A Nigerian woman captured a moment at the market, Some rice vendors were seen re-bagging local rice bought at N6,600 per bag as foreign rice to sell at N19,600 per bag.


This action is as a result of the Federal Government directive for the closure of Nigeria border in order to stop smuggling of foreign rice from neighboring country and also to promote local rice in Nigeria.

Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/rice-sellers-re-bagging-local-rice-at.html

Source: https://twitter.com/SubDeliveryZone/status/1187109720718565379

A viral video sparked on twitter. Some young boys were spotted in convoy in Sagamu, a major city in Ogun-state. They were seen in an excited mood after assumably buying new cars at the same time in Sagamu , Ogun State.


Watch video:
https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/viral-video-of-sagamu-yahoo-boys-seen.html


Source: https://twitter.com/SubDeliveryZone/status/1187097116956647425

A twitter user on his way to work saw a petrol tanker around Ozumba Mbaiwe, Victoria Island.



He said" "A tanker crashed and the content was spilling on the road, I have to leave here asap"



Road users are therefore enjoined to use alternate routes

Watch video:

https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/just-in-petrol-tanker-fall-around.html

Wife of the #Nigeria #President Madam #Aisha #Buhari was spotted dancing with #APC women leaders in #Aso-rock villa.

Watch video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zltdACaQ5pA

Wife of the #Nigeria #President Madam #Aisha #Buhari was spotted dancing with #APC women leader in #Aso-rock villa.

Watch video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zltdACaQ5pA

A fight incident happpened in Ikotun,Lagos, Two young men were exchanging blows over a wrap of weed.


Lagos is really a mad city, do you agree?

Watch Video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N4cZcKVA4E

Court of appeal has affirmed the decision of the election petition tribunal sacking the candidate of the People's Democratic Party #PDP and Senator representing Kogi West #DinoMelaye.

Senator Dino Melaye has described Smart Adeyemi as his political wife whom he knows how to defeat in any political contest.

Watch video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pz7hPRgEwo&t=2s

After long weeks of being absent in the country, Aisha Buhari explains the reason behind her long absence form Nigeria. In her reaction:
"I am well now but I need more rest, I will like to cease that opportunity to thank my husband for approving six SA's and PA's to my office to allow me to attend to the homefront and also some developmental project."




Watch video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9i_rNOstwg

Watch video here:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZwDOq-a5k

The first and only time someone won the 10 million grand prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Frank Edoho is really in a league of his own!
Throwback to when Aroma Ufodike won 10million in 2009.

Frank Edoho made more than 70million people stay awake. Frank Edoho had the magic voice and he was a king of suspense.

WWTBAM died when Frank left.

Watch video:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZwDOq-a5k

WATCH VIDEO HERE : https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/first-time-reaction-when-fan-met-with.html

A fan of Wizkid who reside in australia was lucky to meet with the Wizkid in an hotel. The fan felt being lucky by meeting with Wizkid Manager, Mr Sunday Are outside the hotel,he granted him the rare opportunity of meeting with Wizkid in person. No fewer than few minutes, Wizkid followed him on Twitter,and retweeted his video with hiim.



Watch the Video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/first-time-reaction-when-fan-met-with.html

A tortoise popularly known as Alagba at the palace of Soun of Ogbomoso in Oyo State is dead.

The 344-year-old sacred tortoise said to be the oldest in Africa was sick for a few days before its death on Thursday.

the tortoise, which attracted tourists from different parts of the world would be missed not only by people in the palace but everyone who came in contact with it.

The palace secretary explained that plans are underway to preserve Alagba’s body for historical records.



Watch video of Africa's oldest tortoise:

https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/alagbaoldest-tortoise-in-africa-dies-at.html

A REAL FOUNDING FATHERS OF NIGERIA NOT AWO, ZIK AND SADAUNA.


