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Tag: Chimamanda

  • Chimamanda’s tragic loss

    Chimamanda’s tragic loss

    • We demand an inquiry into the circumstances leading to the death of the 21-month-old toddler

    Renowned writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and her family have been in mourning over the sudden passing of her 21-month-old son, Nkanu Nnamdi Esege, on January 7. Expectedly, many individuals and groups, including Ohaneze Ndigbo, an Igbo socio-cultural organisation have been commiserating with the family over the loss.

    Expectedly, too, both the family and Euracare Multispecialist Hospital, Lagos, where the child died have issued statements about the incident.

    The family, through Adichie’s sister-in-law, Dr. Anthea Esege- Nwandu, a physician and professor with decades of experience said that she had been told “ the boy had been administered an overdose of Profopol to sedate him in order to conduct MRI tests”. She alleged that the anaesthesiologist had been “criminally negligent” and had not followed proper medical protocol.

    Dr. Esege-Nwandu also alleged that the boy suffered cardiac arrest when he was being transferred on the anaesthesiologist’s shoulder, disconnected from the ventilator.

    The family alleged medical negligence, citing excessive sedation, inadequate monitoring and delayed response to complications.

    But the hospital management claimed “to have provided care consistent with international standards and worked collaboratively with external medical teams recommended by the family…”

    The hospital added that it would conduct “a detailed investigation into the matter, promising transparency and cooperation with regulatory processes”.

    Read Also: Chimamanda Adichie serves hospital legal notice over son’s death

    As a public figure, the Adichie tragedy has gone viral, and, while sympathising with the family, many people, both informed, half-informed and totally uninformed have expressed their opinions on it.

    The Lagos State government and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) have equally launched investigations into the family’s complaints. We expect clarity at the end of investigations.

    A medical issue like this is of global concern not because of the mother’s stardom alone but because children ought to be protected by parents, citizens and the state. Across the globe, because humans are fallible, the field of medicine often records fatal cases like the one under review, but the difference is in the systemic order and functionality that guarantee accountability on all sides — the patients, hospitals and government agencies that regulate the healthcare sector.

    Nigeria as a developing country has been struggling with its health sector for decades. However, healthcare is not cheap and must be well structured and institutions well-funded, administered and supervised adequately.

    It is a known fact that Nigeria in the 1970s and ‘80s was a health-tourism country that even boasted of the Saudi Royal family coming to University College hospital (UCH), Ibadan, to seek medical care.

    But over the years, Nigeria lost it. The healthcare sector, like most other sectors, began to deteriorate.

    Despite interventions from global institutions and both the European Union (EU) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) even before the Trump administration, the health sector has been in dire straits and citizens continue to pay dearly for the under-funding.

    We request a fast government intervention in handling this particular case. The mob-like attitude of the public must be countered with real government’s response. This is necessary to avoid a continuation of commentaries by both those who know and those who do not know, all speaking like medical experts.

    There have been a series of legal cases for past medical issues with family and patients alleging medical negligence. Chimamanda’s allegations about her son’s death should be an opportunity for introspection and reforms in the health sector. Her case might have gone viral due to her public persona. Yet, she is still human, a mother and a Nigerian citizen who in her works always points out what the society is and what can be changed for the better in the nation.

    So, in this case, action must replace mere knee-jerk reactions.

    The Federal Ministry of Health must do more than politics and policy suggestions. There is an urgent need for more regulatory consciousness that can preempt acts and bring defaulters to book. As the saying goes, ‘prevention is better than cure’.

    The concerned government and regulatory agencies must dig into the truth about the allegations. The public can only trust a transparent system that works for everyone, irrespective of status.

    The death of Nkanu Nnamdi Esege should be an opportunity for a systemic change and national consciousness, not just for the family, but for every citizen. Nigeria must seize this moment to make amends.

  • Chimamanda accuses Lagos hospital of negligence in son’s death

    Chimamanda accuses Lagos hospital of negligence in son’s death

    • Lagos State government orders investigation

    • Hospital sympathises with writer, ready to engage regulatory authorities

    • Nigerian Society of Anaesthetists monitors allegation

    One of Nigeria’s celebrated authors, and a visiting Professor at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Chimamanda Adichie, has accused a Lagos-based hospital, Euracare Hospital, of negligence, a circumstance, she alleged, led to the death of her one-year-old son, Nkanu.

