Adeola Aderounmu
I just wanted to drop this note quickly. The edit will come later.
CAF is weak in football organisation in Africa. Moronic Moroccans are fond of bringing lasers to the football stadium when they meet Nigeria.
That this repeated itself in the 2025 finals is an indictment on the citizens of Morocco. They are shitty, petty criminals for bringing lasers to point at our girls.
To be continued…
By Adeola Aderounmu
I could have given this essay so many titles.
Festac: A Town That Became A Jungle.
The End Of Festac.
The Collapse Of Festac
A lot of things are in disarray in Nigeria. The disorderliness is legendary. Nigeria is a place I do not want to call a country because it was created in 1914 as a business enterprise for the orgy of the British Royal Family. It was created to milk and destroy the Yoruba country, the Igbo Nation and the region to the north and of course the south. More than 100 years later after the enterprise was created, the people in the region kept the fraudulent British “invention”. How shocking!
Let me get back to the crux of my discussion. This is not the first time I have written on Festac Town. There is a section at the top of this blog page dedicated to Festac town.
Have you seen Festac recently? In 2025?
A place that was built and commissioned in 1977 as a prototype for residential areas in West Africa (and probably in Africa) has become probably one of the worst places to live in Africa. No many will agree, not all will accept my assertion. That is fine.
But I will make my points.
The idealism in life is to strive for improvement. The way forward in life is to climb higher, to aspire and to seek the ever-illusive perfection. Perfection is unattainable but the desire should also be unquenchable.
Many rural and newly established settlements are picking up and trying to find the way to build a society where they can find happiness and pursue their daily endeavours. I will come back to this paragraph.
However, Festac Town was a community that was commissioned with glamour in 1977 with high standard, varying accommodation systems, good roads, roadmaps for good schools, primary health care system and a state-of-the-art Lagos State transportation system. Festac Town was commissioned in 1977 as a complete package. Nothing was missing, nothing was lacking. There were standard electrical transformers ready to pick up in case of power failure. Festac was nearly perfect. It was a roadmap for Africa in terms of modern housing and decent human existence.
Fast forward 1977 to 2025.
Today, you cannot believe that Festac Town has a Local Government Chairman.
You cannot believe that Lagos State has a governor.
You will almost not believe that there is someone claiming to be the president of Nigeria not only because of Festac Town decadence but in terms of the poor standard of living, and general hopelessness that pervade the country.
Again, I expect counter arguments like “Festac is not as isolated depiction of total lack of governance in Nigeria”. I am open to listening to the fact that “Festac is not the only evidence that Nigerian politicians are totally irresponsible”.
But let me write about Festac.
It was once the pride of West Africa, now it ranks amongst the worst places to live in Africa.
There are some communities in Nigeria that have never seen bitumen on their roads and there is no date in the nearest future when bitumen will grace the landmark. Example is the popular Lusada market area in Ogun State. People around here may not see bitumen on their soil for the next 20 years. Development is not slow in Ogun State, Nigeria. It is in a permanent state of pause. I will address that in another essay. The sad news is that Festac is worse than these communities that have never seen bitumen on their roads.
The geography of Festac in 1977 is not the same today. All the free land and air spaces meant for air circulation, recreational centers and good environmental measures have all been sold. Therefore, Festac may probably be the most congested residential space in Africa. One of my arguments for Festac ranking amongst the worst places to live in Africa.
Electricity is sporadic. Poor electricity supply is a Nigerian “pandemic.” Festac is not the only place where electricity supply is treated as a luxury. But the original plan for Festac was for the community to have a steady unshakable supply of electricity. The population in Festac Town today may be 20 to 30 times more than the original plan, by my guessing though.
There is not a single stretch of good road in the entire estate. Driving in Festac has proven that hell is in Nigeria. Festac Roads are amongst the worst roads in the world. I have never seen a situation where the roads in an entire community are totally bad and unmotorable.
Several of the drainage systems are blocked. Congestion, over-construction, and illegal structures have complicated the situation. Festac Town is in a state of mayhem.
There are people from all over Nigeria clustering in Festac loitering the entire scenery like plagues. One of the implications is that every road junction has become an open marketplace confirming my assertion that Festac Town has no local government chairman or the chairman is braindead. If Lagos State has a governor, then Festac Town should be restored to its 1977 image, or something close. If Nigeria has a president, why is the neglect so loud and dehumanizing.
