The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olukorede Yishau

  • Once upon a trip

    Once upon a trip

    It happened before America became home.

    ‘You think it’s funny; I’ll show you what is funny. Stand back.’

    The United States Customs and Border agency official barked at me in the expansive arrival hall of the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. The blond official’s eyeballs seemed about to jump out of their sockets.

    Less than a minute later, a security officer came to lead me away with other passengers’ eyes glued on me. The officer took me to a room where I met others who had just got off the planes after long hours of travels.

    My flight had arrived some thirty minutes before I got the chance to face the angry border agency official whose voice boomed despite the glass partition separating us.

    ‘Why are you here?’ he asked me after I handed him my passport.

    ‘Vacation,’ I answered, my heart beating faster than usual.

    ‘Why America?’

    ‘I’ve always spent my vacation here.’

    ‘But, why America?’

    His repeat of this question riled me and I started smiling. I smiled because at the time living outside of Nigeria didn’t excite me. Nigeria, despite its shortcomings, was dear to my heart and I thought I had mastered how to survive there. So, I wondered why this officer was making a fuss about my decision to vacation in his beloved country. I felt he must have assumed I was planning to stay back in the US. My smiling face woke up the beast in him and he decided to make my night longer.

    In the hall where the security officer led me, we sat and awaited our turn for questioning. After some minutes, another border agency official asked me about myself and my trip. I told him I was a journalist and writer and he showed excitement about my status and how exciting he felt my life would be. I was led into another room where an officer brought my bags that had been recovered from the baggage area.

    The glove-wearing man asked me what I had in my bag. I told him clothes, shoes and books. Trouble started when he started bringing out copies of my Nigeria Prize for Literature-nominated debut novel, ‘In The Name of Our Father’. I could see his countenance changing as he unraveled copies after copies from compartments of the bags.

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    ‘Why didn’t you tell me you have these many books?’

    ‘I told you I’ve books.’

    He went on to accuse me of lying to him and he seemed eager to get me back to Nigeria. In no time, he told me he was going to inside to write his report. He ordered me to repack my bags. As he was leaving, I called him back.

    I had had this ill-feeling about something untoward happening at the entry point because of the quantity of the copies of the book. So, I inscribed “for donation to universities in the UK and US” on a carton with some copies of the book.

    ‘Please come. I need to show you something. I didn’t set out to lie to you.’

    He answered my plea.

    ‘Please come and see this.’

    I showed him the inscription and also called his attention to the fact that my ticket clearly indicated that I was UK-bound after my Houston stay. I told him the copies were not for sale in the US.

    I noticed his countenance softened but I still wasn’t sure what his final decision would be. He left me standing and lonely in the room. I thought of the friend waiting outside to pick me up. I thought of the anxiety she must have been in knowing that my flight had arrived long ago. I thought about being sent home. I thought about everything and anything.

    It reminded of an experience at the ever-bubbling Washington Dulles International. That day, I had arrived the airport and an official announced that those of us whose visas were on our current passports shouldn’t join the queue. We were to use the self-service kiosks. What the announcement didn’t add was that we were also going to be the set that would face routine search of our bags. As I got to where we would be searched, I saw a couple and it looked like they were going to be returned to their country because their credentials were found in their luggage when claimed to be in America on vacation. I was also on vacation and was spending it with my friend, Adeola Akinremi, who was an editor at This Day. He had graciously driven all the way from Maryland to fetch me. I was sure I had no contraband in my bags but with border agency officials, anything can happen.

    Akinremi’s amazing wife, Temitope (Super), had asked me to help bring some stuff from Lagos. I also had clothes for them from tailors. The officer who conducted the search queried why my luggage contained female dresses when my friend who I said I was coming to meet was a man.

    ‘They’re for his wife,’ I said, and he kept quiet.

    The official was black. He looked like an average Nigerian, his look traceable to the fact that millions of African Americans originated from Africa. No thanks to slave trade, people who could have been my nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts now speak with a slant I struggle to understand.

    As typical of them, the officer left me to repack my bags after satisfying himself. He bided me goodbye, and I left me to go and join my waiting friend. There was so much construction work going on at the airport and I would later find out that construction works never really stop there. It was a Herculean task finding our way out of the airport. With CCTV cameras everywhere we had to be careful not to take the wrong turn. The construction works had made the road networks snaky.

    We eventually figured things out and the next phase was figuring out how to get back to Adeola’s Maryland home. Google map came to our rescue; it also added to our woes. The whole conundrum was compounded when his phone’s battery went there. We were already in Downtown Baltimore at this time. Without a compass, he drove searching for a charger to charge the phone. We couldn’t get any and had to use the malfunctioning one in the car. It charged enough for him to manage to get us to his home where his wife had made meals to welcome me.

    Back to the Houston drama. Midnight had passed by the time the Houston border official returned. I had used the few minutes he was away to fix the mess he had created with my bags.

    ‘Have a good night,’ he said and handed me my passport. Relief washed over me. I quickly got in touch with my friend and briefed her about my ordeal. She had been worried, especially when my phone was also unavailable. I had had to switch it off while facing interrogation. With a heartbeat struggling to return to normal, I found my way to my friend who lamented how she had damaged her car’s rear light while cycling the airport to avoid using the paying car park. We drove away but my heartbeat was yet to return to normal.

    In the hotel where I stayed the night, the incident kept returning to my mind so sleep wasn’t enjoyed and for the rest of my time in Houston, I couldn’t rise beyond thinking about how I would have felt if I had been deported over copies of In The Name of Our Father.

    The next time I came to the US, I not only travelled lean; but I also kept almost everyone I knew in America in dark about my true arrival date. I never wanted anyone waiting for me at the airport and being roasted by anxiety in case border agency officials chose to be mad for no justifiable reason.

    My final take: As I walked the streets, I saw faces, faces that look like me, faces that look like people back home, faces whose looks are traceable to the fact that millions of African Americans originated from Nigeria. No thanks to slave trade, people who could have been my nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts now speak with a slant I struggle to understand.

  • Dele Giwa: Thirty-nine, thirty-nine

    Dele Giwa: Thirty-nine, thirty-nine

    In October, it will be thirty-nine years since the murder of Sunmonu Oladele Giwa, better known as Dele Giwa, the subject of ‘Born to Run’, the thrilling book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dele Olojede and Dr. Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, now of blessed memory.

    Though published about a year after Giwa’s shocking death, I only some weeks back had the honour to read this book, which lay bare Giwa’s dramatic life. What makes this year’s anniversary of Giwa’s parcel-bombing special is the rhythm of it all: He was thirty-nine at death and it is now thirty-nine years since evildoers took out his beautiful soul, who was editor-in-chief of Newswatch.

    The parcel that ended it all was delivered at Talabi Street, off Adeniyi Jones Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, on a Sunday morning while Christians worshipped in churches. House 25, the site of the unprecedented tragedy, later became a hospital where doctors saved lives. Today, it houses a newspaper, The New Telegraph.

    On that terrifying morning, death arrived in an envelope. Nigerians were shocked: Giwa was the first person in the country to be killed by a parcel bomb. Until then, many did not even know such a device existed.

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    He was in his study, having a late breakfast with colleague Kayode Soyinka, publisher of the London-based Africa Today and former Ogun State governorship aspirant, when the bomb went off. Giwa did not die immediately. He was rushed to the hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.