By Damola Awoyokun

Merchant sailor, businessman, farmer, pioneer industrialist, patriot, statesman, churchman, missionary and philanthropist.” So begins Adeyemo Elebute in this fabulous new book, The Life of James Pinson Labulo Davies: A Colosuss of Victorian Lagos. What is missing in these opening monikers is “founding father”. When Nigerians talk about founding fathers, they refer to Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna), Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo. Whereas modern Nigeria existed before these three were born. The first time Bello arrived on the national scene was in 1947 after the new 1946 Arthur Richards Constitution amalgamated the North and South legislative assemblies. He led the northern legislators to Lagos, the seat of the national legislature.



Awolowo became known nationwide on 7 January 1937 when, as Organising Secretary of the Motor Transport Union, he organised a motor transport strike to protest the increase in tariff which the government imposed since the lorries were taking business away from the railway. The government had incurred a huge debt in building the railways. They counted on increased patronage to service the debts. But in the Western Region, lorry haulage proved a cheaper alternative so the government imposed tariff to force commerce back to the railway. Awolowo called out the pickets, which lasted for six days and held Lagos, the nation’s capital, to a standstill.



Queen Victoria: Received Crowther

Azikiwe captured the nation’s attention when, in 1937, he arrived Nigeria with an electrifying personality, a bundle of talents and on 22 November 1937 he published the maiden edition of his popular newspaper, The West African Pilot. The first time all the three met together was on Friday, 19 June 1953. Enahoro’s Self-Government-Now bill and the consequent resignation of all Action Group’s federal ministers caused a constitutional crisis which made Nigeria ungovernable. Oliver Lyttleton, the secretary of state for colonies, tried to salvage the situation by inviting the main players to a constitutional conference in London. But Awolowo and Azikiwe, who had become friends since Enahoro’s bill was tabled, refused the terms and conditions. Sardauna was fine with them. And so Macpherson, Nigeria’s governor, brought Sardauna, Azikiwe and Awolowo together in his office to jointly fashion new terms and conditions.

After the meeting which ended 10:10pm, he presented the trio to the media and Daily Times the following day named them The Big Three. Since then it stuck that they were founding fathers because their tribes and their parties were the largest and because it offered an inclusive impression that all the regions had a say in the formation of the country. This is far from the truth. Modern Nigeria started at Windsor Castle, on 23 November 1851, when Ajayi Crowther, the first of Nigeria’s founding fathers, surveyed West Africa with Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert and said Lagos must be bombed.



On 7 April 1822, when the 13-year-old Samuel Ajayi Crowther was rescued from the belly of a slave ship heading for America, he thought all was finished. A year before, around breakfast, together with his mother and sister he was captured by Fulani slave raiders when they attacked his village of Osogun, 140km inland of Lagos coast. He wrote in his autobiography: “Men and boys were at first chained together, with a chain of about six fathoms in length, thrust through an iron fetter on the neck of every individual, and fastened at both ends with padlocks.” Later, the little Crowther’s chains and padlocks were removed to his relief, only to be yanked from his family and exchanged for a horse. Crowther fell sick and attempted suicide when he heard that his new owner planned to reap huge profits out of him by taking him south-westward to Little Popo, a flourishing high-paying Portuguese slave market (a major outlet for slaves from the Oyo Empire now known as Aného in Togo). The owner feared that the little boy’s suicide bid may succeed before the next slave auction so she quickly exchanged him for a bottle of English wine and some tobacco leaves. The Ijebu man who bought him took him south-eastward to Lagos and sold him to the Portuguese slave ship Esperenza Feliz, meaning Free Spirit. As he lay chained from the neck to the deck, he thought of his father killed during the Fulani invasion of their village, he thought of his mother and sisters whom he would never see again. He thought of how he was exchanged for a horse, wine and tobacco leaves. He despaired and awaited death as the ship sailed towards America.