I am not unaware of how things got this bad. I have written about Festac Town severally. Also, this essay is not a departure from my arguments for the division of Nigeria into the different countries that they were before the reckless union in 1914 that turned countries to the Nigerian Enterprise. There are people from other countries loitering Yorubaland and creating huge deficits in the available, scarce infrastructure. We need to be able to control influx of people into the Yoruba country. That is the long-term goal, to keep our homes and our land safe.
I will not stop to advocate for the abolition of the okada transport system and a complete restoration of the LSTC busses. We need the buses that run on timetable from Festac to all part of Lagos.
The changes that must take place in Festac:
In addition, the governments across Yoruba country must take active steps to use the Festac 77 masterplan in establishing standard, improved and affordable housing units for Yoruba in Yorubaland. There must be measures to put Yoruba first in Yoruba country while not jeopardizing international business opportunities with our immediate neighbours and the western world.
In Yoruba country, we must strive to make government (work and services) a continuum. We cannot afford to down tools because elections are 2 years away or 6 weeks away. We must be civilized in out deeds and thoughts.
We must revive and develop our estates across Yorubaland. We must build new ones. We must go into the inland, mainland and island and make Yorubaland the best place to live in the world.
Delay is dangerous.
aderounmu@gmail.com
A Dilemma Called Nigeria
Adeola Aderounmu.
In recent weeks, in recent months actually, I have not been keen on blogging. It is not for lack of ideas. It is not that there are no more biting issues to discuss. There is still a lot to tackle. In our world, for all time, there will never be a shortage of what to write about, what to discuss and what to engage with. The difference between writing 20 years ago and writing nowadays are the impacts of social media and AI. I digress no more.
Nigeria has been the central issue in my over 2 decades of blogging. In some articles, I have completely lost hope on what my generation and the generation before mine can do to restore dignity and hope to that region which the British criminals called Nigeria. So, I started to address the generation after mine.
There is a very loud outcry to the ongoing genocidal attacks in Benue State, Nigeria. The outcry and the lamentations are in order. But this is not an isolated occurrence. This was not an unexpected attack. That the terrorists in Northern Nigeria plan to overrun the entire country is not news. There have been coordinated attacks in almost all the Nigeria States. There are settlements of foreign “people” across the Nigerian region or country. I do not think it would be impossible to unleash mayhem on the entire country.
The visit of Bola Tinubu to Benue is cosmetic. The killers are on ground, and they will continue with their conquests of land and regions in Benue and in other places. Majority of people do not understand the kind of existence they were born into in Nigeria. Majority are ignorant of the meaning of Nigeria. They do not know how Nigeria came into existence and that Nigeria was never created as a country but as a business enterprise for the orgy of the British empire.
So, the shout about the genocide in Benue will probably mellow but the fundamental problems with the existence of Nigeria would be ignored because the level of ignorance and lack of knowledge among the people is overwhelming and stinking.
There are final and permanent solutions to the problems of genocide in Benue and other places across Nigeria. But these solutions do not exist as long as Nigeria remains one country. The people need to be educated that they are not Nigerians by nature and ancestry. For example, I am Yoruba. Some of you are Igbo, Hausa and so on. The people need to know that the British colonized the regions and formed Nigeria as a business enterprise and that regardless of what may be good about the union, the things that are bad about it are far enormous and damaging like the killing in Benue.
In our best years, we prospered most under a regional government in our respective ancestral land. It was not to last as the things that divided us came to fore and we killed one another for power because it is human to want to dominate over other tribes/nationalities, and that is what make sporting activities great human endeavours.
Now, how do you define dominance in a Nigerian context when the British brought unrelated nationalities together and called them Nigerians? The kind of dominance that each nationality in Nigeria seek and the lack of it for the other groups would continue to breed the kind of massacre in Benue. The fact that Fulani would even invade from far beyond the useless boundaries created by the foolish British colonialists has complicated the matter.
We have seen this over the decades and to think that VDM or a Tinubu visit are antidotes is the beginning of a new phase of collective amnesia and uncured madness. The “wars” we fight every 4 years during our stupid elections are the greatest indicators of our differences, the kind of differences that will NEVER be healed for as long as Nigeria exist.