    Amid the rubble of the television set, louvres, chairs, table, and other household items, Giwa was quoted as saying: “They’ve got me!”

    Giwa, who studied English and Communication Arts at Brooklyn College in New York, earning both Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees, left a legacy time cannot erase. The refined journalist had a stint with The New York Times before returning home in 1976 at the urging of friends. His end was violent and unresolved. No one has definitively answered the question of who killed him.

    On that fateful Sunday, the parcel was handed to Giwa’s then 19-year-old son, Billy, who accepted it on his behalf. By the time Giwa tried to open it, the assailants had vanished. The blast tore open his lower body.

    Soyinka, then Newswatch’s London Bureau Chief, suffered perforated eardrums. He, too, was taken to the First Foundation Hospital in Ikeja, Lagos, for treatment before returning to the UK, where he has lived since, visiting Nigeria regularly in connection with Africa Today.

    Giwa reportedly said before opening the package: “This must be from the president.” The military president at the time was Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who has consistently denied any involvement in the murder.

    The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Giwa’s lawyer, led the campaign to hold Babangida accountable for the journalist’s death. Fawehinmi once secured court permission to sue two security chiefs, Col. Halilu Akilu and Lt. Col. A.K. Togun, who were then Director of Military Intelligence and Deputy Director of the State Security Service (SSS), respectively. But both men were exonerated for lack of evidence. Fawehinmi took the case to the Supreme Court and still lost. He also tried to get answers through the Oputa Panel. All to no avail.

    Years later, journalist and lawyer Richard Akinnola published a book titled Dele Giwa’s Murder: The Answered Question. Some days ago, Akinnola took on Yakubu Mohammed, one of Giwa’s colleagues, over his memoir, which painted Fawehinmi in a not-so-good light.

    Maj. Debo Basorun (rtd.), who was military press secretary to Babangida, also wrote a book on the subject. In a newspaper interview, Basorun said he was persecuted because of what he revealed about Giwa’s killing.

    “I was privy to some of the terrible things when we were in the army… My problem is 2011. I am one of those who know that he is connected to the death of Dele Giwa. That is why they have been trying to kill me. I was sent to do a dirty job in America in respect of Dele Giwa’s death. I refused to comply. When I came back, they threw me in jail. Newspapers reported it then. I protested. The press was on my side. I shouted from the rooftop that ‘these people want to kill me.’ They decided to send me to a unit in Makurdi, which was like Siberia then. I refused to go. Incidentally, the General Staff Headquarters, which was my unit (and Babangida’s too), issued an order that anyone wanting to leave the army should volunteer. It coincided with my ordeal. So I volunteered and resigned. I quoted their order in my resignation letter. But out of all who resigned then, mine was the only letter they rejected. I had to get lawyers. Alao Aka-Basorun was my lawyer.”

    Last year, Babangida published his autobiography, bluntly denying any role in Giwa’s killing. Many have since resigned themselves to fate. With security agencies failing to solve the case, some Nigerians now look to supernatural powers for answers.

    Until then, the question remains: Who killed Dele Giwa?

    My final take: Those who killed Dele Giwa failed. Woefully. They only succeeded in taking his soul. His spirit continues to live and, in this, we find the best of journalism and with that, we continue to speak truth to power not minding who feels offended.

  • The Shortlist

    The Shortlist

    The three finalists for this year’s The Nigeria Prize for Literature have been unveiled. Oyin Olugbile made the list with ‘Sanya’, her debut novel. Two-time Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma is in contention with his third novel, ‘The Road to the Country’. Nikki May completes the list with ‘This Motherless Land’.

    I have read the three books. When I reviewed ‘Sanya’, I described it in these words: Powerful. Magnificent. Page-turning. Epic. Fascinating. Brilliant. Unforgettable. I added: “She is one writer to look out for and the sky seems not enough for her to soar.”

    Olugbile opens her novel with Ajoke, a woman preoccupied with a journey to consult a seer. She and her husband, Aganju, are told their next child will be a warrior. When the baby arrives and turns out to be a girl, Aganju is disappointed. He believes the prophecy has failed, since in his world women cannot be warriors. They name the child Sanya. She grows into the protector of her fragile elder brother, Dada.

    Ajoke comes from a family of no renown. Aganju is heir to a lineage of warriors and royalty. Despite family objections, their love prevails and they marry. Their first child, Dada, is born with dreadlocks but poor health weakens him. After several stillbirths, Ajoke gives birth to Sanya, the supposed warrior child. She dies soon after, and Aganju, devastated, takes to drink until he is found dead. From this point, it becomes clear Olugbile has only used the parents as a bridge to the children’s tale.

    The novel is steeped in myth, tradition, fantasy and Yoruba cosmology. Olugbile focuses on Sanya, the different one. She hates menstrual cycles, despises marriage, dislikes the wrapper, and embraces the things society reserves for men. “Who says every woman must marry and give birth?” she asks her unmarried aunt, who tries to match her with a chief’s son.

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    Tragedy forces Sanya from home. Her growth from then on astonishes even her. She discovers she is part of a cosmic drama written before her birth, one that demands she step into roles meant for men. Meanwhile, Dada undergoes his own transformation, fulfilling visions he once dismissed as impossible.

    The story unfolds with suspense and speed, the reader compelled to keep turning pages. Told in the third person with multiple perspectives, the novel is rich in proverbs and Yoruba wisdom. Olugbile uses proverbs to anchor the narrative. The historical setting, distant from modernity, gives her the space to explore a fantastical world where gender roles are constantly questioned.

    At its heart, Sanya declares that strength and greatness are not limited by gender. It is a tale of love between a couple, between siblings, and for community. It also explores the power of forces beyond human control. One of its most enduring messages is captured in these words: “If they did not feel that her deeds were more important than her gender, then it was their own failing rather than her problem.”

    In my review of Obioma’s The Road to the Country, I described it as “a hard-hitting triumph of a novel.” Its characters, shaped by the author’s elegant voice, sing and compel us to dance along in this story of brotherhood, grief, guilt, love, friendship and redemption.

    Like in The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities, Obioma ends this book with a flourish, drawing on a 2015 poem of the same title he published in the Virginia Quarterly Review. I wrote: “By ending the novel with a metaphor where the road is compared to seen and unseen things, Obioma is sure again to leave readers closing the book and screaming, ‘Chigozie has done it again!’”

    I believed the novel had the makings of a Booker Prize winner. That recognition did not come, but now it competes for Africa’s biggest literary prize, with a cash award larger than Booker’s.

    The book tells of two men burdened by guilt, making decisions with life-changing consequences. Obioma adds a second layer of complexity by telling one man’s story through the “mirror” (opon Ifa) of the other, initially blurred but eventually clear. The vision includes glimpses of the city of the dead, giving the novel a cosmic depth.

    One of the men, the seer Igbala Oludamisi, foresees his wife’s death but cannot prevent it. Wracked with guilt, he seeks her fate in the afterlife through a ritual that allows him to witness the life of the second man, Kunle Aromire. Igbala follows Kunle from birth in 1947, through his fraught relationship with his younger brother Tunde, and into the maelstrom of the Biafran War.

