I am also late on writing on this recent upsurge in terrorism in Nigeria. I mean for several years on this blog, I warned that this day would come. In fact, it would get worse. If the terrorist decide to run over for example Yorubaland as we write, there is nothing that could stop them.
I wrote immensely about the unregulated influx of unknown people into Yorubaland, Lagos especially. Let the governor of Lagos State take a tour of the state and see how the population of undocumented people have increased astronomically. There are several potential terrorist cells across Yorubaland. I present to him Festac town as a case study. Let him visit 3rd avenue. He should get to 7th avenue and now 24 road by 721 road.
Lagos and infact Yorubaland has been under siege and the terror cells are there.
So, during the recent attack on Yorubaland, I didn’t know what to say or write because the things I warned about on this blog were playing out like a movie.
Nigeria is not a country. We do not want to come to terms with the fact that we need to split the senseless British colony into the precolonial countries.
Imagine having the Yoruba Army, The Yoruba Navy, The Yoruba Armed Forces and the Yoruba Police, how on earth would we not defend our Yoruba country?
Yoruba country need to wake up and emancipate itself from the oncoming domination of her country by the Fulani.
If the US comes, it may end up in negotiations and Yoruba soveregnity might be lost forever. The US has a history of leaving bitter pills behind.
It is only the Yoruba that can defend Yorubaland.
Nigeria is not a viable country and the stupidity of the british in joining countries that have nothing in common in 1914 ought to be reversed immediately so that we can defend our country and our ancestral land,
I am unable to write about the useless unitary government here, I don’t even have the time to write about the nonsense Abuja politics.
How many people know that most European countries will perish if the money wasted on Abuja politics and Abuja politicians disappear from their countries. They won’t last more than 6 months or a year. That is how expensive, foolish and meaningless Abuja politics is.
As far as I am concern, it is Yoruba country or I shut up. I don’t believe in Nigeria. I have only sympathy and empathy left for Nigeria/Nigerians.
I decided to write this, like many other stuffs I have written over the last 3 decades because if we don’t write our stories, someone else will do, and the distortions will not only be unimaginable, but also irreparable.
When I travelled to New Jersey with my family in May 2024, there were 3 friends already on the alert and holding brief on my behalf in different American states. Dele had travelled a day before our arrival from Houston to NJ. He had teamed up with Raphael. They were looking at the clock. Adeola is coming. Morrison was driving down from Maryland heading to Trenton.
My reason for travelling to America was to attend the graduation ceremony of my daughter. She graduated in May 2024 from Lawrenceville School, near Princeton. Prior to this event, there had been no other factor strong enough to convince me to travel to the US.
But here I was at Newark Airport, sitting comfortably in an American Ford we hired from Avis, heading to our first destination in Trenton. I would become bold to drive on American roads and adapt to some crazy driving, in a massive vehicle, for the next 10 days.
Dele and Raphael arrived at out Trenton residence about 7pm and guess what they brought with them. Made in New Jersey Nigerian jollof rice with Nigerian spiced meat. We were in the middle of the jollification when Mo arrived, and the amount of bottled water we stored away in the fridge increased exponentially.
Dele, Raphael, and I attended Festac Grammar School and graduated in 1989. Mo lived in the same building as me in Festac and he was not just another guy on the block, he also became my student. I will be unable, in a single essay, to describe my full connections to these guys. I mean, I knew Raphael before we became schoolmates. I first met him on the football field before we became teenagers. I knew he was good with his feet. Dele and I were just more of pals (old schoolmates) until he visited me in Sweden. I don’t know how to stop Dele from (telling) that I invited him to Sweden and paved the way for his eventual sojourn. Mo also visited me in Sweden, of his own accord, and he was my number one dependable ally in Nigeria before he settled in the US.
Dele won my heart on my visit to NJ for leaving his job, his wife and children back in Houston for a few days to enjoy our company in New Jersey. He attended the graduation ceremony on Saturday before he flew back to Houston. Morrison also attended the ceremony before he drove back to Maryland to prepare for our tour of Maryland and Washington DC. In Maryland, Mo gave us roof over our heads for as long as we wanted to stay. He even organized a welcome party for us, and the attendance was massive. The best part was seeing his dad, brother, wife and children. We re-invented Festac in Maryland. We were home away from home. I thought I would see Raphael again when he came to Maryland, but we were all so busy that our journeys at that point did not intercept.
