Republic’ for The Foreign Affairs. In that essay, they list four symptoms of democratic backsliding. Prime among the four are economic inequality and excessive executive power. “Excessive executive power” is a three-word synonym for autocratization of democracy. It is a by-word for a democracy hanging itself.

The second president of the United States of America, John Adams, saw today; he warned of democracy decaying and dying: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Adams was not alone. There was also William Blake, 18th/19th century English poet, who said “if men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny.” This reads like it was written today and here. If you disagree, I ask: Is it wise (and normal) for the tormented to thank the tormentor?

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: A Minister’s Message To Me

Listening to what Trump wished the reporters, we could see that big brother America now leads in democratic ‘erantship’, the Third World merely follows. An enormous country, strong enough to appropriate the name of an entire continent, America, in 2025, is blessed with a strongman that is armed with a licence to rule as it pleases his whim; a president who does what he likes and says what he likes or ‘jokes’ about it without consequences. The result is an imperial presidency that has redefined democracy across the world.

We say here that the yam of the one who is vigilant never gets burnt. The American system used to be very resilient in providing a leash on presidential excesses. It still does, although under a very difficult situation. Donald Trump, in his first term between 2017 and 2021, signed 220 Executive Orders. In his ongoing second term that began in January 2025, he has, as of September 18, 2025, already signed 204 Executive Orders upturning this balance, rupturing that tendon. An American friend told me that he could no longer recognise his country. But the good news is that those who should talk and act are not surrendering their country to Trump and his faction of the populace. Because it is America (and not Nigeria), there are over 300 lawsuits challenging Trump’s executive orders or policies in his second term.

Advertisement

The active legal challenges view the Trump orders either as unconstitutional, exceeding statutory power, or violating rights. And the courts are also doing their job as they should. A 2025 study found some 150 judicial decisions concerning these orders. Some are preliminary injunctions, others are full rulings. President Bola Tinubu last week acknowledged the existence of “over 40 cases in the courts in Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Yenagoa, to invalidate” his Rivers State emergency order. Our courts, especially the Supreme Court, are yet to acknowledge any of the cases with trials, rulings and orders.

It is easy for presidents with unrestrained executive powers to assume imperial airs. In the past, when they did, they feared losing their link with the people and a fall from power. Today, they are on very solid ground, no matter what they do with their people. Midway into his term as US president, an increasingly unpopular Jimmy Carter reassessed himself, and in lamentation told Washington Post’s David Broder that he (Carter) had “fallen into the trap of being ‘head of the government’ rather than ‘leader of the people.’” Today is not that yesterday of sin and punishment. We have surrendered to the point of giving ourselves away. Today’s leaders know that what they need is the government, its power and privileges, certainly not the people. And they keep working hard at it such that America has Trump, and is not the only country that has a Trump. There are Trumps everywhere. We have them in Africa, from the north to the coast.

What democracy suffers in America it suffers more in Africa. Former President Goodluck Jonathan said at the weekend that “democracy in the African continent is going through a period of strain and risk of collapse unless stakeholders come together to rethink and reform it.” He said politicians manipulate the electoral system to perpetuate themselves in office even when the people don’t want them. “Our people want to enjoy their freedom. They want their votes to count during elections. They want equitable representation and inclusivity. They want good education. Our people want security. They want access to good healthcare. They want jobs. They want dignity. When leaders fail to meet these basic needs, the people become disillusioned.” That is from Jonathan who was our president for six years. Did he say these new things because he wants to come back?

Advertisement

Democracy is like water; a wrong dose turns it to poison. If disillusionment has a home, it is in Africa. It is the reason why the youths of the continent are bailing out for succour, and the reason for Trump’s $100,000 fee on work visas.

In The North American Review of November 1910, Samuel J. Kornhauser reproduced a quotation that contains warnings of what threat a people could constitute to their own freedom: “The same tendencies to wanton abuse of power which exist in a despot or a ruling oligarchy may be expected in a democracy from the ruling majority, because they are tendencies incidental to human nature.” The solution was “a free people setting limitations upon the exercise of their own will” so that they would not “turn democracy into a curse instead of a blessing.”

MORE FROM THE THE AUTHOR:OPINION: HID Awolowo And The Yoruba Woman

Advertisement

In his 1904 essay, ‘The Relation of the Executive to the Legislative Power’, James T. Young, observed a dramatic shift in American governance: while Woodrow Wilson had earlier warned of “Congressional supremacy,” Young argued that “we now live under a system of executive supremacy,” showing how the traditional checks and balances had failed to maintain equilibrium among the branches. That was in 1904, a hundred and twenty one years ago.

Someone said a leader’s ability to lead a society successfully is dependent on their capacity to govern themselves. It is that self-governing capacity that is lacking in our power circles. Plus the leaders don’t think they owe history anything. “From the errors of others, a wise man corrects himself…The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.” Publilius Syrus (85–43 BC), the Roman writer credited with uttering those nuggets, was a master of proverbs and apophthegm. We don’t listen to such words; we don’t mind being tripped by the same stone, and it does not matter falling into the same pit.