    Kunle, a 19-year-old University of Lagos student, believes he can atone for Tunde’s misfortune by going after him in the East. With the Red Cross, he enters Biafra only to find a land full of obstacles. Soon, he is reciting oaths of loyalty: “I pledge to Biafra, my country… to fight as part of the Biafran Armed Forces with all my strength… knowing that the cost of desertion will be with my life.”

    Igbala watches as Kunle befriends Agnes, a female soldier, and discovers that even in war, love and friendship offer redemption.

    Obioma brings back history we try to bury: the 1953 Kano riots, the 1966 coup and its reprisals, the murder of Head of State Aguiyi Ironsi, and the bloody civil war. He shows how tribalism, lies, and violence continue to shape us. In his words, it feels as though “we killed our tomorrow yesterday.”

    The tension begins on page one and builds steadily. Through Tunde’s accident and disappearance into a war zone, the reader is pulled along in search of resolution.

    The novel is set in Akure, Obioma’s hometown, as well as Lagos and parts of Eastern Nigeria. Nigerian words appear naturally, without distracting explanations. Igbo and Yoruba blend seamlessly with English, creating prose that flows with authenticity. Grounded in Nigerian worldviews, the book captures both the ugliness of war and the healing balm of language.

    Nikki May’s ‘This Motherless Land’, which I have just read, comes across as an unflinching coming-of-age tale. It explores the challenges and peculiarities of being both Nigerian and English.

    It spans continents and generations. Moving between England and Nigeria, it follows two extraordinary cousins, one half-Nigerian-and-half-English and the other fully English, whose bond sustains and destroys them in equal measure.

    At the centre is Funke, a gentle Nigerian girl nurtured by her parents’ intellectual warmth and her own creativity. Her life is upended when tragedy sends her to England to live with her White mother’s family,  a family whose patriach disowned her mother for marrying a black man. The reality she meets there is a dilapidated estate, unfamiliar food, and cold relatives, softened only by Liv, her spirited cousin.

    Liv, raised in a joyless home called The Ring, finds in Funke the companion she has long craved. Their bond deepens into sisterhood, and for a while, it shields them from family fractures. But history and tragedy resurface, tearing them apart through ambition, geography, and betrayal.

    Spanning two decades between Somerset and Lagos, May crafts a sweeping narrative about culture, race, and the legacy of family choices. Her prose lingers on grey skies, strained meals, and the vibrant rhythms of Lagos while probing deeper questions: How do we find home when caught between worlds? Can love bridge divides carved by a history so unpleasant?

    My final take: With these three remarkable works, the judges have a difficult task ahead. Is this Chigozie Obioma’s year to take home the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature? Or is it the turn of debut novelist Oyin Olugbile? Or will Nikki May, published by Narrative Landscape, triumph over the Masobe Books duo? We will know in October. For now, congratulations to the trio, whose heartbeats will only quicken as the countdown begins.

  • Echoes of terrorism

    Echoes of terrorism

    Terrorism in Nigeria did not begin yesterday or even the day before. Its roots run deeper, dating back to the early 2000s when Boko Haram emerged in the country’s Northeast. What began as a small, fringe sect railing against Western education and government institutions soon mutated into a hydra-headed monster that has defied easy containment.

    Boko Haram’s campaign of terror unleashed waves of violence that shook Nigeria to its core. Villages were razed, schools were attacked, thousands abducted, and countless lives shattered. The group’s brutality became a chilling symbol of the fragility of national security, exposing both the weaknesses of the state and the resilience of ordinary Nigerians caught in the storm.

    Over time, the scourge of Boko Haram inspired splinter groups, metastasizing into banditry, kidnapping rings, and other violent insurgencies that now stretch across multiple regions. What was once a localised insurgency has become a national security crisis, with ripple effects felt beyond Nigeria’s borders.

    The enormity of this tragedy has found its way into literature, academia, and popular discourse. Writers, scholars, and journalists have sought to make sense of the horror, documenting stories of survival, resilience, betrayal, and complicity. From hard-hitting investigative nonfiction that exposes the failures of governance, to haunting fictional works that reimagine the human cost of terror, Boko Haram has left behind not just a trail of destruction but also a body of literature that attempts to reckon with its impact.

    A United States-based writer, Linda N. Masi, has entered the fray. The novel is titled ‘Fine Dreams’ and it is one of the eleven books on this year’s Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist.

    Masi’s treatment of the terrorism challenge seems to suggest there are stories the living cannot tell, not because they forget, but because they are not equipped to do so.

    In Masi’s debut novel, the dead speak not only to remember, but to warn, to mourn, and to watch.

    When we first meet Kubra in the prologue of this slim debut novel, she is alive, living in a community near the now world-famous Chibok. But by the opening chapter, Kubra has been dead for several months.

    Her spirit, restless and unwilling to move on, lingers in her town. In her own voice, she recounts the haunting story of how she died. We watch her silently observe her grieving mother, who struggles to accept the cruel finality of her daughter’s fate.

    Before her death, one of Kubra’s dreams was to see her athletic team, made up of three other girls, win a major tournament. Now, as a ghost, she monitors the team from beyond, curious to see who will take her place and whether her dream will survive her.

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    She returns to the spot where death claimed her, hoping to discover what will allow her spirit to finally rest. But instead of closure, she finds signs that life in the town has moved on. Houses once damaged have been rebuilt. Shops that burned have been restocked. The mosque has reopened its doors to worshippers.

    It is during one of these visits that Kubra comes to a chilling realisation that there may be truth in the saying: one’s neighbor’s footprints should never be ruled out in one’s misfortune. She sees Mama Lakhmi, a supposedly close family friend, speaking with a young man. Soon after, the woman visits Kubra’s mother, who is currently suspended from her post as a school’s administrative vice principal, and gives her a product, which she gets paid for. They talk about the step she intends to take towards her reinstatement.

    Kubra watches, disturbed. Her mother welcomes the woman warmly, unaware of the betrayal unfolding before her. Kubra realises that Mama Lakhmi is not the trusted friend she claims to be. Devastated and furious, she screams at the woman, calls her a traitor, and pleads with her to leave her mother, brother, and friends alone. But her voice, bound by death, carries no weight and vanishes into thin air.

    Sensing trouble ahead because of the ominous cloud, Kubra begins to fear for the people she left behind: her friends Aquamarine, Grace, Gaddo, and Safiya, the girl who has taken her place on the team.

    It is at this moment that we get to properly meet Aquamarine and the others and the narration changes from first person to third person.

    Before the narration segues back to Kubra, terrorists have abducted Aquamarine, Grace, Gaddo, Safiya and other girls from their dormitories.

    The book lays bare the manifold evils of terrorism, exposing its brutal disregard for humanity. We see terrorists masquerading as soldiers, perverting the honour of military service into a mask for brutality. We witness suicide bombers, mostly young women turned into weapons, their lives reduced to political statements. We see the abduction and impregnation of underage girls, their bodies seen not as sacred but as spoils of war, used to breed the next generation of fighters or to humiliate entire communities. Amina’s story paints a grisly picture of how life after captivity loses meaning and each daybreak brings humongous pain.