Nevertheless, it was a good reunion not just for me and my friends but also for Mo who hadn’t seen Eniola since she was two and now to watch her graduate. Dele had not seen her since she was about 8, and to see her graduate too. They also get to see her mum and the little sister who is not little anymore. Raphael met all the 3 of them for the first time. I was uniting everyone and creating new bonds for Houston, Maryland and New Jersey.
I must mention that we stopped briefly at a major center on our way to Maryland. One of my former students came to say hello briefly even at a very short notice. I got to know that we drove through Delaware, thanks for her. It was also nice to see her husband. Two jolly, nice, amiable down-to-earth couples they are.
The value of true friendship is inestimable.
My American Diary, to be continued.
Appreciation.
Thank you Dele for your effort and for the gift of love and friendship.
Thank you Raphael for receiving Dele and for your good intentions..
Thank you Mo for also taking time off your schedule to show us Washington DC.
Thank you to Mo’s friends and family,
Thank you the Adenegans for driving from Delaware to meet us halfway on the way to Maryland. My dear Pinky!
I am indebted to Uncle Gbaike for receiving us in New York.
To my family, without you, I have not, these memories to share.
In 2008 when I turned 36, I started this series called My Random Reflections. Today I’m writing my random reflections @ 52. Usually, I’d write the article the day before my birthday or exactly on the day and publish it.
This year, I’m working hard to put my thoughts together 3 days after. It is not for the lack of random thoughts. It is not because there are no issues to reflect upon. How do you even choose what issues to reflect upon albeit randomly? England have just lost the EURO football second final in a row. The best English defender, arguably, Fikayo Tomori, did not even make the team. When a goal is conceded in the dying seconds due to the wrong positioning of 2 defenders, first Walker, then Guehi, I can say: serve you right England! Fight for your best to represent you!
My focus on my random has always been Nigeria. Sometimes it is a general focus or reflection on life from my perspective. The reasons are obvious. I lived in Nigeria for 29 years before relocating to Sweden in 2002. Over the years my views of Nigeria have changed. It started from my wish for Nigeria to be one indivisible super (world) power to my sarcastic article in the Nigeria village square wondering what would happen if Nigeria was recolonized.
Today, my opinion about Nigeria is constant because having observed Nigeria politics since 1979 as a 7-year-old, I have come to the irreversible conclusion that Nigeria should be dismantled so that the prosperous nations that are entrapped in Nigeria could emerge.
Unless the system of government in Nigeria is abolished, I don ‘t see a bright future for the unborn generations entrapped in it
At some point in the time past, I was one of those focused on putting all the problems on the president(s) and politicians in the country. Indeed, in this Tinubu’s jaguda government, one can still describe the politicians as criminals for that has not changed. I mean, my knowledge of Nigerian politicians and the military regimes that intersected the periods from 1979 to date gives me the right to classify both the civilian and military governments as pure gangsters in power.
But the regimes that emerged are also direct products of the citizenry. However the worst thing about Nigeria is the crazy system of unitary government where the president and the politicians for example are simply above the law. The unitary system of government in Nigeria is the dumbest system of government on planet earth. The charade called elections to get into this system of government are also a complete disgrace to the lowest of intellectualism.
What this has led to, for me, is that whilst I can call Tinubu’s government a jaguda government or Nigerian politicians complete criminals, I am at the same time aware that even a criminal Peter Obi as governor of Anambra state would not fare better than Tinubu in power in Aso rock. A Phd Jonathan was as useless as a senseless Buhari in power. A cunning Obasanjo stole as much as he could to secure his finance. Atiku almost sold all of Nigeria! If one is criticizing Tinubu and assuming that Peter Obi or Sowore would do a better job, I think intellectualism is far from that individual.
In my opinion, what took (Nigeria) to stardom and placed development in Western Nigeria (Yorubaland) ahead of London or Paris in the 1950s remains the only permanent solution for Western Nigeria to come back and retain that position (probably in the next 50 to 100 years) if Nigeria is dismantled today or reverted to the old order. In those days the Eastern part of Nigeria was also making advancement in technology (evidentially proven later in the civil war) and the Northern part was a rising agriculturally independent nation. It was jolly to live in the 1950s Nigeria because of the economic and political independence of the regions. There was focus in / on the regions and political corruption was minimal but not detrimental to development, as it is normal even till today in the most developed countries of the world.
