Tag: Prof. Sunny Awhefeada

Analysis & Opinion: Babangida: We Will Not Forget

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By Sunny Awhefeada   Last Tuesday, precisely 17th August, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (rtd), Nigeria’s former military president, joined the octogenarian bracket as he clocked eighty years on mother earth. On a personal note and as a human being, I was happy for him and his family. I congratulate him and wish him well. However, the event does throw up a lot of contention about Nigeria, Nigerians and the place of Babangida in our national history. There was a deliberate attempt to manipulate our history, but that attempt collapsed like…

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Analysis &Opinion: “We Are At War”

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By Sunny Awhefeada I must begin by ascribing the patent of the title of this piece to Dr. Walter Ofonagoro, one of those exceptionally gifted men who put their talent at the disposal of the antithesis of good. Ofonagoro belongs to a mendacious heritage constituted by men of his ilk. They are the worthy sires of the Garba Shehus and the Femi Adesinas of today. For the Woke generation, the name Ofonagoro will not ring a bell, although it pops up on when searched on Google.   The generation which…

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Analysis & Opinion: Power As Intoxicant

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By Sunny Awhefeada   Power exhibits a character that hinges on what structuralism codified as binary opposition. The duality of the essence of power bestrides the two extremes of good and evil which ironically are divided by a very thin if not nebulous line. Power, when deployed for good has an unquantifiable propensity to multiply and positively affect all. A destructive reverse of equal magnitude becomes the case when power is directed towards an evil end. Philosophers and politicians have across the ages understood these creative and destructive essences of…

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Analysis & Opinion: Peter Ekeh: Ane Iprofu Whunure

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  By Sunny Awhefeada A somber ambience was what defined 17th November 2020 for me. It was in that tamed atmosphere that my phone vibrated in its silent mode. The message it delivered was dejecting. The caller simply said “ane Iprofu whunure”. Simply translated to read, “they said Prof has died”. Of course I didn’t need to ask which Prof died. The Prof that has been central to our activities at the Urhobo Historical Society (UHS) was the legendary Professor Peter Ekeh. I went limp as I related the message…

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Analysis & Opinion: Borno’s Ghost IDP Families

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By Sunny Awhefeada   It is very likely that the Nigeria we live in is a ghost nation. I have a feeling that there is another Nigeria that is well governed with leaders and the led that are not only patriotic, but rational. I think there is another Nigeria where everything is good and things are run the way they should. A Nigeria where there is order with sanity on all fours. I am beginning to incline towards believing that the Nigeria in which we live is a ghost country…

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Analysis & Opinion: Christmas In A Pandemic

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By Sunny Awhefeada, My childhood memory of Christmas was blissful, it is evergreen and I am sure it will remain so. This goes for members of my generation, the preceding generation and the one just behind mine. The harmattan was always the harbinger. Then what we called Christmas holiday after the first term examination would follow. The bush around us will burn and hawks would hover above the fire and dive as if pecking some objects on the smoking ground. The season also saw us working on the farm in…

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Analysis & Opinion: The Sultan’s Lament

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By Sunny Awhefeada,   When, last Thursday, the Sultan of Sokoto spoke publicly on the crisis of insecurity in the North, he must have done so out of a deep concern and fear for the region that is about to be consumed by its own. The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Sa’ ad Abubakar, does not usually comment on national issues in public. Like other preeminent traditional rulers, he enjoys an exclusive and privileged channel of communication which carries his message to the inner recesses of power. Not for the…

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Analysis & Opinion: A Nation’s Rage against Rogues in Uniform

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By Sunny Awhefeada One lesson to be learnt from the ongoing nationwide rage against the Nigeria Police is that no system, no matter how strong or powerful, can win against the people. Another lesson is that rot can blossom only for as long as the people allowed it to thrive. One more lesson is that the people can arrest drift and decay when they choose to do so. If a prophet had told the ragamuffins that constituted the infamous and now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) that their own mene…

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Analysis: A Nation and the Quest for Redemption

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  By Sunny Awhefeada A certain character located in intuition defined the Nigerian writer in the first decade of the nation’s independence. All of the major writers of that period, Gabriel Okara, Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, J. P. Clark and Wole Soyinka, did not share, as depicted in their writings, in the sunny optimism that greeted the attainment of independence. While Nigerians chose to look at the new nation through rose tinted glasses and sang “Nigeria we hail the/Our own dear native land/though tribes and tongues may differ/ in brotherhood…

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Analysis: The Boys in White Agbada

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By Sunny Awhefeada My wife and I were guests at a wedding reception recently. Instead of the occasion being a moment to go down memory lane to ours which took place seventeen years ago and enjoy the ceremony with the music, dance, food and drinks that came with it, the event held the entire audience spellbound as a looming social tragedy confronted us all. The initial conviviality that welcomed guests into the beautifully decorated hall, the joy and laughter that rang out at seeing old friends and the superlative performance…

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