    While the Lagos State government has ordered an investigation, the Nigerian Society of Anaesthetists (NSA) says it is monitoring allegations.

    Adichie, in a statement issued on Saturday, explained that her family had travelled to Lagos for Christmas when Nkanu fell ill with what initially appeared to be a common cold, but the condition worsened, leading to his admission at Atlantis Hospital. The condition became worse, a situation which forced the family to move Kanu to Euracare Hospital.

    Adichie said her family had arranged for Nkanu to travel to the United States on January 7, accompanied by doctors, where a medical team at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore was prepared to receive him.

    According to Adichie: “The morning of the 6th, we left Atlantis Hospital for Euracare, Nkanu carried in his father’s arms. We were told he would need to be sedated to prevent him from moving during the MRI and the ‘central line’ procedure.

    “I was waiting just outside the theatre. I saw people, including Dr M, rushing into the theatre and immediately knew something had happened.

    “A short time later, Dr M came out and told me Nkanu had been given too much propofol by the anesthesiologist, had become unresponsive and was quickly resuscitated. But suddenly, Nkanu was on a ventilator; he was intubated and placed in the ICU. The next thing I heard was that he had seizures. Cardiac arrest. All these had never happened before. Some hours later, Nkanu was gone

    “It turns out that Nkanu was never monitored after being given too much propofol. The anesthesiologist had just casually carried Nkanu on his shoulder to the theatre, so nobody knew when exactly Nkanu became unresponsive.”

    Adichie also accused the anesthesiologist of acting recklessly, even carrying Nkanu on his shoulder while switching off his oxygen before transferring him to the ICU.

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    She described the actions as “criminally negligent” and “fatally casual, saying: “How can you sedate a sick child and neglect to monitor him? Later, after the ‘central line’ procedure, the anesthesiologist casually switched off Nkanu’s oxygen and again decided to carry him on his shoulder to the ICU!

    “The anesthesiologist was criminally negligent. He was fatally casual and careless with the precious life of a child. No proper protocol was followed.

    “We brought in a child who was unwell but stable and scheduled to travel the next day. We came to conduct basic procedures. And suddenly, our beautiful little boy was gone forever. It is like living your worst nightmare. I will never survive the loss of my child.

    “We have now heard about two previous cases of this same anesthesiologist overdosing children. Why did Euracare allow him to keep working? This must never happen to another child.”

    Lagos orders probe

    Reacting to the accusation, the Lagos State Government has ordered a full investigation into alleged medical negligence following the death of Nkanu.

    In a statement yesterday, signed by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr. (Mrs.) Kemi Ogunyemi, the government expressed deep condolences to Adichie and her family over what it described as a painful and irreparable loss.

    The government said the incident, which reportedly occurred on January 6, had drawn its attention and assured the family and the public of its commitment to justice and accountability.

    It stressed that it places the highest value on human life and has zero tolerance for medical negligence or unprofessional conduct in any health facility operating in the state.

    According to the statement, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has directed the Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) to immediately commence a thorough, independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death.

    “HEFAMAA has since commenced investigations and visited the facility involved as part of the ongoing inquiry,” the government said, adding that the agency would conduct a comprehensive review of all allegations and reports linked to the incident.

    The government explained that HEFAMAA, which is statutorily mandated to regulate, monitor and accredit public and private health facilities in Lagos, routinely investigates cases of alleged medical negligence and unethical practices to safeguard patient safety and uphold professional standards.

    It noted that the agency would work closely with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) and other relevant regulatory bodies to ensure a credible and professional investigation.

    The probe, it added, would examine compliance with clinical protocols, professional conduct, patient safety standards, and the roles of all parties involved.

    “The findings of the investigation will be made public once concluded, in the interest of transparency and public accountability,” the statement said.

    The government warned that any individual or institution found culpable of negligence, professional misconduct or regulatory violations would face the full weight of the law.

    While urging the public to remain calm and avoid speculation, the state government reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening oversight of medical practice to prevent a recurrence of such tragic incidents.

    Nigerian Society of Anaesthetists monitors allegation

    The Nigerian Society of Anaesthetists (NSA) says it is monitoring allegations of medical negligence surrounding the death of Adichie’s 21-month-old son, Nkanu.

