By Olukorede Yishau THERE ARE people whose nicknames trump their birth names any day, any time. So popular are their nicknames that even newspaper editors are forced to use them in headlines because doing otherwise is failing the cardinal rule of headline. casting. The popularity of these nicknames extend to more territories. They also linge...
By Olukorede Yishau A FEW days ago, we marked what would have been Nelson Mandela’s birthday. He was born on July 18, 1918, and although he has been gone for years, his shadow still stretches across continents and it will stretch for many, many decades to come. His birthday left me with one troubling question: […]
By Olukorede Yishau KOLA OYEWO, the thespian who played the greedy monarch in Saworoide, one of Tunde Kelani’s classic movies, died on the day Nigeria celebrated Democracy Day. His passing about two months after marking his 80th birthday brought to my mind the stars in Saworoide and other Kelani movies who are no longer with […]
By Olukorede Yishau ALMOST EVERYONE, irrespective of religious leanings, must have at one difficult moment or the other asked this rhetorical question: Is God really good? It is a question for days when faith trembles like a candle before a restless wind. It is a query reserved for when the centre, no matter what, refuses […]
By Olukorede Yishau FOR LAGOSIANS or Nigerians, or anyone remotely familiar with Lagos, it is difficult to read Pemi Aguda’s debut novel, ‘One Leg on Earth’, and not think of the Eko Atlantic city, that new and humongous settlement emerging out of what we used to call Bar Beach. Not for once did the remarkable […]
By Olukorede Yishau JUDE DIBIA, ‘In The Quiet That Remains’, follows three friends in a sparkling novel in which misunderstandings fester in quiet spaces and silence reveals the interplay between individual agency and external pressure. We peer into the inner turmoils of these friends with a haunting honesty. We also see how their...
By Olukorede Yishau AROLAKE LUNGES at Saro and, in one swift motion, bares her breasts, igniting an almost uncontrollable reaction in him. Their desire flares quickly, hands tracing the contours of femininity and masculinity. This scene in Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Anikulapo’, particularly the exposure of breasts, sparked conversati...
By Olukorede Yishau THE LAST sentence of Bolaji Abdullahi’s memoir, ‘The Loyalist’, is one of the most thoughtful I have ever read: “Some relationships can only be saved through an amicable divorce.” Several moments in this book are remarkable in their exposition of betrayals, power and patronage. The book shows that when lo...
By Olukorede Yishau MY DEAR country Nigeria faces evolving security threats: banditry, cybercrime, urban kidnapping, and community conflicts driven by economic distress. These are not challenges that require a strong police chief. They require a trusted one. And, in recent years, Tunji Disu has come off almost all his assignments in sparkling...
By Olukorede Yishau I did not stumble on The Insight the way many people discover good journalism these days. It was not through a loud advertisement or a breaking news alert, but through an almost quiet recommendation that arrived via WhatsApp. I clicked. I stayed. And I understood, almost immediately, why Adejuwon Soyinka, a former [&hellip...