    We see that to these extremists, anyone who resists their twisted ideology is branded an infidel, marked for death, exile, or subjugation. The violence they unleash, the book shows, is not just physical but psychological and cultural, rupturing communities and sowing generational trauma. The author aptly captures the fact that their war is not only against people but against reason, freedom and memory. And against sense and sensibilities. Even against fairness and justice.

    The novel raises some thought-provoking poser: What does it say about a nation when bomb blasts and massacres become routine news? Why do we focus on labels instead of solutions? Is naming an act of avoidance or political maneuvering? What has become of military intelligence if soldiers can’t even be safe in their own barracks? Are institutions crumbling from within? What happens when grief becomes part of the household décor?

    Masi’s debut is not an easy read, not because the language isn’t smooth enough or too difficult to understand, but because of the subject of terrorism and the need to sometimes close the book, try to make sense of the horrors on one chapter or page before going further into the dark world of men who feel that God has assigned them to police our morals.

    My final take: Terrorism has brought nothing but pain to Nigeria. It has killed, maimed, and incapacitated thousands, leaving families and communities shattered. We must act decisively to curb it and urgently too. Yes, terrorism is a global menace that has proven difficult to eradicate, but bringing it under control in our nation is not just necessary, it is an obligation we cannot afford to neglect.

  • On Akin Adesokan’s South Side

    On Akin Adesokan’s South Side

    “Anything we do, as humans, it requires struggle. Love, for example. It’s a beautiful emotion to have, but it doesn’t go on by itself. It needs work, effort, to keep it going, to not take the loved one for granted. Any kind of love, whether romance, between family members, friends… Struggle is important for it. What do you call it? Keeping eyes open… yes, vigilance!”

    For a long time to come, this quote from Akin Adesokan’s sophomore novel, South Side, will stay with me.

    In the novel’s prologue, a reader is likely to ask: What exactly is going on here? Especially with the alliterative opener “Short, short-sighted, and short-tempered, the mastermind settled in with an attitude of self-importance” that expands into a repulsive caricature of an African despot “with blood literally in his hands.” The perceptive reader will recognise the historical allusion that unfolds in this prologue as the assassination of figures like Patrice Lumumba in Congo or Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau. Thus, from early on, the author situates the narrative in a literary culture that mourns the betrayal of anti-colonial ideals, exposing the grotesque realities of neo-colonial power where enlightened leadership is supplanted by brute force, while at the same time critiques Western journalism on Africa.

    This incident alone – a coup in which an elite politician, Sir Koroma Fouta, is murdered in the chaos following – is not merely a background or sociological filler in the novel but demonstrates how such political disruption affects individual lives contributing to displacement, especially for the unanchored diasporic Africans. Abel Dankor, the narrator, is one such individual. For him, this singular event further complicates his dislocation and quickly spirals into a persistent disquiet. When he receives the news, Abel is a writer at a residency in a Western country carrying the hope that his revered mentor, Sir Koroma Fouta, a celebrated poet, will help him secure the citizenship of a country, Mande – a fictional West African country he has lived the longest. But just as the path to belonging begins to unfold, the chaos following the military coup reported in a newsletter thrust into his hand in the prologue leaves him adrift once more – stateless, with no country to really call his own or home.

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    This is a peculiar problem besetting more than four million people worldwide, according to a UNHCR estimate. These are people who are not recognised as a citizen by any state under its laws, or have any means of identification attached to a country, and in effect, results in the denial of their basic rights inherent in the UN protocols, including access to education, healthcare, employment, and freedom of movement. The consequences of statelessness are actually profound, perpetuating cycles of marginalization and vulnerability. This is why efforts to combat statelessness include international frameworks like the UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign, launched in 2014 to end statelessness by 2024, which ironically has not achieved that purpose.

    As the narrative progresses, it draws us into a murky emotional landscape. While processing his uncertainty, Abel encounters Valeria, a woman with a mysterious past, and a tentative friendship appears to be taking shape before her sudden departure to attend to personal matters leaves a void. Yet it also stirs in Abel the deeper question: should he resume his pursuit of a permanent residence in Mande or surrender to the unexpected bond growing between him and Valeria? Valeria becomes a mirror, not just for his yearning, but for the haunting question of where, or with whom, true belonging might lie. While Valerie’s full story, when we eventually find out, turns out to be a major asset of this novel and one likely to make a reader doff their hat to Adesokan. The suspenseful manner the author treats Valeria’s past from the first to the third part of the novel is the stuff great fiction is made of.

    Still in search of an anchor, Abel gets involved with some women. During a residency at an artists’ resort in Italy, he becomes entangled in a passionate affair with Flavia, the director of the resort, who also happens to be married. Despite her husband’s looming presence, his ‘omnipresence’ proves powerless to stop the escalating intensity between Flavia and Abel. Their connection deepens beyond fleeting desire, growing into something so consuming that Flavia begins speaking of divorce, determined to break free in order to be with Abel without restraint. Their romance, between a younger Black man and a white woman in the 1950s, raises eyebrows. When they walk through town, children stare and adults point. To Flavia, those who oppose them are nothing more than racists and fascists who know no better. But to Abel, the pointed fingers are an omen. The romantic end, when it comes, arrives quietly, almost mercifully, in the words: “If you love him, let him go.”

    After Flavia comes Jeanne, who jilts him via a long, deliberate letter that spares no softness, accusing him of unforgivable vanity pierce and offering only hollow nods to her dream of an Africa freed from the chains of superstition. Her absence leaves a silence he does not name. Into that space, not long after his return to Mande, steps Jilo, a medical doctor with a quiet, exacting gaze, once promised in childhood to the traditional healer who had wrestled her from death’s grasp when she was a newborn – a reminder of the uneasy braid between science and tradition, and of the bargains parents strike when might and helplessness share the same ground.

    In Mande, the spectre of politics is never far away. Yacouba, Abel’s childhood friend, adds a layer of complexity to not only Abel’s conflicted decisions but also Mande’s troubled history with his emergence as a key political figure. For Abel, these questions arise: Should loyalty to a shared past shape his choices about the future? Or, is ambition enough reason to return home or is home now an idea too fractured to reclaim? Beneath these questions lies the deeper ache of statelessness, a condition that haunts many Africans who cannot lay claim to any citizenship of a country, because of border shift, war, etc. Yet this is no uniquely African problem; from Gaza to the displaced millions of Ukraine, the dislocation of identity and belonging is an unquiet crisis of our global age.

    In this novel, the author’s status as a professor of comparative literature is on full throttle. Lovers of classic literature, particularly French, British, and Caribbean, will find in this novel rich intertextualities worth exploring. Within its pages, we encounter Molière, the towering figure of French drama; François Rabelais, Renaissance satirist and philosopher; Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, visionaries of speculative fiction; and C.L.R. James, the brilliant Caribbean polymath whose thought spans literature, politics, sport, and history. These influences are not merely ornamental, they are woven into the intellectual and emotional fabric of Abel’s journey, illuminating the ideas that shape him. Abel’s story, told in the first-person narrative that is grafted with an intellectual heft of the characters you will find in the fiction of say, Wole Soyinka or Abdulrazaq Gurnah, has contemplative, retrospective and prospective qualities to it.