     According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), its National President, Prof. Alhassan Mohammed, disclosed this on Saturday.

     The statement issued by Omawumi Ogbe of GLG Communications said, “The family is devastated by this profound loss, and we request that their privacy be respected during this incredibly difficult time.”

     However, days after, sources close to the family had alleged medical negligence at a Lagos private hospital where Nkanu was taken for medical procedures ahead of a scheduled evacuation to the U.S. for further treatment as the cause of the boy’s death.

     “The hospital involved is likely to conduct its own investigation for more facts by getting oral and documented evidence.

     “You know the patient will have a record, whether manual or electronic, that can be printed out there.

     “Then there may be an independent investigative panel to look further based on the allegations, depending on if the mother or relatives want to take it further,” Mohammed said.

     He explained that the investigation would focus on verification of the registration status of the individuals and facilities, compliance with approved scopes of practice, adherence to medical protocols, and identification if negligence contributed to the incident.

     Mohammed said the NSA awaits more information before commenting further on the issue.

  • Chimamanda to headline “Things Fall Apart” festival in Enugu

    Chimamanda to headline “Things Fall Apart” festival in Enugu

    Celebrated Nigerian novelist and global literary icon, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, will headline the inaugural edition of the Things Fall Apart Festival scheduled to take place in Enugu from June 29 to July 5, 2025. 

    The event, themed “Masculine, Feminine, Human: The Dialogue of Complements in Things Fall Apart,” will honour the enduring legacy of Chinua Achebe, the late literary giant and author of the landmark novel Things Fall Apart.

    Adichie, who has recently been on an international tour promoting her highly anticipated new novel Dream Count, will deliver the festival’s keynote address. 

    Her remarks will explore the thematic foundation of the festival—an interrogation of gender dynamics and the human condition as presented in Achebe’s classic novel. She is expected to reflect on the Achebean legacy in storytelling, its rootedness in cultural identity, and the continued relevance of Things Fall Apart in global literature and discourse.

    Read Also: Chimamanda, Akindele, others to headline event

    The week-long festival, organised by the Enugu-based Centre for Memories – Ncheta Ndigbo, is an ambitious expansion of the annual Things Fall Apart Day, which is now in its fifth year. This inaugural festival seeks to match the magnitude of Achebe’s impact on world literature through a rich lineup of artistic and cultural activities.

    Highlights of the festival will include a re-imagining of the fictional Umuofia village, with live performances, dramatic readings, and saloon-style conversations featuring cultural leaders and storytellers. There will also be immersive technological installations that reinterpret Achebe’s narrative through modern lenses.

    In addition to performances and panel discussions, the festival will feature a curated art exhibition, an essay competition open to students in senior secondary and tertiary institutions as well as the general public, film screenings, and guided memory walks through significant cultural sites in Enugu. 

    A major attraction will be a special appearance by actors from the 1987 television adaptation of Things Fall Apart, including Nollywood legend Pete Edochie, who famously portrayed the lead character, Okonkwo. The iconic Ajofia masquerade—an important figure in Achebe’s work—will also make a dramatic appearance during the re-creation of the Umuofia experience.

    Organisers say the event is not just a tribute to Achebe but also a platform for expanding conversations around gender, culture, and the evolving role of literature in shaping social consciousness. 

    The festival aligns closely with broader media and cultural commitments to highlighting stories that define humanity and shift global narratives

  • Chimamanda shares journey of welcoming twin boys through surrogacy

    Chimamanda shares journey of welcoming twin boys through surrogacy

    Renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has addressed the backlash surrounding her decision to welcome twins via surrogacy, emphasising the need to break the stigma surrounding non-traditional paths to motherhood.

    Speaking with Chude Jideonwo, Adichie revealed her initial reluctance to discuss the matter publicly, fearing it could be politicised.

    However, she said she chose to be honest about her experience, hoping to help reduce the stigma surrounding non-traditional paths to motherhood.

    She criticised societal judgment, arguing that women should not feel ashamed of difficulties with conception or seeking alternative family-building options.

    Adichie highlighted the undue burden placed on women dealing with fertility issues such as fibroids or pregnancy struggles.

    Read Also: Chimamanda, Akindele, others to headline event

    With conviction, she described her children as the greatest gift she has received, firmly stating that she has “ZERO REGRETS” about her decision.

