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Festac: There Was A Town

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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:

  1. Rebuilding of all the road networks to the 1977 standard and yearly maintenance of such
  2. The re-introduction of government controlled public transport system but in partnership with private and professional transportation companies.
  3. The establishment of security measures to ensure the security of Yoruba people in Yorubaland and our visitors alike who have genuine residency and legitimate businesses.
  4. The total eradication of all open marketplaces across the community. It is an absolute eyesore!
  5. The removal of people living on the streets and helping them to resettle to the region or countries they came from.

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

@aderinola

All Rants, And No Change. A Dilemma Called Nigeria.

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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.

After The Rants

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By Adeola Aderounmu

Nigerians are currently ranting on the social media. It’s a welcome development to rant and share the problems of the suffering masses. A long time ago, I defined mass poverty even before other organisations started to use the term. Mass poverty in Nigeria has metamorphosed into population poverty.

The stunning prices of goods and services may not be peculiar to Nigeria but the dimension of it is devastating. If people earn monthly incomes that cannot buy a bag of rice, what kind of country is that? Is that a country or a concentration camp? I cannot understand why your transport fare to work is more than your salary and how people keep traveling to the work daily.

My message in this essay is the same that I have written a thousand times. Nigeria is not going to work for anyone based on the current socio-economic/political platforms on which the country is operating. A lot of people are wishing for a new government. They think one person in Nigeria can become a president and that hope will come, that prices of stuffs will come down. This is the mentality that ic difficult to cure or erase.

Let us be clear, there is no man or woman, living or dead, that could have met the expectations of the people based on the stupid unitary system of government in Nigeria. It would amount to waste of time, waste of energy and waste of everything to finish the rantings and not demand that those useless politicians in Abuja be sent home to their constituencies. I mean, people sit down in a certain national assembly, intimidate women, talk rubbish and make useless laws and cart home millions of dollars every month. Then all you want is a new president to supervise the nonsense in Abuja.

My take is that the system of government in Nigeria must be discontinued for any iota of hope to resurface. The unitary system of government is the most useless form of government in the world. It makes the government and the people unproductive. It creates an economy that is largely importing and consuming stuffs. The unitary system of government puts power in the hands of one citizen and makes him a dictator. This is what we have seen since the implementation of the useless 1999 constitution that Nigeria is following.

There is no more hope of a better life for adults in Nigeria. The best thing that can happen to an adult in Nigeria today is “management of crises” and provision of palliatives that can soothe or alleviate the biting economic realities. Young people have a little bit of hope left if Nigeria is dismantled today. They may still live 1 or 2 decades in their respective “nations” if they process to rebuild starts today. The people who can have the best of lives if Nigerias is dismantled today (2025) are the babies and unborn generations.

Babies and the unborn generations are the ones that a new future should be provided for. But to finish ranting and still be demanding for continuation of life in the present political structure of Nigeria is pure senselessness. It is wickedness to the babies and cruelty to the unborn generations.

Nobody needs APC or PDP or Labour Party in Nigeria. The countries or nations in Nigeria must be set free before any hope of a better future can arise. An immediate consttitutional change would be to adopt the Old Western Region, The Old Eastern Region and the Old Northern Nigeria. These countries must be allowed to emerge so that the competition in food production, proper usage of mineral resources and the development of infrastructure (that has comatosed since the civil war) can restart. A long time constitutional change would be for the countries to become independent of one another and act as neighbours powering one another’s economic interest in order to build the new super power region of the world.

Any other suggestion of election in Nigeria now or in the future is not only a mistake but also a permanent display of deficient intellectualism. Since 2010/2011 I have argued that Nigeria does not need any new elections, that every new election is a sentence to a life of impoverishment, a life of penury and poverty.

I have argue that no man in Abuja will solve the problems in Badagry or Maiduguri. It is the people of Badagry that will solve the problem of Badagry and it is the people of Maiduguri that will bring security to their land when they have to manage their own affairs.

It is unwise to think that Nigeria cannot be broken or that it should remain the way it is. If that is the case, then there is no need to rant, there is no need to complain. Let the people therefore live with the choice of the useless unitary system, the rat race system, the survival of the fittest government and an existence that is profoundly in trial, error and lottery mode.

Let us rants, like some of us have been writing/blogging for 2 decades but let it be clear, rants without the end of Nigeria, are wasteful rants.

That is the way it is, take it, or leave it.

AAA.

Young people in Nigeria

Nigeria: “Terrible Governments” Did Not Start Today.

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By Adeola Aderounmu

The month of march 2025 has been a remarkable month in Bongo-Nigeria. There has been a back and forth laceration, mostly online, between those who criticized and those who support the useless and terrible government in Nigeria under the rulership of one Ahmed Tinubu, a man whose real names and identity are unclear.