Allowing the poorest people on earth to exist in the most blessed region on earth, in my opinion, is a very disturbing occurence in the history of Africa.
I’m not the best official custodian of Nigerian geography and history but I know enough that by carefully re-carving Nigeria under conditions of mutual respect and understanding, the various nations in Nigeria can seek independence again and, in a few years, rub shoulders with the most advanced countries in the world. It is the people who must demand this and see it to a logical end.
The fallacy and the error propagated by the elites and the political class is that greatness can be achieved as one indivisible Nigeria. Time, space, politics, events and the ambitions that I have witnessed since 1979 have shown that the views of the elites and the political class are mirages. I have waited for Nigeria to be great since 1979. I would be foolish in 2024 to think that that greatness would come.
I have discussed extensively on my blog how Nigeria’s fourth generation is wasting away believing in the same nonsense and false hopes like their parents before them. This blog you are reading is one of Africa’s oldest individual blogs. Let that sink in that my goal is to see you in that geographical region come out prosperous and that your unborn generations need not suffer like you and me or our parents and grandparents.
I would like to leave it there so I can discuss other things, randomly. I’m trying hard to stay away from US politics but it’s hard not to feel embarrassed on behalf of the American people when their current president, Mr. Biden continued to speak nonsense while at the same time sitting tight in power and vying for a new term. I remember how African rulers have been called sit-tight rulers by the western press. What does one call Biden? How does one move on from the stupid debate that Biden and Trump participated in? We are currently waiting for the report of the security apparatuses in America regarding the assassination attempt on Trump. Interesting times ahead for the world.
In other reflection moments, when I’d reflected on conflict/war in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russian war, my conclusions always took me back to one point: that humans may be suffering from deficiency of what I called “collective global intellectualism”. I’m now sure that humans, despite all our achievements and advancements, are devoid of sound reasoning power in conflict resolutions. I’m not particularly a good student of history, so I might need help to remember where one party had been right in a war and examples of using wars to resolve conflicts and misunderstanding.
My knowledge of Nigerian history, Nigerian civil war and what my mother (now late) told me about the Nigeria remain good bases for me to understand how Nigeria is the mess it is today and how keeping it as one country would continue to favour poverty, impoverishment, and a hopeless life/existence for several millions.
There are so many aspects of our lives in the geographical entrapment called Nigeria that must be looked to at the same time.
How is our level of education today? How does it compare to the global situation?
How is our transport network on land, water and air? How do we limit accidents?
How is the level of security of life and property? How is our night life for work and pleasure purposes?
What is our plan for our good life and a good life for three generations from now?
Does “the common good” exist in our vocabulary, in our thoughts and deeds?
What is our state of basic infrastructure for supply of electricity and water to every home?
What is the housing policy for workers, the elderly, the young people and the pensioners? What are the plans for now, the future?
What are our plans for health care and medicine?
What about research and development?
What happened to dignity in labour? How do we want to reposition education?
Let me be clear, trying to do resolve all our problems in Nigeria under a unitary system of government will never fully work. That is why I’m just looking at people shouting at Tinubu. I think they might get some changes if they shout at their governors or local government chairmen. They might get a better response if they shout at their constituent representatives.
Imagine then a system of government where all the changes needed are concentrated in a region or a smaller nation like the Yoruba Nation or the Biafra. Have you thought about the ease to get your thoughts across?
Jonathan did not see you, Obasanjo did not see you, Buhari, Yar Adua, and now Tinubu. Even Babangida was busy lining his pockets. Abdulsalami nko? That is what they all do, they eat and quench. They take care of their families and friends. That is what a unitary system of government does. It turns men to gods, saints to (d)evil people.
Bring on the regional government or even separate nations that would compete with one another and see how the other countries of the world would start to shiver. Biafra, Arewa, Yoruba and the Delta are prospective world powers and until they are set free, their existence in a British-made, elite-sustained Nigeria would continue to mean a life time of hopelessness, poverty and impoverishment such that it would be impossible to remove Nigeria from her position as the poverty capital of the world.