    She said, “My boys are so precious to me,” she says. “And I hated that anything about them would become politicised – so, on the one hand, I thought ‘I wish I hadn’t talked about it’, but on the other hand, there is no way I am going to lie” about the process of birthing them.

    “I am hoping that if anything good comes out of this, it would be that more women are less ashamed of talking about reaching motherhood through non-traditional means. Because our society is so judgmental, and I don’t think that is good for anybody.

    “But, you know, my daughter and my babies are the greatest gift I’ve been given, so ZERO REGRETS.

    “I felt that there were many women who would then be pressured by people saying, ‘Look, Chimamanda is 47, and she had kids at that age; what about you?’.

    “And just in general, I think there is so much shame around issues of fertility that I just think it’s too much of a burden for women. Women are ashamed when they have fibroids, women are ashamed when they have issues getting pregnant, and I don’t believe in that sort of shame, the interviewer said to me that I look fantastic for someone who just had babies and I’m not going to say thank you because that would be a lie. They were born by a surrogate”.

  • My brain didn’t work for a long time before, after arrival of my daughter – Chimamanda Adichie

    My brain didn’t work for a long time before, after arrival of my daughter – Chimamanda Adichie

    Renowned writer, Chimamanda Adichie has opened up on her motherhood struggles and how it affected her career as a novelist.  

    She said before and after the arrival of her daughter her creativity was struggling to develop.

    Adichie stated that if she had not given birth to her daughter she might have written two more novels.

    She, however, said that motherhood is a glorious experience and has brought a certain level of awareness that feeds her fiction.

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    Adichie shared her experience during an interview on BBC’s Woman’s Hour.

    She said: “Becoming a mother is a glorious gift but it comes at a cost and I think it’s important to acknowledge that, right?

    “There is something that we… and I will say ‘lose’.

    “I felt that I could probably have written two novels had I not had my child. But I think that having her also sort of opened me up to this new, almost a new phase of experience and awareness that I’m hoping will feed my fiction.

    “Even before I had her, when I was pregnant, I felt as though my brain had been wrapped in gauze. So, my brain didn’t work for a long time. And just more creatively, I think I am making my way back because I am working on a novel finally. But I just wasn’t able to get into my fictional space for a long time.”

  • Chimamanda, Obi and Uwazuruike

    Chimamanda, Obi and Uwazuruike

    While the Supreme Court was finally laying to rest the illusion that Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) won the February 25, 2023 presidential election, novelist Chimamanda Adichie was in far away United States eulogising the LP candidate as the rightful winner of that fateful poll. Her infatuation with Mr Obi is irrepressible. It dates back to months before the election in which he, as the sole Igbo man of substance in the race, incarnated her rage against Nigeria and justified her obsessions. When he was announced as the second runner-up in the race, his loss was too heavy for her dainty heart to take. She lashed out at Nigeria, as is her custom, and vituperated everybody that crossed her path, be it President Bola Tinubu himself or, surprisingly, Prof. Wole Soyinka.

    As far as Chimamanda was concerned, there could not have been another winner except the man she idolised and lionised, Mr Obi. In her view, and regardless of what the facts say, including the Nigerian political dynamics which she abhors so much, the PDP candidate could never win.  A worse illusion is hard to find. Mr Obi made scant inroad into the core North, and only had a measurable presence in Lagos in the Southwest. Apart from the Southeast which proved insular in the last elections, and which he took by an unalterable and unchallengeable margin, he made only fair or passable showing in the South-South and North Central. He had preyed on Christian fears and harvested the votes of those superstitious about what the All Progressives Congress (APC) same-faith ticket portended. In the end, the Christian vote, which was balkanised in most regions, was insufficient to hurl him into office. But somehow, Mr Obi’s supporters, educated or illiterate, seemed to think he won the poll. Chimamanda was surprisingly and dismayingly numbered among those who hallucinated about that purported electoral victory. Has she read the opinion of Ralph Uwazuruike, the MASSOB leader who skewered Mr Obi as a dreamer who hoped to win a major election by motivational speaking and social media noise rather than by negotiation?