Awolowo, Balewa, Bello and Azikiwe

Then HMS Myrmidon, captained by Sir Henry Leeke of the Royal Navy’s anti-slavery squadron, engaged the Portuguese slave vessel in a gunfight. Crowther and some other slaves were rescued and taken to the British settlement in Freetown (now in Sierra Leone). The Church Missionary Society managing the settlement taught him to read and write, enrolled him in Fourah Bay College and sent him to England to study. He spoke Latin, Greek and Hebrew and many West African languages. Being a fascinating personality, highly educated black man, an ex-slave and an inveterate writer, his public lectures all over Britain drew crowds. He later bagged an honorary doctorate degree at Oxford University. In Canterbury Cathedral on 29 June 1864 when Ajayi Crowther became the first black Bishop ordained into the Anglican Church, Sir Henry Leeke, the captain of the ship that rescued him from slavery in 1822, came over to witness the event. Lady Weeks who taught him the ABC alphabets was also there. It was a tearful reunion.

The highest honour given a visiting dignitary in England was to be asked to meet the Queen. On 18 November 1851, Crowther, accompanied by Lord Russell, was invited to the Windsor Castle. While waiting in the grand crimson drawing room, a lady gorgeously attired with a long train gracefully stepped in and without being prompted, Crowther paid her all the obeisance he could as he had been coached to address Her Majesty. When the lady left, he was told she was one of ladies-in-waiting, not Her Majesty. He said, “If the lady-in-waiting is so superbly dressed what would be that of the Queen herself?” Then he was called into another ornately furnished room where he met Prince Albert, husband to the Queen, and they started discussing how he was enslaved and the general situation of slavery in Lagos.

According to Professor Kristin Mann’s unsung scholarly tour de force, Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760–1900, the first recorded overseas slave export from Lagos was in 1652 aboard the English ship, Constant Ruth. She purchased 216 slaves and sailed them to Barbados to start a barbaric life, leaving a barbaric trend behind. As Crowther spoke to the Prince, export of slaves from Lagos peaked at 37,715 for 1851. That was not counting several slaves like Crowther’s mother and sisters who were used locally or beheaded for religious celebrations. Not to own a slave was an indication that you were poor. When the late Prince Odiri, the son of Akazua the Obi of Onitsha was to be buried in September 1864, some slaves were buried with the corpse; among them was an eight-year-old girl who carried a pair of shoes and foodstuff to serve as refreshment for the late prince on the long journey to the great beyond. Crowther and his fellow missionaries tried to offer money to free the slaves but Akazua said no; the tradition of the land must be respected.

In Ibadan, the war-crazed city, when the Balogun (War General) passed away, 70 slaves’ blood was drenched over his grave as a mark of honour to his accomplishments. Efunsetan Aniwura, the Iyalode of Ibadan, had several farms and households full of slaves. She made it an abomination for slaves to love or to make love. When one of her slaves became visibly pregnant, she marched her to the Ibadan town square and beheaded her there herself. The celebrated Madam Tinubu, Efunsetan’s dear friend and business partner, was also a slave dealer who owned an Ibadan-to-Lagos pipeline delivering slaves for Brazilian and Portuguese export. Her husband, Oba Adele, and the Lagos kings before and after him, were slave magnates who owned warehouses for processing or hoarding slaves to maximise their market value. As Slavery and the Birth of an African City correctly states, slaves sold from the king’s warehouse, farm or household usually commanded higher fees than other slaves. These kings also set up aggressive enforcements to lock down their own lucrative commissions from all slave deals. Prince Kosoko, who was Oba Eshinlokun’s son, did not wait to be king before becoming a major slave trader. Princess Opo Olu, Kosoko’s sister, owned 1,400 slaves. Oshodi Tapa, Dada Antonio and Ojo Akanbi, like Ajayi Crowther, were former slaves but unlike Crowther rose to become slave merchants themselves.