     Adesokan writes with the confidence of a maestro, guiding every word and scene with precision, each moment rising and falling in the perfect rhythm of a language. Simply put, he is a master of the English language. His narrative voice is warm, erudite and steady pulling you into a setting so vivid you can almost live in it. Though Italy, England, Denmark and the United States drift through the pages of this novel, it is Mande, the fictional West African country he has created, that lingers bearing semblance with any of its real-world counterparts. It breathes in the dust of its crowded streets, where police can halt a funeral for want of a permit, where tempers flare and fists fly as easily as greetings, where the old fevers of ethnicity never quite sleep. It is a land where virtue, vice, and all that lies between walk the same roads, neither outpacing nor outlasting the other.

    My final take: Mande is familiar for its afflictions. Africa and Africans need to find a way to rise above the things that have afflicted us and continue to hold us down. Our place isn’t down. It is up and we must start heading there now.

  • While the hourglass still glows

    While the hourglass still glows

    I believe in Nigeria. But belief without truth is delusion. And the truth is this: if Nigeria is to thrive, some things must change, and radically too. Without changes, incompetence will continue to defer dreams and lives will be buried beneath the weight of preventable tragedies.

    The things that need to change are not mysteries. We’ve known them for years. What has been missing is the collective will to act.

    How can we act when politicians turn elections into coronations and public offices into personal empires? The average Nigerian politician acts like a conqueror, not a servant. And we let them. Public service in Nigeria remains a route to wealth, not a platform for impact. From local government chairmen to governors and ministers, many are more focused on convoy sizes than hospital conditions. I’ve watched health centres crumble while ribbon-cutting ceremonies are televised in high definition.

    This must change. We need leaders who see governance not as a hustle but as stewardship. We need leaders who come to power with ideas, not just ambition. Until we hold our leaders to moral and intellectual standards, not tribal or transactional ones, we will keep repeating the same national tragedy.

    We say we’re a federation, but almost everything flows from Abuja: resources, decisions, even hope. Governors behave like CEOs of companies that produce nothing but consume everything. Why should a state rich in agriculture, tech talent, or tourism be broke simply because oil prices crashed? Why do we need federal approval for local innovation?

    I believe it’s time for true federalism. Let every state control its resources, define its future, and be held accountable by its people. I want to live in a Nigeria where Ogun competes with Enugu, and where Borno doesn’t have to wait on Abuja to secure its borders or educate its children. The centre cannot hold everything.

    Epileptic power supply is still a thing in our country. I’ve watched businesses fold under diesel costs. I’ve spoken to students who study under streetlights and tailors who iron clothes with charcoal iron. We cannot industrialise or even modernise without fixing electricity. And it’s shameful that despite decades of reform and billions spent, we still have epileptic power supply. Electricity is not a luxury; it’s infrastructure for progress. We must embrace renewable energy, decentralise power generation, and hold DisCos accountable for theft disguised as billing. States should be allowed to develop and manage their own grids. If we don’t fix power, we can forget every other dream, from job creation to digital innovation.

    I have seen people whose parents worked thirty years in public service and now live in poverty because their pensions were either delayed, slashed, or stolen. I’ve spoken to teachers who go months without salary but still show up to class.

    We demand efficiency from civil servants, yet treat them like expendables. We can’t reform the civil service without restoring dignity to it. That means prompt payment, competitive wages, and performance-based growth, not just payroll cleaning and PR committees. You can’t ask someone to build the nation with an empty stomach and a broken spirit. What they are paid now only encourages corruption because it can’t take care of their needs.

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    I grew up hearing that no one is above the law, but I’ve lived long enough to know that in Nigeria, the law often avoids the powerful. Corruption is so normalised that when someone actually gets prosecuted, it feels like a miracle.

    I’ve seen probes go nowhere. I’ve watched scandals trend for days, only to fade into silence. I’ve seen whistleblowers punished while looters run for office.

    We must end this culture of impunity. We need strong, truly independent institutions, not ones that wait for presidential permission before acting. We need public records, open contracts, and digital traceability.

    And most of all, we need to start rewarding integrity, not just influence.

    As someone who benefited from public education, it hurts to see the decay. Classrooms are overcrowded. Lecturers are poorly paid. Children in rural areas sit on bare floors. Ghanaians turned us to a butt of jokes recently sharing pictures of hostels in our tertiary institutions. How do we expect to build a 21st-century economy with 19th-century schools?

    We must invest, not just in infrastructure, but in people. Teachers should be treated as essential workers. Students should be exposed to technology early. Our curriculum must evolve to include entrepreneurship, ethics, and problem-solving.

    No society has ever prospered while neglecting its educators and its children. Ours will not be the exception.

    Our problem is not just about leadership. We, the led, also need to change. It’s easy to point fingers at ‘the system’, but the system is made up of us. I’ve seen people cheat in exams, bribe police officers, hoard fuel, inflate prices during emergencies, and rig elections, all while cursing politicians on social media.

    Our population is booming and our youth are restless. We cannot continue with cosmetic reforms and expect structural change.

    I believe Nigeria can rise. I believe we can fix power, pay workers a truly living wage, educate our children at global standard, hold leaders accountable and rebuild trust in this wounded republic.

    But that will require more than tweets and prayers. It will require sustained effort, painful sacrifices, and courageous conversations.

    My final take: We can’t demand a just Nigeria while practising injustice in our daily lives. We can’t call for reforms while upholding dysfunction. I believe that a new Nigeria must begin with a new mindset. It starts with showing up, speaking out, doing right and refusing to be complicit in rot. We need to change our ways while the hourglass still glows.

  • Solidarity of pariahs

    Solidarity of pariahs

    Nigeria is not where we want it. It is, in fact, far away from it. So, the news of a coalition vowing to take us there should be exciting. But, there is a lacuna when a look at the men and women in this coalition reveals they have, for decades, had the opportunity to do what they are now promising.

    Let’s unpack things this way: There is something oddly powerful about being cast aside. About being deemed unworthy of the table where others dine and decide. It is in the margins that solidarity often takes root, not in grandeur, but in grit.

    Like moths circling a dimmed flame, those in the margins are finding each other again, not necessarily out of love for country, but out of a mutual need to reclaim lost relevance. This is the solidarity of pariahs, a congregation of political heavyweights shut out of Bola Tinubu’s inner circle, quietly building the machinery to challenge him in 2027.

    To be a pariah in Nigerian politics is often temporary. Today’s exile is tomorrow’s kingmaker. Those outside the circle of power have discovered that redemption requires coordination. Thus, they are banding together under a single mission: end Tinubu’s reign.

    The signs began to emerge months after the 2023 election, when it became clear that the Tinubu presidency would become stronger with governors, senators and House of Representatives members defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Atiku Abubakar, the perennial PDP presidential candidate, is not done. He leads the pack of the aggrieved. Despite his sixth consecutive loss, he has refused to retire. Instead, he is reaching across lines he once mocked. Peter Obi, who captured the imagination of millions of urban youth, is also outside in the cold, not just of government, but of the wider policy conversation. In the months since the 2023 election, Atiku and Obi have met a number of times. Both, after denying merger rumours despite their body language betraying ambition, are now in a coalition glued by solidarity of being pariahs. Their dictum is: the enemy of my political stagnation is my new best friend.