I am Yoruba and if you think that I am behind any form of criminality or unclear personality, then you are probably crazy or out of your mind. I do not confuse Yorubaness with criminality or stupidity. There is no Nigerian politician that has won my heart in terms of service, decidation and selflessness.

My arguments on this blog have moved beyond sustaining Nigeria so I almost have no sympathy left for the agitations of the Nigerian. If I had a choice, I would be carrying a Yoruba Republic passport and would lay down my life for the Yoruba race, for the unborn generations so that they don´t get wasted like us, our parents and grandparents. Nigeria is not really my business nowadays.

A lot of people are complaining about Nigeria, as if things will get better. Is Nigeria the country of your dream? How old are you now and what do you know about the fraud called Nigeria? Do you know the meaning of life? Do you know what it means to live and let live?

The youthcorper girl may think she was making honest remarks about Tinubu and Nigeria but the matter is beyond all of that. Such a street-wise girl should be in her region contributing to the development of her people and her community. If she was in Lagos as an expatriate or for a business trip (in my fantasy Yoruba Republic), she would only need to do her business and go back to develop her state. She would not have any reason to call the president of a Yoruba country a terrible president. (We would do that ourselves and probably the gods would have used thunder to deal with him even before he becomes a terrible person).

Nobody can fight for and liberate Nigeria (as long as Nigeria is still one country created for the pleasure of the Queen of England). Nigeria which means nothing to the Youth corper or to any of us for that matter is not worth fighting for. It is only worth getting liberated from.

What is worth fighting for, worth living for and worth dying for, is the freedom of all the nations that are enslaved within the British colony called Nigeria. In private communications and severally on my blog (which is probably the oldest individual blog in Africa), my take is that Nigeria will NEVER get better to such an extent that an ordinary citizen would live a good life in it.

Nigeria as a “collection” of several nations is not sustainable. The amalgamation of Nigeria was done to establish Nigeria as a business enterprise, and not a country. The name Nigeria was probably coined by a mistress to one gangster called Lugard.

Little wonder history was removed from the educational curriculum in Nigeria. The politicians are oppressors who have taken the ways of the colonialists and descended it on a real hell called Nigeria.

If there was a return to the regional governments or totally independent nations of Yoruba Kingdom, Biafra/Igbo Nation, Delta South and Arewa North, by now, we would all be making progress and competing again on all fronts: science, medicine, sport, infrastructure, healthcare, music, housing and clean environments. These are the issues that our struggles ought to revolve around.

The government is terrible, we the people are more terrible. We will never speak with one voice, yet we do not agree to go our different ways and develop our communities and our regions. I see and hear how Yoruba have been defending their terrible Tinubu (a man whose real identity, origin and age are still unknown).

There is so much to say and so many points of views. It is more than time to end Nigeria for good, Those supporting the criminals in government since 1960 and those opposing them will line up like zombies in 2027, they will repeat history, call it election, and expect different outcomes. You cannot convince me that we don´t have collective dementia in this enclave called Nigeria. it´s been a cycle of idiocy telling ourselves that we have political parties representing us. What we have are opportunists (you and I) waiting for our time to capture some political offices and steal money. It´s a general mad situations.

Historically, “Nigeria” under independent regional government was one of the best places to live in the world. The different regions within Nigeria were pacing to “global peak” because of the competitions between the regions. They tried to outdo one another in several aspects of life and only became a country mostly in sports as team members were picked or selected on merits from the different parts of the land.

Fast forward to post civil war Nigeria, what exists today is a bloodsucker country. There are no level playing fields. All politicians are criminals. All the religious citizens are hypocrites. The same people who go to mosques and churches daily are the same people perpetrating all the hates and wickedness across land. There is no strength in our diversity, we hate and kill.

How do you even want to start governing Nigeria? A cattle rearer would move his cows into all the farmlands on his way from the North to the south. How do you talk to someone who does not understand you, your language, your culture, your heritage and your ways of life? How can people who have nothing in common claim to be citizens of the same country? How can you come from the same country when you cannot live freely across it? The insanity across the land is profoundly indescribable. We are living a lie. We are living in denial. We are not one people, we will never be.

Those who capturte the center steal, loot, merry, cart away and then die (the part they forgot exist). Their accomplices, their children and their heir apparent would carry on the same shit. The rest, more than 200 million people, would be shouting one Nigeria but never experiencing the true meaning of life. They live predominantly in a blackout country having no electricity, no good roads and managing decaying or non-existent infrastructure. What kind of country is that?

I could go one. Indeed, Tinubu is a terrible person, so was Jonathan, Obasanjo, Atiku, Babangida, Buhari, Shagari, Abacha, Sonekan, all the past governors, all the present governors, all the sexists in the senate like Akpabio; have you forgotten one David Mark, a Bankole? They are all terrible, they are all criminals!

Their types will continue to exist and dominate until you sit at home during the next election and force the disintegration of Nigeria into the different regions. This would not even be the EUREKA. It is not the final solution. But it may serve as a step in the direction that may give hope to the next generation.