Continue reading this article:
https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/real-founding-fathers-of-nigeria-not.html

Omoyele Sowore led a group of youths and activist in a protest against the Military regime in 1998. The march protest was massive which brought the attention of the military men to the protest scene/

Omoyele adressed the congregation of protesters; he stated that Nigerian youth no more have confidence in their leaders. he said: "Our saying is,tomorrow belong to us and today is our day We have waited and had been cheated for too long".. Unfortunately this was not the kind of message the military welcome. The military men disrupted the protest with Tear-gas and gun shootings, which led many of the protesters fleeing away from the scene of the protest. Sowore was forcefully arrested from the crowd and whisked away.

Watch video:
https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/moments-when-sowore-was-arrested-in.html

Buhari is on a visit to South Africa for talks with his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa after violent attacks on Africans living in the country created bad blood between citizens of the two African powerhouses.

In his speech, he said: " I think Nigerians know the stand of leadership, when you are in Rome, you behave like a Roman.

Nigerians on twitter have reacted bitterly with this statements been spoken by President Muhammadu Buhari. Controversial Political activist and and a critic of Buhari led admnistration- Deji Adeyanju stated on twitter:

"Buhari disgracing us in South Africa. He’s already blaming Nigerians in South Africa for the xenophobic attacks on foreigners in that country."

Watch video:
https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/10/president-buhari-blames-nigerians-in.html

A video director was alleged to have almost been stangled to death by men of Nigeria police in Lagos during sallah festive.

This event happened during early hours of yesterday. Tom Tom, a musical video director was said to have been shooting a dance video at tarkwa bay jetty before some hefty policemen dressed in mofty pounced on him heavily. A twitter user (@Picturekodak reported this ugly incident, she said:

"It just happened now at that tarkwa bay jetty just because we were shooting a dance video on the bridge in their premises .. this is just wickedness at highest level just because we are pushing our craft!!! This country is something else and God will definitely judge all these people .. I am actually writing this with tears in my eyes."

Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/08/video-directortom-tom-almost-strangled.html

The embattled Activist- Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested at the early hours of today by Men of the Department State security (DSS), the former Presidential candidate of AAC party stated in a controversial video that he's not afraid of death. Sowore made it known that no one can kill somebody who is not afraid of death, The founder of SaharaReporters said this before his arrest by at a pre-revolution rally in Lagos with members of the party.

In the video Sowore said:

"Nigerians are only asking for a revolution, 84% of Nigerians through a poll conducted are calling for revolution, they don't want war. But this people are driving us into war so that we all can be ex-terminated at once, we don't want war we want a very clean and succinct revolutionary process that's surgical that would put an end to the shenanigans of government, the oppression and corruption of government. Look at it, we have active ministers who have cases with EFCC and being asked to bow and go. Also in our National assemblies we have those who have been engaging in high crimes, we have a President that's insensitive this country has falling apart, Nigeria has failed except Nigerians bundled this guys out of our national space we are wasting our time. And don't ask me maybe if I'm afraid about legal implications, I'm carrying out a historical duty, only history can judge me not a prosecutor or a federal judge, I'm not worry about that, you can't kill someone who is not afraid of death, and if I'm afraid of death am I better than those who are getting killed and slaughtered every day. Am I better than student who are rusticated on campus for speaking out on campuses, Am I better than women who can't afford to eat, Am I better than kids who die before they see the better Nigeria they dreamed of, Am I better than workers who're not getting paid."



Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/08/you-cant-kill-somebody-who-is-not.html

Men of the Department of State Security Service have arrested founder of Sahara Reporters and former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Mr. Omoyele Sowore.

Objectv Media learned that the heavily mobilized men of the DSS invaded his hotel apartment in Ikeja and taken him to their office at CMD road, Magodo, as at the time of filing this report.

Sowore’s arrest is about 48 hours into the commencement of a planned revolutionary showdown on August 5th, 2019 across the country.


FemiOtawa.com confirmed this news report on Omoyele Sowore's official twitter handle @Yelesowore he says: " DSS invades Sowore's.."