    Chimamanda’s latest vituperations against the Tinubu poll victory came during a lecture she delivered at Princeton University’s Africa World lecture series in the United States. There she affronted every rule of logic, and thumbed her nose at the facts of history. She was obsessed with Mr Obi, and that was all that mattered, not logic, not history, nor even common sense.  “I want to recognise the presence of a man I deeply respect and a man who I think is a beacon of hope not just for Nigeria but for Africa,” she began grandly, unperturbed by her exaggerations and tragic declension as a novelist and chronicler of human foibles and triumphs. “And he’s the man who many of us know won the election in Nigeria. He’s also an example of that very rare quality in politicians which is genuine humility. I mean there are many other things I’m enraged about…We had an election in February that was deeply flawed, and we have a person who we’ve been told is a winner who did not win the election and this has been shown over and over; there’s evidence for this…”

    While it is not clear where she got her risible notion of Mr Obi’s ‘genuine humility’, perhaps from his affected demeanour, two things vitiate her conclusions about the election in which her hero lost badly. Firstly, she admitted she had been enraged for far too long as a result of the political and perhaps cultural dynamics of Nigeria. In other words, her rage beclouded her reasoning. As her novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, portrays, her unhappiness with Nigeria is enduring and traumatic. If she does not see a matter concerning Nigeria from that insular prism, she could not see at all. The last presidential poll qualifies for and justifies her rage. Secondly, at the US lecture, she spoke about ‘a person who we’ve been told is a winner who did not win the election and this has been shown over and over; there’s evidence for this’. Chimamanda proceeds from that disingenuous and lying point of being told something to forming ironclad conclusions. Who told her? The media, the courts, just who? And she spoke the horrendous untruth that ‘there’s evidence for this.’ Where on earth is the evidence? How could she lie so brazenly? If as a non-participant in the election she had the evidence, surely Mr Obi must possess tons of it. Yet, Mr Obi could not produce any, not from the polling booths through LP agents, not from BVAS, and indeed not from anywhere. Yes, Mr Obi made wild claims about the election, but he never claimed he won. All he wanted was for the courts to disqualify the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu.

    Chimamanda may be a novelist, a talented one at that, but so far she is not anything more than a fictionist. Her talents at conjuring things may be widely recognised; but it will take more skill, time and discipline to develop the capacity to document facts and history. She is of course at liberty to indulge her parochialism on the Southeast which she documents has suffered unbearable hurt from the rest of Nigeria, but she does not have the freedom to lie about issues, colour facts or project hatred and animosity indiscriminately. But perhaps she actually has the evidence to prove that the presidential election was stolen. Why did she withhold the evidence from his idol when he was perambulating around the courts with empty hands and sophistry?

  • Shabby and shoddy Chimamanda

    Shabby and shoddy Chimamanda

    In a recent CNN appearance, novelist Chimamanda Adichie told respected anchor Amanpour that the tribunal verdict was “shabby and shoddy.” Nothing wrong with her opinion except that she confessed she was still reading the verdict. How would she feel if one gave a damning judgment of her debut children book without reading it through? Amanpour, who was clearly wowed by a writer she announced as a superstar, did not see the shallowness of her verdict. Amanpour did not prepare for the interview, and it shows how hollow some western journalists are about African society. It is contempt on us when they do not probe their subjects. The same thing happened after the polls when Ajuri Ngelale rattled Zain Asher of the same CNN over INEC’s performance. We should not blame Adichie for an empty answer but CNN for a shoddy job. If she had asked the right question, the world would have known the author of Americana was in the mould of children fantasy. Again, maybe she would have blended into the slumber choir if she had accompanied her hero and kinsman Peter Obi to hear the verdict.

  • Weep not, Chimamanda Adichie

    Weep not, Chimamanda Adichie

    • By Dele Afelumo

    Dear Chimamanda,

    I just watched the interview you had with CNN’s Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour where you doubled down on your dastardly attempts at throwing lethal punches at everybody and everything in the wake of your serial losses at the polls and tribunal. To you, only your chauvinist Obidient Brigade and Labour Party faithful were with angelic visages wearing sartorial garbs of innocence, regality, moral rectitude and piety that should be venerated and obsequiously gifted our royal diadem. 