    Then there is Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the kingmaker from Kano and leader of the NNPP. Kwankwaso, initially courted by Tinubu’s allies, has now veered sharply into opposition. The political math is compelling: Obi controls Southeast sentiments; Kwankwaso owns Kano; Atiku holds sway in the Northeast and parts of the Middle Belt. Together, they represent a formidable, if unstable, coalition. But it is a coalition born of exclusion, a gathering of the left out and the pushed aside.

    But the pariah club isn’t just made up of former presidential hopefuls. There is also Nasir El‑Rufai, ex-Kaduna State governor who would have been a minister in the Tinubu government, but for last-minute rigmarole. El-Rufai, now a pariah, has become one of the harshest critics of the Tinubu administration. When he attacks the government, my disdain for politics and politicking mounts. There is also Rotimi Amaechi, ex-Speaker, ex-governor, ex-minister, but now a pariah. Amaechi is hungry. He hasn’t hidden this and he has teamed up with hungry lions like him to see how to tear the prey and take over the arena once again. It is cold being out there after eight years as Speaker, eight years as governor and eight years as minister. We also have David Mark, ex-military big boy and ex-Senate President. He has been made the symbol of the coalition.

    Rauf Aregbesola, the scribe of the pariah, is a man whose recent acts is another reason why politics and politicking will be difficult for me to embrace. Aregbesola, a former Commissioner of Works in Lagos, former governor of Osun State and former Minister of Interior, would have been an unknown engineer plying his trade in Alimosho if not for his association with Tinubu, whose influence gave him all the offices he has held. His falling out with Tinubu remains a mystery. He was so close to Tinubu that, according to Professor Sola Adeyeye, the president once remarked that if he were asleep with Aregbesola standing over him holding a dagger, no one should dare wake him—such was his trust that Aregbesola would never harm him. What could have gone wrong? My only guess is that it has to do with the politics of Osun State, especially regarding Aregbesola’s successor, Adegboyega Oyetola.

    Read Also: EU, stakeholders discuss plans to accelerate Nigeria’s energy transition

    The pariah club also swells with more familiar names: Abubakar Malami, the former Justice Minister who once whispered law into the ears of the President; John Odigie-Oyegun, aged steward of a party he no longer recognises; Uche Secondus, former helmsman of the PDP’s battered ship; and Aminu Tambuwal, whose eyes seems to still be scanning the horizon for a presidential dawn. Once fixtures in the engine room of power, they circle back, not stirred by duty or the country’s broken heart, but by a quieter hunger: the ache to be seen, to be counted, to matter still.

    Instructively, the key members of this club helped build the very system they now criticise. Atiku was Vice President in an era of privatisation scandals. Obi governed Anambra with a technocratic aloofness some still critique. Kwankwaso has been everything from defence minister to governor for eight broken years. Others too have had their years as insiders. Can they truly become the change they claim to seek?

    Certainly, this is not yet a revolution. Is it even a movement? But it is something potent: a solidarity of pariahs, forged not by shared dreams, but by shared exile.

    My final take: It is possible that pariahs can become prophets if they can agree on who leads and who follows. But, because the solidarity of pariahs is usually fragile, how that will work out remains to be seen. From his body language, Atiku still believes he should lead. Obi, from what I can see, believes it is his turn. Kwankwaso, too, sees himself as the Northern alternative, a force to reckon with, a god that must be deified. With this scenario, none will easily submit. And egos, more than ideology, have broken more coalitions than ambition ever did.

  • Thoughts on Nigeria Prize for Literature’s list

    Thoughts on Nigeria Prize for Literature’s list

    This year’s the Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist showcases a diverse range of narratives. In some of them, ghosts and otherworldly figures are characters. 

     Two of the eleven authors on the list are past winners. Chika Unigwe won the prize in 2012 and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim won it in 2016.

    Of the eleven books, I have read nine and had a taste of the other two, Ayo Oyeku’s ‘Petrichor’ and Nikki May’s ‘This Motherless Land’.

    Ungwe is nominated for ‘The Middle Daughter’, which follows Nani, Ugo, Ephraim, the ancestor, Udodi, and others in this modern retelling of the Greek mythology of Hades and Persephone. Fresh off two tragedies, Ephraim becomes the shoulder Nani leans on. She tells him things she can’t tell Mother or Ugo. She looks forward to seeing him, talking to him and receiving the small, small gifts he has cultivated the habit of bringing. Ugo notices their closeness and starts calling him her boyfriend.

    Ugo and Mother eventually leave for America and Ephraim becomes Nani’s husband and father of her children, and she is estranged from Ugo and Mother. Ephraim becomes a disappointment but Nani is stuck with him and her centre is unable to hold.

    The author shows that humans are complex and dwell in moral ambiguity, and principle is the first casualty when our interests are at risk.

    Ibrahim is on the list for his sophomore novel, ‘When We Were Fireflies’. Like his first novel, this new one, has an opening that can compete as one of the best ever written: “The first time Yarima Lalo saw a train trundling into the Idu Station on a hot June day in Abuja was also the first time it occurred to him that once, many years before, he had been murdered in the carriage of an old locomotive with well-worn, seaweed-green seats.”

    The author brilliantly reimagines the fantastical beliefs that shape the thinking of millions of us. And his use of real events, such as the Kafanchan riots, the capture and killing of Boko Haram founder and several others, roots his magical rendition in realism and teases believability and will set you thinking, make you ask questions, question what you know and imagine new possibilities.

    Another major force on the list is two-time Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma with his war-time novel, ‘The Road To The Country’.

    The novel tells the story of two men battling guilt which leads them to take decisions with far-reaching consequences.

    Obioma adds a second layer that takes away the ordinariness with his clever choice of letting the story of one character unfold through the other’s ‘mirror’ (opon Ifa), which at first appears blurry but eventually becomes clear and meaningful.

    Aside the divination touch, there is also something extraordinary about how the vision is presented. There is a sub-layer about the city of the dead, which gives the author a cosmic take on the war and the afterlife.

    In a precise and elegant voice, Obioma makes his characters sing and we dance along with them in this tale of brotherhood, grief, guilt, love, friendship and redemption.

    I have also read Yewande Omotoso’s entry on the list. It is her third novel, ‘An Unusual Grief’, which follows Mojisola, a mother who arrives Johannesburg from Cape Town, in search of a better understanding of her dead daughter Yinka who left home after catching her professor father pants down with his young assistant.

    On the surface, ‘An Unusual Grief’ is about a mother and her dead daughter, but it is much more. Omotoso’s prose is simple but certainly not simplistic. She appears to deploy words with empathy, perhaps because of the subject matter of grief.

    With his sixth novel, ‘Leave My Bones in Saskatoon’, Michael Afenfia grabs a slot on the list. The novel starts on Owoicho Adakole’s happiest day, which also turns out to be his saddest. Earlier, he got the green light to move with his family to Saskatoon city in Saskatchewan Province in Canada after two years of tedious paperwork, but then his wife and three of their children were killed by armed bandits in Benue State. The only survivor is their 15-year-old daughter, Ochanya, who was in Abuja for a school event.

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    ‘Leave My Bones in Saskatoon’ also hints at the downside of migrating as an adult, the loneliness most immigrants wrestle with, the cultural and culinary differences, the extreme temperatures, and the absence of familiar community. Even with steady jobs and a working system, they are constantly nostalgic about home. Owoicho misses home but the uncertainty about the state of things in Nigeria convinces him that his decision to ‘japa’ was one of the best things he ever did.