I mean, the Nigeria of today has come to play into the hands of the colonial masters. The criminal colonial masters can see how their plans to destabilize the west African region have been a great success. They can see how the rising kingdoms of Oyo, Nupe, Igbo, for example, have all crashed believing they are Nigerians. It is again the question of intellectualism, it is the question of race superiority, and it is the question of common sense and the absence of it. The “white man” said you are Nigerian, and you accepted it. The while man said, you are not Igbo, you are not Hausa, you are not Yoruba, and you all accepted it.
This is the problem with us, not identifying and reclaiming our nationalities. We need to reclaim our ancestry and our original nationalities. How would I accept a foreigner invading the Yoruba country without declaring the action a war? The people of Benue would defend their land and their ancestral possessions if we stop telling them that they are Nigerians. By waiting on Nigeria and Nigerians, Benue may become lost to the invaders and their existence will be reduced to slavery or second-class citizens in their ancestral land. This is where many nationalities in Nigeria are heading, losing their identities and ancestral possessions.
The most we can do if we want to live “together” is to revert back to regional government and decide our destinies, our future and the extent of our prosperity in our different regions. The best we can do is to revert back to our kingdoms as they were before the colonial thieves glued us together for the business purpose of the Queen of England and a mistress of Lugard gave us the name “the people of the Niger area”.
There will not be immediate gain from our dissociation. However, in about 50 to 100 years, your children, grandchildren and unborn generations will bless your graves. The longer we wait to start the process, the more Nigerian slip into oblivion, the more the massacres, the more the genocide, the more the useless politics that breed poverty, hopelessness and penury for more than 100 million people. Nigeria is not just the poverty capital of the world, the country is the biggest laughingstock in the world. It will not change until all the nationalities entrapped in Nigeria emerged and claim their rightful places among strong nations across the world.
In our lifetime, we have the task to challenge the status quo, we have the tasks to write the true stories of our lives. We must not be afraid, and we must do all we can to leave the world a better place than we met it. We owe our children a lot and we must disappoint them more than we already did.
One thing is certain; the west and the powers that rule this world are afraid of the re-emergence of powerful kingdoms like The Yoruba Kingdom, The Igbo Nation/Biafra, and so on. They knew where we were before they disrupted and stole our civilizations.
Benue is not an isolated occurrence; we must all fight to be free. There is no other way.
Asiko L’aye (Part 1)
Adeola Aderounmu
Words have continued to fail me in trying to come to terms with the demise of one of my closest friends Adelanke Temitope Osunmakinwa. A couple of years back, I had this idea about writing a book that the title would be “It’s our turn to die”. Even while trying to write this tribute, I thought about the book I never wrote: It’s our turn to die. I come from a world where writing or talking about death is almost a taboo, despite the fact that it is the necessary end to all of us. The last time I checked, it had not been reported that someone left this planet alive.
I met Tope around 1988 when he started at my high school Festac Grammar School. We were already in the 4th year of our 5-year high school journey. We became friends too easily for a few reasons. We both spoke the same language, though he had his Ekiti dialect which he took with him from Idanre, Ekiti state. He was living in the same neighbourhood which makes it possible to walk to school and back together. He came often to my place where he would play with my nephews who were small at the time.
I spoke to my friend in Germany after Tope’s demise on 7th May 2024. I told him that Tope deserved more in life than what he got. He agreed with me and said that aptly described a summary of Tope’s 53 years on planet earth. Each time I’d visited Nigeria since 2002 that I left Lagos, Tope and I have been in touch. In 2018, he followed me to my house in Lusada and was very happy for the progress I’d made-getting a roof over my head.
When we left high school, my personal expectations from Tope were high. He was an average student, but there were a lot of things that were in his favour at that time though I’d not go into the details in this essay. I will also not discuss his weaknesses in this essay because we all have our weaknesses. We all have our weak points in life. We have all failed at some points. That ability to utilise our second chances can be a very important determinant in going forward. My absence from Nigeria made me unaware of Tope’s second chance(s) and how he responded.
One thing I know for sure: he died serving Lagos State. He went to work and was still online at about 18:45 on May 7th, 2024, he was somewhere in the service of motherland.