Allowing the poorest people on earth to exist in the most blessed region on earth, in my opinion, is a disturbing occurrence in the history of the African. The region around the heart of Africa is well endowed so much that the entire continent and beyond can feed from the flow from the heart of Africa. Unless the system of government in Nigeria is abolished, I don’t see a bright future for the unborn generations entrapped in it.
We cannot keep relying on religion and think that we can catch up with the rest of the world. Great nations are built on simple and common things like common language, custom, culture trust, common good, service to humanity, respect for law and order, sound education, developing infrastructures, accessibility to public servants/politicians. These things can be built and created in nations like Yoruba, Biafra and Arewa but never in a fictitious Nigeria.
I wrote my first random reflections when I turned 36 in 2008. Time flies as they say. Yours sincerely turned 50 on the 12th of July. I am grateful to Olodumare for the gift of life, for the strength to carry on and for the blessings over my life.
Adeola Aderounmu
I have spent more than 20 years writing about Nigeria and I have spent a part of those 2 decades to put together 3 books. I have started to write the outline for the 4th one. In due time I look up to Olodumare for inspiration to complete the book.
But my mind is troubled.
Since 2002 when I wrote my first published article in the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper (Why Politicians Steal), Nigeria has sank to the level that Lagos her major city is probably the worst city to live in the world. Nigeria has now been described as the poverty capital of the world several years after I coined the phrase MASS POVERTY to describe the uniqueness of the poverty that even engulfs all the millionaires, billionaires and gangster politicians.
My submission was that no matter who you are, as long as you are living within the geographical space called Nigeria, you are invariably living in poverty. Look at the recent floods across Nigeria, it is a clear case of what it means to live in poverty as a result of bad environmental planning. Look at the clowns living at Lekki. It is like they are living in a swimming pool. Even if you look at the case of electricity, as long as your 365 days a year supply of electricity is not coming from the electric power company, you are living in extreme poverty. Pray you are not the modern day slave with or without your wealth.
The ability to provide your own essential social amenities in a certain geographical space is not a sign of wealth, it is a sign of living in bondage and poverty. These were some of my ideas in defining mass poverty a few years ago. The idea was to spin everyone to a critical thinking including those who think they are better than others in Nigeria and as a result would never complain or see anything wrong with the system.
So I am sorry, in my own eyes, everybody living in Nigeria is living in extreme poverty, starting from the people in Aso rock, to the people in government houses and to all the corners of the space in Nigeria. It does not matter if you work in the private or public sector, it does not matter if you are on chicken island or banana island, living in the Nigerian space is living in poverty. It does not even matter if you hire 100 military fools as your guide daily. That is still a poverty-stricken life.
Let me digress on my random reflections.
Two issues (one negative and the other positive) that will eventually end Nigeria are the issue of terrorism and the fight for liberation of the entrapped nations within the geographical space created by the British gangsters/unfortunate colonisers.
Terrorists are already taking Nigeria apart bit by bit. The stinking, dirty, rapists cum terrorists come in different shades and shapes. There are several factions of terror groups festering on Nigeria, a country that definitely lacks real governance, a country steered by a non-existent leadership. Terrorists are more established in Northern Nigeria but have capabilities to strike anywhere from the South to the North because it appears the presidency is aiding their operations. The emergence and successes of terror groups has been discussed extensively on this blog on several occasions.
What is evident is that the APC government led by one Buhari has given the terrorists free hand to do just about anything and get away with it. This is not surprising or shocking in anyway because the Buhari that led APC to power in 2015 was vehemently against any attack on Boko Haram. One of the recent attacks carried out by Boko Haram was the attack on Kuje prison in Abuja. More than 500 terrorists were set free. There are allegations that Mr. Buhari was aware of this plan to free the terrorists and did nothing about it.
I am making random reflections, so I will not elaborate further on the orchestrated Kuje prison attack that started when the Nigerian government removed the security at the prison and claimed that the prison that is “home” to some of the most dangerous men in the world has no CCTV camera.
Terrorism is the negative trend in Northern Nigeria that may end Nigeria with serious consequences of a new, prolonged civil war, famine and a political instability far beyond the imagination of the entire world. Nigeria will bleed and Africa will tremble. Population and migration crises that will arise will spread beyond the shores of Africa.