    This time around, your salvo was laced with incendiary adjectives against the personages of their lord justices in their recent affirmation of the electoral victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. For that judgment with all the imprimaturs bearing all the insignias of unprecedented jurisprudential precedents, all you could spew out in your moment of rage were its shabbiness and shoddiness. Through this latest obloquy, you have once again, demonstrated your aversion to treading the path of honour, virtues and dignity.  Your vituperation was pre-emptive of the final adjudication at the Supreme Court to tie the hands of our revered justices by smothering their hard-earned reputation into submitting to your warped dictates. You were only trying to be clever by half. With shameless smugness and contemptuous arrogance, you threw flaks at the painstaking efforts of the revered justices without any iota of legal knowledge to arrive at your inelegant descriptions when you even confessed not to have read the judgment in its entirety with an open, unbiased mind.

    The corollary to your infantile and puerile nattering is that any judgment which will declare your Obi-god the winner of that contest is fair and acceptable and vice versa. By letting out putrid excrescences from your poisonous tureen once again, you have stirred the hornet’s nest and vigorously rattled our quiet cages with your shallow, hollow and self-conceited importance after your letters to President Biden failed to achieve their devious objectives.

    Concerning the man you wanted to foist on Nigeria, behind the façade of make-believe pietistic mantra and holier-than-thou mien, is an entity well-ensconced in moral vacuity and intellectual swindles with his past slathered in symphonic range of disapprobation. To the Obidients, Peter Obi is a reincarnation of the supreme God himself with never-seen-before Messianism. Every person other than Obi is wearing a spangled ornament coloured with luciferism. This is disgustingly and disquietingly disturbing in a multicultural, multi-religious country such as ours.  Exorcising that spirit of Obidism is proving an arcane and herculean expedition to them.

    Some renowned academics were also caught in that web of Obidism and infamy with offensively unparalleled  political flatulence by concocting lies brazenly and distorting facts and figures with gruesome  glee to massage the bestial egos of  their scallywags. Akin Osuntokun salved his loins in blighted conscience when he recently said on ARISE television that all the Gallup polls preceding the presidential election in February gave the Labour Party unassailable leads! Really? That statement, lacking all empirical facts and intellectual objectivity, was an egregious assault on the psyche and sensibilities of all discerning Nigerians who voted according to their consciences for candidates of their choices. The unfortunate assumption that the doctored Gallup polls would be sine-qua-non to the very electoral actualities was vitiated by the lacuna in their reasoning faculties and hence, the usual resort to phantom ‘stolen mandate’ drivel by the vociferous hotheads of Obidism.

    Read Also: ‘Why Chimamanda Adichie’s Notes on Grief  was the best’

    Of late, their desperation to pull the country down at all cost in the comity of nations made them solicit the services of a fiery, divisive anti-establishment loony and former UK Member of Parliament, George Galloway, who no sane minds take seriously in the UK, to deride our president baselessly. Because their Obi-god was not in the saddle, the country must be smashed to smithereens at all costs! America’s MAGA and Northern Ireland’s Sein Fein would gleefully want to learn from the irascible, rapacious Obidient vanguards.

    The unfathomable length the unpatriotic zealots and archetypal devils can go is better left to our conjectures. They failed to know the mystique of our Nobel laureate’s refusal to pander to their whims and caprices. Perhaps, they needed the ingenuity of a rocket scientist to make them realise that Professor Wole Soyinka and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought tooth-and-nail in the trenches to enthrone the democracy the Obidients are kowtowing for the military to torpedo today. They are the latter-day unscrupulous thieving woman in the Bible who stole the living baby to replace her dead one and wanted King Solomon to kill both the dead and the living babies for legal fairness.

    Such was the infernal wind of Obidism and its roving spectre of sardonism and Philistinism that many gods of men turned their pulpits into political arenas and were feeding bunkums, lies and vitriols into the throats of their ever-submissive, brainwashed, unctuous acolytes with oily veneer of excessive obsequity slathered over them. Brother Jero’s abhorrent charlatanism in Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero paled into insignificance going by the monumental spiritual frauds and voodooism perpetrated from the hallowed pulpits of our living God manned by prosperity-driven, self-adulating gods of men. With an air of cockiness and finality, many of them pronounced with fiats that Obi would win remarkably and manifestly from their human intelligence but with false attribution of such to our living God who was watching all with guffaw and reserving His wrath for all agents of iniquities who spoke when he did not utter a single word!