    One of the debut novels on the list is ‘Fine Dreams’ by US-based Linda N. Masi. The novel is narrated in parts by the ghost of a girl named Kubra  whose restless spirit lingers in her town. In her own voice, she recounts the haunting story of how she died. We watch her silently observe her grieving mother, who struggles to accept the cruel finality of her daughter’s fate.

    The book lays bare the manifold evils of terrorism, exposing its brutal disregard for humanity. We see terrorists masquerading as soldiers, perverting the honour of military service into a mask for brutality. We witness suicide bombers, mostly young women turned into weapons, their lives reduced to political statements. We see the abduction and impregnation of underage girls, their bodies seen not as sacred but as spoils of war, used to breed the next generation of fighters or to humiliate entire communities.

    I have also had the honour of reading Oyin Olugbile’s debut novel, Sanya, which took a well-deserved slot on the list.

    It is about a woman named Sanya, the one who defies death and serves as the protector of her elder brother, Dada.

    In this tale steeped in myth, culture, tradition, fantasy and more, Olugbile takes us on an adventure, a roller-coaster on the lives of the couple’s children, but with a special slot for Sanya, the special one, the warrior. 

    Sanya is just different. Almost everything that interests a girl makes her uncomfortable. She hates menstrual cycles. She despises the idea of marriage. And she hates the wrapper. She likes almost everything the world claims belongs to men.

    This gem of a book will take you on a path only few mortals have trod and you will see, hear and feel things beyond this world and your soul will hum tunes of joy for being led to such a path. 

    I have also read Chioma Okereke’s ‘Water Baby’, which uses Makoko, a Lagos slum to tell a very important story and in a beautiful way. Like ‘Fine Dreams’, there is also a ghost in ‘Water Baby’, but not as a narrator, but as the sibling of the narrator who goes on to conquer the world despite her humble beginning.

    My final take: The judges of the Nigeria Prize for Literature must have gone through hell coming up with a list of 11 from over 250 entries received. As an avid reader and reviewer of Nigerian literature, I know that scores of fantastic books have been written in the last four years. At the end of the day, a winner will emerge, but all on the list are winners in a way and they deserve to rejoice no matter what eventually happens when one of them is chosen in October.

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    The judges of the Nigeria Prize for Literature must have gone through hell coming up with a list of 11 from over 250 entries received. At the end of the day, a winner will emerge, but all on the list are winners in a way and they deserve to rejoice no matter what eventually happens when one of them is chosen in October

  • America’s doctor appointment dilemma

    America’s doctor appointment dilemma

    In the acclaimed land of abundance, the almighty America, doctors are not abundant. Dozens of Americans recently took to social media to voice their frustration over the painfully long wait times to see medical specialists. One user shared that her friend, a stroke survivor, could not secure a neurology appointment until May 2026. She herself was told the earliest availability with a gastrointestinal specialist was in November. Countless others echoed similar stories, shedding light on what appears to be a widespread and troubling reality.

    A 2025 survey by AMN Healthcare found that the average wait for a physician appointment in the nation’s 15 largest metro areas has reached 31 days, the longest average wait since the survey began in 2004. Breakdowns by specialty are even more alarming: family physicians are booked roughly 23.5 days out; OB‑GYNs around 42 days; cardiologists 33 days; and gastroenterologists approximately 40 days. In Boston, patients reportedly wait an average of 67 days to see a physician.

    Nationally, data from a 2022 AMN/Merritt Hawkins survey showed that average wait times increased from 21 days in 2004 to 26 days overall, with family medicine averaging 20.6 days. While primary care saw modest improvement, thanks to the growth of telemedicine, urgent care centers, and retail clinics care wait times ballooned: up 48 percent in orthopedics, 26 percent in cardiology, and 19 percent in OB‑GYN. Even among established patients, e‑consult polling indicates that nearly 1 in 5 Americans wait between one and three months for either primary or specialty care. In urban centers like Portland, the average wait for new patients is 46 days.

    Post-COVID, Americans have been rescheduling care they deferred during the pandemic. In 2021 alone, 20 percent of patients delayed care, and 57 percent of them reported negative health outcomes as a result. Meanwhile, the AAMC projects a shortfall of between 13,500 and 86,000 physicians by 2036. Nearly half of current primary care doctors are over 55 and approaching retirement, and burnout is pushing many to leave the field early.

    Administrative burdens compound the problem. Doctors now spend about two hours on records and insurance tasks for every hour of direct patient care, thanks to inefficient Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and insurance bureaucracy. A typical primary care panel may exceed 1,300 patients, with many physicians spending three to four additional hours each night on computer work. Financial incentives tied to in-person visits encourage practices to cram 20–35 patients into a day, often allowing just 10–15 minutes per appointment.

    Access issues are worse in rural America. About 30 million people live more than an hour from a trauma hospital. Rural areas average just 5.1 primary care doctors per 10,000 residents compared to 8.0 in urban areas. Roughly 8 percent of rural counties have no doctors at all, and nearly half of Americans live over 25 miles from a top-ranked hospital.

    These delays are more than an inconvenience; they have serious health consequences. Each additional week of waiting increases the risk of undetected chronic disease, delayed cancer diagnoses, uncontrolled hypertension or diabetes, and unmonitored progression of musculoskeletal and cardiovascular conditions. The stakes are life and death: longer wait times correlate with higher morbidity and mortality.

    The experience of waiting is itself stressful. One 29‑year‑old designer spent 14 months trying to see a primary care physician after discovering a neck lump, paying a $350 uninsured bill to be seen out-of-network after traveling hours for care. The chronic anxiety and uncertainty of such waits impose real emotional and financial costs. Insurance churn and prolonged delays often push patients to pay out-of-network or skip care altogether.

    For many, the emergency room becomes the default alternative. Three-quarters of Americans say it’s easier to go to the ER than to secure a doctor’s appointment. This unnecessary ER utilisation is up to 12 times more expensive, adding $32 billion annually to wasteful healthcare spending.

    Operational hassles only deepen patient frustration: waiting on hold, navigating online portals, and sitting in cramped lobbies erode trust. Over a third of Medicare patients endure appointment delays of more than a month, and 83 million Americans live in areas with inadequate access to primary care.

    Retail clinics and urgent care centers have helped relieve some pressure. CVS’s MinuteClinic reports that 13 million Americans live within 10 miles of one, and it treated over 5 million patients in 2022, often with wait times under 20 minutes. These options have helped reduce average family medicine wait times by about 30 percent, down to roughly 20.6 days.

    To restore timely and equitable care, the U.S. needs a comprehensive overhaul that tackles the problem from all sides. First, we must invest in training more doctors, especially primary care providers and specialists willing to serve in the areas that need them most. Expanding residency slots and creating meaningful incentives for rural practice can help close the looming physician shortfall.

    But fixing the workforce alone isn’t enough. The way people pay for care needs to change. Instead of a fee-for-service model that rewards high volumes of quick, in-person visits, it should shift to value-based or capitated payment structures that emphasize continuity, coordination, and even virtual care.

    Reducing administrative burdens is also essential. By bringing on more medical assistants and scribes, and making electronic records truly interoperable, America can free doctors from hours of paperwork and let them focus on their patients.