The entire sub-Saharan Africa may become the biggest war zone in the world as indigenous populations will fight to repel the lawless Fulani jihadists. It is impossible to foresee the extent of desolation that will befall the fake British invention called Nigeria if the current exploits of the Fulani terrorists is not nipped in the bud. That sounds too late perhaps now that they are all over the entire regions in Nigeria. They have terror cells and foot soldiers armed, and ready to wipe indigenous populations away. It should amaze a worried, brilliant mind what the indigenous populations are doing about their survival and plan for the future. It seems they have none, living one day to the other, hoping that terror will just go away.
In any case. There is a slight hope all the above will not happen. Is life still about sliding doors? Is it still about the choices we make and when we make them? I would think so. The current diversion of the young people, just where the politicians will have them is amusing, yet annoying.
Some say they want Tinubu, some say Obi and others say Atiku. These young people are doing today exactly what their parents did in 1959, 1979, 1983 and even in 2003. I thought history should make new generations wiser so they can make decisions or take steps to ensure that their children and unborn children can be free from bondage and have a life full of hopes and opportunities. How can we, how can they not know that Nigeria is not that place to give a level playing field to their generations to come? How?
Eight years from today, if Fulani terrorists have not taken over the Nigerian space and making these young people and their children slaves, these same young people will be repeating the same bloody mistake of one Obi, Tinubu, Atiku, Shettima and Kwankwaso. What a daft generation?
You would think that enslaved people would rally round and support one another so that their fight for freedom can be on a united platform and that if the opportunity and need arises, they would give whatever it takes to secure freedom. The most disturbing aspect of the fight for the freedom of the Yoruba and the Igbo from the shackles of the Fulani is that rather than rally behind Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu to take out their respective countries out of the Fulani controlled terror-filled Nigeria, they are rallying behind stupid, useless and brainless politicians who will deceive them and continue to ruin their today and their tomorrow.
What would the average person require to realize that the present-day situation we are living in in British-made Nigeria today was a future that was stolen several decades ago? The stolen future was something I became aware of when I remember criminals like Babangida and Abacha. I was naive during the Shagari time. But the Babangida, Abacha time was so obvious to me that these gangsters were stealing my future in Nigeria. The rest is history.
In any case, let me find a way to wrap up this random reflection of mine. I do not believe in Nigeria. I do not believe that one man name Obi, or Ahmed, or Adekunle or one super criminal called Atiku can fix Nigeria. Of course Tinubu is a super criminal too and despite the international report that implicated Obi, people with blind faith have chosen to bite the hook. All these people are part of the problems and they will never be a part of the final breakdown or disintegration of Nigeria. The end of Nigeria is the single most important recipe for the greatness that await the entrapped nation like Yoruba Union and Biafra a few decades from now if the break up happens today.
To delay the breakup of Nigeria is just to deepen the entrenched poverty. It is to empower the terrorists that are almost sure of victory in colonizing Nigeria.
Finally, just to end these unending thoughts now rushing in my head, my hope for the future lies in Yoruba Nation no matter how imperfect she may be. I would love to live in the land that my ancestors prepared for me as a free man rather than be a slave to the Fulani for the rest of my life.
I am happy to announce the release of my new book-THE CIPOLLINIAN.
The Cipollinian is a book about family, crime and the society.
An Italian family hid its past while still involved in some of the most successful bank robberies in Italy. But after a tragedy in the family, some findings in one of the most unexpected places was all it took to begin a process that uncovered the family. The consequences were dire. The entire story is fiction.
I am an independent author. This means that I publish my books myself. I have been unsuccessful in getting publishing companies in Sweden to publish or sign me up.
This is the third book.
I am at the moment working on making my books available on AMAZON as a private seller. Otherwise send me an email at aderounmu@gmail.com if you want a copy or several copies of this new book.
If you are in SWEDEN you will find it on bokbörsen (Online bookshop). The book is in ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
If you are an agent or a publisher, I am open to recruitment and sign-up. If you own a bookstore, contact me for marketing and sales.
My fourth book is in the start stage. It is about crime as well. A serial murderer from an unexpected profession and with a special group of targets. My plan is to write about 200 pages or more for the next book. The Cipollinian is 95 pages.
A View From The Scandinavian 