Reports reaching FemiOtawa.com from a close aide of Mr Omoyele Sowore says that the Media Lab that houses Sahara Reporters in Ikeja where Nigerians are planning to meet this morning would be under seige by the DSS in the next one hour.

More details later..

Source: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/08/breaking-dss-arrests-sowore-ahead-of.html

Barely 72 hours into a highly publicized students’ event on the campus, Management of University of Lagos (UNILAG) ordered its organizers to delist him as speaker at the event, Objectv Media has exclusively learned.

Mr. Sowore, the founder of Sahara Reporters and convener of the TakeItBack movement was to headline the 2nd August, 2019 event convened by the UNILAG Chapter of the Muslim Students Society (MSS).
Many students and admirers of Mr. Sowore had publicized the events and were brazing to attend.

But a “regrettable correspondence” from the organizers, which was obtained by Objectv Media announced reversal of his invitation.

Objectv Media learned that UNILAG Management feared that Mr. Sowore’s presence on campus and his speech might instigate the students to rise up in protests against most of Management’s unfair policies, and had decided to immediately intercept his planned presence.

A copy of the correspondence couched to inform Mr. Sowore of his cancelled invitation was obtained by ObjectvMedia. See it below:

Source:https://objectv.media/2019/07/31/breaking-unilag-cancels-sowores-invitation-to-speak-at-a-highly-publicized-event-on-campus-objectv-media/

Google, unarguably the largest technology firm in the world is improving and making life more easier in our community.

Google had just introduced the Nigerian voice on the google map navigation so as to make movement easier. Unlike the former white accent, this newly launched Nigerian accent can pronounce geographical names and locations, landmarks within Nigeria with the original 'Naija' accent.

The Google language project lead: Kola Tubosun stated on his Twitter page:

"This is a small but important step towards technological inclusion in Africa. The next step is for African languages themselves to feature more prominently. I look forward to being part of making that future happen. It will improve and get better over time (speech synthesis is typically judged by its intelligibility and its naturalness). But it's here to stay. So, here's to technology continuing to reflect and empower us around the continent."

Watch video of how the Nigerian accent works on Google Map: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/google-launches-nigerian-voice-on.html

WATCH VIDEO: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/watch-how-ex-governor-tinubu-arrived.html

Watch how Ex-Governor Tinubu arrived into the Government House immediately after being sworn in to office. His arrival began the progressive transformation we are currently experiencing in Lagos state.


He was ushered into the government house glamorously with happiness and smiles at the secretariat.


WATCH VIDEO: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/watch-how-ex-governor-tinubu-arrived.html

WATCH VIDEO: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/meet-michael-showunmi-physically.html

Michael Showunmi is a graduate of Chemical Engineering from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH).

Michael narrates his challenges of living with his condition and the harsh environment living in Nigeria as a person with disability.

He also speaks about the struggles as a person with disability, his relationship, career as a teacher and how he thought of committing suicide.

Michael is a Physics teacher in a school at Alagbado axis of Lagos state. He's currently undergoing his Masters' degree at University of Lagos,akoka studying Mathematics.

Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/meet-michael-showunmi-physically.html

Igbo Re, Ona Re: The Nigerian Constitution and the Awo Road not Taken.
By Pius Adesanmi (March 5, 2014).

(Keynote lecture delivered at the Obafemi Awolowo Birthday Anniversary Symposium Convened by the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation. Lagos, March 4, 2014)

I was not a very happy man during my last appearance on a national lecture podium in this country back in October 2013. Pastor Tunde Bakare, and my good friend, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, had given me the unenviable task of ruining an unsuccessful man’s birthday celebration by inviting me to deliver a public lecture marking the occasion. What do you tell such a man? How do you celebrate the birthday of a man still wearing diapers in his fifties without telling him to his face that his life has been a colossal failure and an irredeemable calamity?