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    Expanding telehealth and retail clinic integration will be critical too. It needs to make sure that labs, diagnostics, specialist consultations, and chronic disease management can happen outside traditional offices, especially in the so-called “medical deserts” where options are scarce.

    Equally important is ensuring reimbursement parity, so insurers and Medicare pay the same for urgent care and telehealth visits as they do for traditional clinic appointments. This will encourage patients to use these more accessible alternatives instead of overloading conventional practices.

    Improving digital access is another key step. Investing in centralised call centers, intuitive scheduling systems, and AI-powered triage tools can reduce the operational hassles that frustrate patients and keep them from getting timely care.

    Finally, to ensure care is available everywhere, America should promote geographic equity by offering scholarships, loan forgiveness, and tax incentives to clinicians who choose to work in rural or underserved communities.

    Only by addressing all these interconnected issues can America hope to restore trust in the system and ensure everyone can see a doctor when they need one.

    The solutions are clear and feasible. Other countries achieve far shorter waits by emphasizing primary care, embracing flexible delivery models, and aligning incentives. Retail clinics, e‑consults, and telemedicine provide scalable improvements, but they are no substitute for comprehensive reform.

    My final take: Waiting 30, 40, or 60 days to see a doctor is not just inconvenient; it is a growing threat to health, equity, and the value Americans receive for their high healthcare spending. Delays worsen diagnoses, exacerbate conditions, strain mental health, and undermine the doctor–patient relationship. Without structural reform, these wait times will only grow worse as physician shortages deepen and the population ages.

  • The Buhari, Awujale in Babarinsa’s book

    The Buhari, Awujale in Babarinsa’s book

    On Saturday, July 12, 2025, I reached the last page of ‘One Day and A Story: Reminiscences of an African Journalist’, Dare Babarinsa’s woven walk through newsrooms, nations, cities and nuances. The book contains memories that leave you sitting still for a moment, as though history itself had paused to breathe.

    Had I been in Nigeria, the date would have been Sunday, July 13, a day that wrote itself into memory with unexpected weight. It was the day Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president, and Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland, two men whose names walked through the pages I had just turned, took their final leave of the world.

    Buhari, stoic, elusive, both soldier and statesman, ruled twice but healed little. For all the power he held, he could not build a hospital fit to mend his own breaking body. In the end, it was not Nigerian air that he last breathed. He passed, not in Daura or Abuja, but in a distant London ward wrapped in foreign sheets, in irony. His life, and the choices that shaped it, found no refuge in the nation he once commanded.

    Babarinsa’s prose does not flatter nor flinch. In the chapters Buhari features in, the General emerges, not as saviour, but as shadow; an era of decree and fear, etched in the ink of a journalist’s memory.

    Reading the book was like sitting the ghosts of headlines past, their truths still burning, their exits marked by the turning of a final page.

    Babarinsa’s prose does not plead for forgiveness. It recalls Buhari’s years as a military dictator with unflinching detail, where the images are stern, the atmosphere heavy, and history uneasy. The legacy that emerges from the pages of the book is not heroic, but haunting; not golden, but grey.

    The Awujale was a royal figure whose influence spanned generations, whose presence was larger than life. His was a different kind of authority, cultural, enduring, layered with tradition and contradiction.

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    To finish Babarinsa’s book on the same weekend these two men exited the stage felt less like coincidence and more like history nudging gently at my shoulder, whispering that stories never truly end, but they fold, they echo and they wait.

    And so I closed the book, not just on a life’s recollections, but on a moment suspended between memory and mortality, where words, like lives, leave marks long after the final breath.

    The book recalls a time of fear and silence, when General Buhari ruled with a clenched fist and an unblinking stare. Buhari, Babarinsa recalls an interview with Dele Giwa in his time as Editor of Sunday Concord, had warned he would “tamper with the freedom of the press,” and he kept his promise with Decree 4, a law so cruel it punished the truth itself. Journalists were jailed for reports that embarrassed officials, whether true or not. The era was marked by tribunals that passed death sentences retroactively, by young men executed in the cold morning light, and by Fela Kuti being dragged before judges for carrying his own money and jailed for 25 years.

    The book shows that even dictators can be betrayed. Buhari’s fall was a palace coup announced by crackling radio broadcasts, a promise that his stubborn rule was over. Into that vacuum walked Ibrahim Babangida, all charm and easy smiles.

    The then Brigadier Joshua Dongoyaro, on Radio Nigeria, announced Buhari’s overthrow. “The concept of collective leadership has been substituted by stubborn and ill-advised unilateral actions, thereby destroying the principle upon which the government came to power,” Dongoyaro said.

    Babarinsa remembers his first cover story for Newswatch: the execution of three young men found guilty of alleged drug trafficking by a military tribunal. Bartholomew Owoh (26), Bernard Ogedegbe (29), and Lawal Ojuolape (30) were shot at the shooting range of the Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison in Lagos. Their death sentences were handed down by a tribunal led by Justice Adebayo Desalu, assisted by four military and police officers. Despite widespread public outcry, the regime enforced the executions under a retroactive decree.

    The author also recalls covering, in May 1985, the proceedings of the Exchange Control and Anti-Sabotage Tribunal (Lagos zone), presided over by Justice Oladipo Williams. At that tribunal, 26-year-old Gloria Ogbonna was sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to take $1,800, £16, and 2,700 Italian Lira out of Nigeria. In the same session, a British-Arab woman, Mehmet Bahia Bin Chambi, received a 42-year prison sentence for trying to export N98 million. She was additionally fined N98 million, while her companies and those of her business associates in Nigeria faced combined fines totaling N2.4 billion.

    Before his removal, Buhari never advertised any plan to return the country to democratic rule. Babaginda endeared himself to the people: He freed Buhari’s political prisoners detained without trial, welcomed exiles back home, and surrounded himself with respected scholars, jurists, and poets. He made the country believe again. For those exhausted by Buhari’s repression, Babangida seemed like salvation itself. They fell for it. Journalists who had watched people rot in detention now praised the regime’s consultations and grand gestures. They wanted to believe in change, in a softer, more enlightened rule. But that promise ended in violence too, in betrayal sealed with a parcel bomb that killed Giwa and marked the decline of his baby, Newswatch.

    The book also reminisces about Yorubaland, at a time kings clashed over memory and myth, over whether or not the race’s most important king is the Ooni or the Alaafin, and over whether Oyo or Ife is the race’s most important town. The Awujale distanced the Ijebu from Oyo and Ife. According to him, the Ijebu migrated from Whydah.

    Babarinsa notes that Oba Adetona, once a close friend of Oba Sijuwade, felt the Ooni remained distant during his own troubles, when Governor Olabisi Onabanjo’s administration in Ogun State nearly deposed him during the Second Republic. In the years that followed, both the Alaafin and the Awujale became known for their sympathy toward the Modakeke people in their conflict with Ile-Ife.

    My final take: Buhari and Oba Adetona gave what they could and left the rest to history’s judgment. But, unlike the Oba, Buhari held our commonwealth in his hands; he was a steward of our nation’s hopes and fortunes. It is thus no surprise that Nigerians are sifting through the records of his years in power, weighing promises against outcomes. And there is little doubt now: whatever he intended as his best fell painfully short of what the country needed.