    Our pulchritudinous Chimamanda, have you ever heard of one Ms Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar? The West made her popular, lionized her as a beacon of democracy, beatified her to high heavens, gifted her Nobel Prize on silver platter for her tenacious efforts at emancipating her people from the tyrannical clutches of the military. They propelled her to stardom just the way they are doing to you now. They financed her every effort to upstage the old order of military adventurism and liberate her people. It seemed an impossible mission until they coached her into playing along, cavorting the macabre dance of the military so that the khaki men could, one day sympathetically relinquish power to her. She went overboard, looked away and vacillated while the no-nonsense goons had a field day visiting horrors on the Rohingya Muslim minorities. Aung San Suu Kyi even defended the daylight near-total ethnic cleansing. Thinking she had done a lot for the military to cede power to her, she contested an election and was coasting to victory until the military gave her the shockers of her life. Her election was not only annulled but she was herded, once again, into her home, never to enjoy her social life in her solitary confinement, tethered to a spot. Today, Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer a prisoner of conscience but a hermit wallowing in obscurity. Her western paymasters left her in the lurch as she had then become surplus to requirements through her idiotic support for the military bent on utterly exterminating a whole minority ethnic group.

    The West speaks from both sides of the mouth. It is the same mouth they use to describe the fitting appropriateness of a crown that they will use later to lampoon its unfitting contortion to an angle to suite their whims and caprices. If you destroy your homestead while enjoying the cosy ambience of the western countries, a time will come when they won’t save you from the sharp teeth of wild, wily lions roving to devour you.

    You were not even sincere with Obi thus far. If you were, Obi would still not be making his trademark elementary grammatical blunders at every twist and turn. You should have sat him down and with utmost frankness, made him know the appropriateness of the usage of ‘have’, ‘has’, ‘had’ and that  words like Economics and Physics, even though they have ‘s’ as their last letters, they remain single words and never to be pluralized as Obi has been regaling us with. Go and watch his CNN’s ONE WORLD interview anchored by our delectable Zain Asher on September 16, 2022. His serial grammatical gaffes were glaringly decipherable by impassioned stylisticians not given to frenetic political demagogueries as were wont his excited unctuous followers. People like you should have purged him of those grammatical infractions, flubs, solecisms, malapropisms and quirks, no matter how long they had stuck to him like bees to honey.

    Lastly, sever that umbilical cord of Obidism, purge yourself of the serial inanities you have embarked upon, extricate yourself of all the vestiges of anti-Nigeria diatribes and toe the line of honour to etch your name in gold in the annals of our history as a country. East or West, home remains the best. As I once wrote to you, the words of our revered Eze (Prof) Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike of blessed memories are apt here: only the foolish flies follow the dead into their graves. Your charity should begin at home and not from outside. Enough words are for the wise.

    • Afelumo is a physician and wrote in via drdeleafelumo98@gmail.com

  • Chimamanda plants a tree for Mandela

    The doyenne of world Literature Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie made an august appearance at the Chief Newton Jibunoh-sponsored Mandela Garden of Trees in Asaba, Delta State, last Friday. Resplendent in a classy crimson dress, Chimamanda was all smiles as the acclaimed ‘Desert Warrior’ Newton Jibunoh, accorded her a befitting reception. The gathering became instantly wowed by the grand grace of the literary icon.

    Let me reveal here that when Chimamanda was starting out as a writer she had written in innocence to Jibunoh and was well encouraged.

    Now, to the heart of the matter: The late former South African President Nelson Mandela lives in Asaba where Jibunoh has bequeathed a global garden to his memory. The United Nations had in November 2009 fixed July 18 as Nelson Mandela International Day, or Mandela Day for short.

    The first UN Mandela Day held on July 18, 2010, and the great leader’s 95th birthday was marked specially in Asaba with a world press conference proclaiming the establishment of a garden of 95 trees to be known as “The Mandela Garden of 95 Trees.”

    The celebrated environmentalist and conqueror of the Sahara Desert and Chief Executive, Fight Against Desert Encroachment (FADE), Dr. Jibunoh partnered the Delta State government to broadcast that well over 134,000 square metres of prime land within the Asaba International Airport complex, has been designed to serve as “The Nelson Mandela Garden of 95 Trees.” It was at this blooming Mandela Garden that Chimamanda came to plant a tree.

    The conceptual design of the Mandela Garden is in the shape of the map of Africa, featuring a life-size bronze statue of Nelson Mandela, 95 trees symbolically planted as the Robben memorial, freedom mini-gardens, well-landscaped terraced fences made of hedge plants, concrete walkways, state-of-the-art restrooms, adequate parking, Nelson Mandela playground and park for children.