At the risk of being labelled a spoiler and a party pooper, I knew I had a job to do. So I came to Lagos to rob the nose of that particular birthday celebrant against the cold iron of reality. I told the celebrant that if you are still bedwetting in your fifties, what you need is a sober reflection party and not a birthday party. The celebrant in question, I’m sure you all know by now, is an elder brother of mine whose name I arrived at through a play of metaphors and personification. He is none other than Boda Nigeria.

Today, Dr. Mrs Olatokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu and the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation have given me the task of commemorating another birthday, albeit posthumously, with a lecture. But this time around, the face being the abode of discourse (oju l’oro wa), you should be able to tell just by looking at my face and the cap that I am wearing, that today’s task is one in which I am infinitely well pleased. My pleasure, obviously, derives from the fact that we are gathered here on account of a celebrant of a decidedly different hue.

We are gathered to celebrate and reflect on the momentous passage of our celebrant and his ideas and ideals through the life of this country at extremely significant moments of its history. In other words, we are gathered here on account of a masquerade who, for everyday it pleased his maker to grant him among us between March 6, 1909 and May 9, 1987, danced exceedingly well. Danced well for himself. Danced well for his wife and children. Danced well for his people. Danced well for his country. Danced well for Africa. Danced well for humanity. And when your masquerade dances well, that Yoruba proverb authorizes you to indulge in self-congratulatory chest beating.

Because the masquerade for whom we are gathered here today danced well, we are not going to sing dirges like we did the last time, we are going to celebrate even as we reflect critically and regretfully on “could have beens” and “had we knowns”. Last time, we did the body count for the celebrant, we looked at the mountains of corpses, a tragic consequence of wholly avoidable errors of the rendering, and we marked that birthday by singing, “oro nla le da”. Today, when we think of the man whose ideas we are here to engage and celebrate, when we think of his dance, and how he danced so well to help us avoid the path of self-destruction onto which we pigheadedly launched ourselves anyway, we are in order if we flagged off these events leading to the 6th of March 2014 by singing: “Happy birthday Papa Awo, Happy birthday to you”.

Now that we have paid our dues to the celebrant, now that we have cleared the path before us by saluting that great and illustrious ancestor of ours, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, if I continued this lecture beyond this point without other salutations, I risk the fate of the goat which entered the homestead without saluting the assembly of elders; I risk the fate of the ram which entered the homestead and did not acknowledge the elders in council. A tight leash around their necks was the last thing the insolent goat and the rude ram saw before they joined their ancestors in the bellies of the elders.

I must therefore crave your indulgence to perform a ritual of salutation with which you are already familiar if you have ever attended any of my public lectures in this country:

To Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu – iba!

To the ObafemiAwolowo Foundation. – iba!

To Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, Chairman of this occasion – iba!

To Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Osun State Goveror, present here with us – iba!

To all the Kabiyesis and Chiefs present in this hall – Iba!

To the esteemed discussants of this lecture – Iba!

To you, the audience, whose ears are here in this hall to drink my words – iba!

I pray you all,

Unbind me!

Unleash me!

Let my mouth sway words in this lecture

Like efufulele, the furious wind which

Sways the forest’s crown of foliage

Wherever its heart desires.

Dr. Dosunmu, members of the high table, distinguished audience, having saluted the homestead and the farmstead, do I now have the authority to proceed with this lecture? We should be thankful to the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation for placing the theme of our assignment today within the philosophical purview of paths, of roads, of journeys through space and time, and ultimately, of choices made or not made in the unavoidable human destiny of movement. But to each culture, to each civilization its particulars of framing the philosophy of roads and paths; of framing the cultural underpinnings of choice – the choice which places your feet as an individual or as a people on this road and not that road. Furthermore, whether you must set forth at dawn or not and how you go about propitiatory interventions to avoid ending up in the ravenous jaws of the famished road fall within the province of cultural predilections.