There are so many memories of him that will stay with me while I am still above the ground. The days we went to school. The days he drove around Lagos dropping Christmas gifts to friends and families. The days he came around to play with my nephews. The days he would talk to my dad and siblings like he knew them from genesis. There were days we did what boys would do: we drank for sure and sometimes went over the limits. We ate and merried together.
He honoured my invitations when I call for a small house party. I cannot forget the days of Festac Town. I cannot forget the days of Satellite town. I cannot forget the visits to the girls we never married. I cannot blame myself or anyone for the bad times or for the times when things didn’t go as we planned them. Adelanke, I will keep the memories of the good times and the laughter.
My dear friend, farewell and have a good time with the ancestors.
Finding a balance between our aspirations, our quests for economic independence and the unpredictable twists of life, in my opinion, have reignited the old theory of survival of the fittest in our modern history and existence.
A 21st Century Survival Of the Fittest
Adeola Aderounmu, Sweden.
The cascades of events since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have not been palatable, globally. The astronomical increase in the prices of food, the astronomical increase in the interest rates charged on mortgage, the increase in the cost of all forms of transportation and the overall rise in the cost of living have very devastating consequences on human mental health, and in fact on our existentiality. The unbelievable and unbearable increase in the cost of living definitely have effects on our social interactions. Indeed, it redefines our thoughts about the essence of life/living.
The balance between our aspirations, our quests for economic independence and the unpredictable twists of life, in my opinion, have reignited the old theory of survival of the fittest in our modern history and existence. Nowadays, if you cannot survive, you are doomed. You are on your own. Now we know how it was when Darwin proposed survival of the fittest. We now understand how environmental factors selected the organisms that were on the right side of the survival curve.
It would be too abstract to write about this essay without using some personal reflections and experiences. When you hear for the first time how the rate of suicide in Europe is high, you would find it absurd as a typical African. But after accumulating experiences and participating in the European (western) life, it would no longer shock you to even see African settlers in Europe adding to the suicide pool in Europe. I could also do this essay from the living in Africa perspective. Even if not well documented, I known that suicide rate in Nigeria has also escalated. It is harder to live during this Era, or maybe this is what all adults above the middle age realize when they get there.
I read about a couple here in Sweden who seek divorce and they must sell their house. But under the present economic hardship in Europe, they will be unable to pay off the loan on the house after selling it. Neither of them has the economic capability to keep the house. This is how the life in Europe have destroyed the well-being of people. No matter how hard you work, you always feel like you are inadequate financially, the fear of your economic instability can drive you insane. You may even question your existence because of your inadequacies.
Among other consequences is high rate of death from high blood pressure/hypertension. It is very hard to cross the middle age in Europe without suffering from high blood pressure. The credit system, the loan system and the mortgage system give you a false array of economic stability, until something very serious goes wrong or you get to a moment that you realized that you didn’t really get it all figured out before you went for it. A war is something seriously gone wrong. Economic downturn is something very serious. High interest rate is something very serious. Sudden unemployment, incapacitation and other things that can turn our lives upside down are serious occurrences.
Who profits from our miseries? Where do all the sudden increase in rents and interest rates end up? We work the same hours, we put in the same efforts as when the economy was good as when it turned bad. From a lame man point of view, my take is that the global work force if feeding the greed of the insatiable. The global work force must pay the price for the capitalism-based world economy.
Forgive my ignorance, I cannot understand why my bank should get richer at my expense if there was no one behind the scenes. For that is exactly what it is when the bank’s interest rates dip holes in my savings. They know they will come for our savings; so they told us to save for the rainy days. Then they make the rain fall in many ways: war, inflations, high interest rate, high cost of living and general instability in the world order.
As it is, we are fighting for our lives and no one cares if we survive or die under these strangulations. As it we have not had enough, they set Gaza on fire to distract us from our goals to survive. They make life more meaningless, so we could pity ourselves and at best compare our difficult lives with those who are massacred in Gaza and Ukraine. Head or tail, global citizens are at the receiving end. They are fighting to survive either economic hardships or a permanent state of war.
I hope what I’m trying to say here made some sense. I’ll leave it as it is.
A View From The Scandinavian 