    Dr. Jibunoh, in his drive toward greening the environment through FADE, always had the abiding dream of planting the trees. It has been a life-long passion, culminating in the FADE Wall of Trees planted in Makoda Kano in the spirited bid to arrest desert encroachment.

    “I will run the park for the rest of my life as the keeper,” Jibunoh said in his Lagos Island Didi Museum office. “My family will have to come and visit me there. They know my passion. It helps that the project is situated at the airport. They can always fly in and fly out. I believe Asaba provides a conducive atmosphere better than Lagos, London or New York!”

    According to Jibunoh,  “We have to use Mandela to inspire people. We used to have Kwame Nkrumah. There is no other Mandela anywhere. He gave the world all he had. He went to prison for 27 years and came out with nothing. He ruled South Africa for only one term of presidency and came out with nothing. That’s the legacy!”

    For Jibunoh, the term “Charity begins at home” was done in reverse order. He was heavily involved in improving other places, notably the Sahara Desert and places like Kano and Lagos before returning to his home in Delta State. He mentions the Igbo term and name “Nkeiruka”, stating that what is ahead is greater than the things done earlier.

    An irrepressible optimist, Jibunoh believes that security challenges such as kidnapping can be solved to make Nigeria a tourist haven, starting with the Mandela Gardens in Asaba. “There are so many things to challenge the world in Nigeria,” he affirms, he said, adding that he had seen it all from the days of colonialism through the apartheid years and the Nigerian Civil War. To him, Nigeria deserves celebration for leading the charge for the freedom of Nelson Mandela and South Africa.

    “We lost Barclays Bank and British Petroleum in the Mandela fight,” he said. “Nigeria was a Frontline state. We cannot now be a minor player. This project will re-establish Nigeria as a Frontline State. Our fight was not in vain. Through the Mandela Gardens, Mandela will live forever. It will put Nigeria on a different platform.”

    Jibunoh pointed at the irony that people thought that Mandela was only fighting for black Africans, only for it to be discovered at the end that the whites benefited more. According to him, “the whites who saw him as a terrorist are now the ones benefitting from Mandela the most’.

    Adichie dwelt on the need to have a truth and reconciliation committee in Nigeria, much like Mandela did in post-apartheid South Africa. She argued that major issues, following the Biafra war had not been addressed. The unfair treatment of the Igbo galled the celebrated novelist and author of “Half of a Yellow Sun”, based on the Nigeria-Biafra war. Citing the Asaba massacre and issues such as the yet unresolved abandoned properties matter in Port Harcourt, Chimamanda avered that the country cannot hope to make much progress without redressing injustice and embracing the truth and history.

    It was indeed, a meeting of icons as Chimamanda took a shovel, dug up the ground and planted a tree to the admiration of Dr Jibunoh and the quality audience in Mandela Garden of Trees in Asaba.

  • Chimamanda makes Marie Claire Brazil magazine cover

    HIGH flying Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, made the cover star of the recent Marie Claire Brazil, an international magazine in Brazil.

    The 41 year-old writer with 367,000 followers on Instgram and 241 posts took to her page @chimamanda_adichie yesterday to share the cover and express her feelings.

    “Delighted to be on the cover of Marie Claire Brazil. And to highlight the work of talented designers: Brazilian @renatabuzzo.veglab and Nigerians @kikikamanu and @the_ladymaker

    “Thanks you @lauraancona @driferreira @Kakakaren_ka @ruafilmes.

    “And everyone at the Marie Claire Brazil team for taking a stand for feminism,’’ she wrote.

    The award winning writer’s works include, Americanah (2013), Half of a Yellow Sun’ (2006), We Should All Be Feminists (2014) and The Thing Around Your Neck (2009).

    Gracing the cover of the magazine is a great achievement for the fifth child in the family of six children

    However, since its launch in 1991, Marie Claire Brazil has become the biggest fashion-oriented female magazine and the most read women’s magazine in the country.

    Also, it is the essential brand to reach independent and intelligent women with taste for fashion.

    The magazine was first published in France in 1937, followed by the UK in 1941.

    Since then, various editions were published in many countries and languages like in the USA, Australia, Indonesia, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and many others.