A democracy can enthrone emperors and kings but it is not that easy to ask them to dismount the high horse of the state without huge costs. We elect leaders and for unsalutory reasons, we let them roam freely with our lives, our safety and our comfort. We promote and defend them with our freedom. I hope we know the full import (and consequences) of the seed we are planting today. A Pharaoh will come who won’t remember that there was ever a Joseph.

Advertisement

A Roman emperor called Caligula reigned from 16 March, 37 AD until he was put to sleep on 24 January, 41 AD. ‘Caligula’ was not the name his parents gave him; it was an alias, “a joke of the troops” which trumped his real identity: He was named after popular Julius Caesar.

Roman historian, Claudius Suetonius, records in his ‘The Lives of the Caesars’ that Caligula became emperor after his father’s death and then “full and absolute power was at once put into his hands by the unanimous consent of the senate and of the mob, which forced its way into the House.” The new leader came popular with a lot of the people’s hope invested in him. Suetonius says the young man “assumed various surnames (for he was called ‘Pious,’ ‘Child of the Camp,’ ‘Father of the Armies,’ and ‘Greatest and Best of Caesars’). Soon the fawning appellations entered his head and he became the opposite of what his people wanted in their leader. One day, Emperor Caligula chanced “to overhear some kings who had come to Rome to pay their respects to him” doing what Yoruba kings love doing: He found them arguing at dinner about whose throne, among them, was the greatest and the highest in nobility. The emperor heard them and cried: “Let there be one Lord, one King.” He called them to order and from that point, it was clear to everyone that republican Rome now had one Lord, one king, and that was Caligula.

The man said and did things that frightened even the heartless. At a point during his reign, Caligula saw a mass of Roman people, the rabble, applauding some nobles whom he detested. He voiced his hatred for what the people did and said what he thought should be their punishment: “I wish the Roman people had but a single neck so I could cut it through at one blow.” That statement became a quote which has, through centuries, defined his place in history.
It would appear that 79-year old Donald Trump defined himself for history last week with his “fly safely…because I’m on the flight” statement. A leader, a father and grandfather said he did not care if a plane-load of young men and women perished (without him) in a crash. And he told them so.

Advertisement

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: On El-Rufai, Aláròká And Terrorists

A Twi proverb suggests that “the chief feels the heat only when his own roof is on fire.” Trump’s unfortunate remark is said to be a joke. Even as a joke, what the US president said sits in a long tradition of expensive jokes. Trump’s cruel ‘jest’ couldn’t be funny to any people even if they were under the spell of the leader. History and literature are full of such costly quips that come light from the tongue but which reveal something raw about power and rulers: power does not agree that all human beings possess equal worth, equal dignity, and equal rights. Power talks, and whenever it talks, it sets itself apart.
King Louis XV of France is remembered for uttering the line: “Après moi, le déluge (After me, the flood).” Some commentators say it was a joke, some others say it was a shrug. History interpreted what Louis XV said as the king not caring a hoot whatever might happen to France after he was gone. That statement is a sound bite that has clung to him forever as Abraham Lincoln’s mother’s prayer clung to her son.

When Louis XV said it, no one saw what the king said as a prophecy, grim and ghastly. I am not sure he also knew the full import of what he said. But it was prescient; fifteen years after his reign, the “flood” came furious with the 1789 revolution culminating in the effective abolition of the French monarchy by the proclamation of the First Republic on September 21, 1792.

Advertisement

Emperor Nero of Rome is remembered forever for playing the fiddle while Rome was burning. In William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, we read a verse that ends with “Nero, Play(ing) on the lute, beholding the towns burn.” What is remembered of Nero is the image of a leader who ‘enjoyed the life of his head’ while his empire got destroyed by fire set at it by the enemy. But did the emperor really do that? Read this from the Encyclopaedia Britannica: “So, did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? No. Sort of. Maybe. More likely, he strummed a proto-guitar while dreaming of the new city that he hoped would arise in the fire’s ashes. That isn’t quite the same thing as doing nothing, but it isn’t the sort of decisive leadership one might hope for either.”

I have roamed from imperial Rome to medieval France, to democratic America and its Nigerian side-kick. What is next here is to go back, and salute John Adams with this his dispraise of democracy: “It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.” A system or a country becomes a joke when its leaders toy with its destiny; when they make light of the fears of their people.

The Akan of Ghana warn that if you sit on comfortable rotten wood to eat pawpaw, your bottom gets wet and your mouth also gets wet. This is to say that there are consequences for choices made. A kabiyesi democracy is an autocratic monarchy. And what does that feel like? I read of a king who joked to his courtiers during famine: “Hunger has no teeth sharp enough to bite me in my palace.” It was a careless statement of a monarchy that has found its way into the mouth of our democracy. I saw it where I read it that the ‘joke’ “was remembered bitterly by the starving commoners who later sang satirical songs about the unfeeling king.” Some jokes outlive their laughter.

Advertisement
Continue Reading

News

NiMet Predicts Three-day Rain, Thunderstorms From Monday

Published

on

Continue Reading

Trending