The emergence of the regions would give positive outcomes in 2 or 3 decades. To have not even started the journey and hoping that the price of garri would come down tomorrow is pure madness! How would Lagos not smell when the youth corper and her types across Nigeria flood to Lagos for the “goodlife”? What happened to developing business, social life, infrastructure and better life across all the nations that that entrapped in Nigeria? We knew that the population in Lagos is over exploded with many more tropping in on the limited infrastructure on ground. If we all go back to our independent countries and leave Yoruba Republic alone, maybe Yorubaland will stop smelling.

Nothing is going to get cheaper in Nigeria, a consuming economy. It is a rat race and it is the classical survival of the fittest environment. You adapt and survive or you go through life in the most worthless way. Nigeria does not care about you!

You should care about those whose life may also be wasted like yours and mine, you should care about your children and unborn generations. There are no immediate fix to any problem you see. No problem is fixable in Nigeria. But all the problems can be fixed if we go our separate ways and talk to those who understand our respective languages, those we share culture, customs and tradtion with. We need to sit down in our respective lands that our ancestors left to use and find a way to prepare the future for our coming generations.

No matter how much you wish for, or complain in a British colony called Nigeria, it will never get better. I have been hearing and engaging in this type of discussions since 1979, and this is 2025, nothing has improved. You have zero chance in Nigeria but you have all the world to prepare for in your country, the one the imperialists and the colonialists stole from you. It is there you have hope. It is there your children will find peace and prosperity.

Adeola Aderounmu

The Terror Attack In Örebro, Sweden

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The Terror Attack In Örebro

Örebro Castle

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By Adeola Aderounmu

On Tuesday 4th of February 2025, a Swedish terrorist named Richard Andersson killed 10 people in the city of Örebro in Sweden. The terrorist attack was the worst in the history of Sweden.

The act of terror was carried out at Risberga school in Örebro. The school is where (foreign) students or relatively new settlers in Sweden would go in order to learn Swedish language in their process of integrating into the Swedish society. In Sweden you need a good knowledge the language to make a head way in many aspects of the Swedish life.

A lot of concerned citizens have expressed anger, frustrations, and disappointment in how the Swedish government, the Swedish police and the Swedish media have reported the terrorist attack.

For instance, the terror attack, as at the time of writing the blog, has not been called a terror attack. The police, the government and the media have reported it as a mass shooting. They have refused to call Richard a terrorist. Rather they have painted another picture of him (you will not read that on my blog, sorry). I don’t glorify terrorist.

In reporting the number of victims, the Swedish government, the police, and the Swedish media have reported that 11 people died in the terror attack, a number that included the terrorist. The correct report should have read that 10 people have been killed by a terrorist who also died in the line of his terrorist action. The Swedish police and Swedish media and the Swedish government have shown great disrespect to the victims (and the families of the victims) of the terror attack in Örebro. I have been blogging for about 2 decades, the handling of the terror attack in Örebro is the worst form of miscommunication and dishonesty I have encountered by any government, media, or police reporting terror attacks.

The police and the government of Sweden have failed the general population. They have failed the entire world. By not declaring the event of 4 of February an act of terrorism, the government failed to live up to its responsibility to protect lives and property.

The police, the government and the media heaped a lot of dishonour on the dead when they said that the motive was not known (even till today the 9th of February 2025) and that the killing may not have an ideological linkage.

It is common sense that a terror attack that is carried out at a school has an ideology linked to education. But I have read many times that common sense is actually not common. The motive was as clear as daylight. The terrorist targeted a school that immigrants would attend to learn or improve their Swedish language skills. His motive was to decimate the immigrant population in Örebro. He killed 10 people.

 The terrorist act is a tragedy on one part. The actions, speeches and the reactions of the Swedish government, the Swedish police and the Swedish media constitute a greater collective tragedy. I don’t think there is any immigrant in Sweden today who trust the Swedish government, the Swedish Police and the Swedish media after the Örebro terror attack.

An opportunity, albeit an unfortunate one, to galvanize the country has been misused. It has been wasted. It has been used to divide the country more than ever. What a wasted opportunity! Lives were unnecessarily wasted by a terrorist and the government and the police made a mess of the sad situation. The media was caged in!

The people who have lost their loved ones, sisters, brothers, sons, wives, girlfriends, husbands, daughters, uncles, aunts and friends would have expected a more compassionate act of truth and actual presentations of events rather than all the cover-ups that the government and the Swedish media are displaying.  

My sincere condolences to all the people who are affected by this act of terror. I have you in my thoughts now. I will have you in my thoughts every time I stop at Örebro, every time I visit Örebro and every time I drive by. You will be in my thoughts every time Örebro appears in my mind and in my conversations.

May the soul of the ten people killed by the terrorist rest in peace.