Different cultures, different approaches. Thus it was that in 1916, seven years after Chief Obafemi Awolowo was born, a certain culture that is conventionally associated with individuality – call it the imperialism of the singular subject – gave us one of the most famous poems of all times (as far as I’m concerned) in the English language. Almost a hundred years after its publication in 1916, philosophers, philologists, writers and artists, literary critics, and even, cultural dilettantes are still debating and trying to interpret its meaning and intent, with some even claiming that it is the most misread, most misinterpreted, and most misunderstood poem in the history of English poesy. That great poem, ladies and gentlemen, is entitled, “The Road not Taken”, authored by the famous American poet, Robert Frost. Please forgive me one more indulgence. That poem must be read entirely if only to highlight the particularity of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s nation-building roads and constitution-making paths within the Nigerian equation.

Writes Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This poem gives us the title of today’s proceedings. It is also the unsung and always unreferenced origin of the use of that phrase – the road not taken – in much of our national discourse. Perhaps, the deciders of the theme of this symposium weren’t even aware of the fact that they were drawing a straight line all the way back to this poem. However, for our purposes today, what I want you to pay attention to is the overwhelming evidence of individuality in this poem. There is only one isolated subject speaking of individual choice, destiny, and consequences in this business of taking or not taking a particular road. Notice that thiswayfaring Western persona in the poem describes himself as “one traveler” and treats us to a generous deployment of “I” in three of the four stanzas of the poem.

If only the speaking subject in Frost’s poem had been an African of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s ethnic stock! He would have been faced with an entirely different, and I daresay, more auspicious proposition. For one, he would not have been alone, for in this business of forked or bifurcated roads, the Yoruba worldview allows for the presupposition of the presence and guidance of either those who have gone before and have therefore acquired the requisite experience to guide he or those who “follow behind”, to borrow a popular Naija-speak; or the presence of those who, even if still here among us, possess such superior intellect and vision as could be deployed for the collective benefit of a people at the critical moment of choice – the choice of roads and paths.

In essence, to the aloneness, singularity, and individualityof Frost’s confused fictional character who stands at that critical bifurcation, saying, “me, myself, and I” must decide which of the two diverging roads to take, the Yoruba world responds with a co-presence which banishes aloneness, a voice of wisdom, prescience, vision, and experience; a superior intellect saying to the lonely traveler: “You are not alone. Igbo re, ona re”. This voice, we must insist, is not an intrusion into the private recesses of individual agency at the moment of choice. Rather, it is evidence of a communalist telos designed to deny the validity of lazy alibis and excuses in the event of sad and stubborn wrong choices and decisions. For the remainder of this lecture, whenever I scream “Igbo re”, your chorus shall be “Ona re”. For none Yoruba speakers, “igbo” is bush, signifying here the wrong way, full of thorns, serpents, and wild animals. “Ona” is way, road or path, signifying here the right way. When a Yoruba elder tells you “igbo re, ona re”, he is saying “here is the bush and here is the road, the choice of which to take is yours”!

Make the appropriate substitutions and that singularly forlorn persona in Frost’s poem, standing splendidly alone at the point of divergence of two roads becomes Nigeria at the parturition point of project nationhood in the first half of the 20th century. But Nigeria was never going to be alone in that long march to the choice of a road to national destiny. The she-goat was never going to be left alone to suffer the pains of parturition. Project Nationhood, that new space of civic and psychic belonging that was going to be forged out of the inchoate desires of different ethnic nationalities yoked together by colonialism, was singularly blessed by the presence of a stellar cast of nationalist heroes and sheroes, of statesmen and women, some destined for demiurgic roles, some destined for vatic roles, some destined to combine both and even more roles as they screamed at that emergent nation at the crossroads: igbo re, ona re!

It is my contention that as far as the constitutional history and trajectory of Nigeria is concerned, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was at once demiurgic (creator, originator) and vatic (visionary) and that, for me, is what makes his own voice the loudest in the assembly of founding fathers who tried to tell Nigeria: igbo re, ona re!But let us pause to probe this “igbo re, ona re” business further before we begin to unpack how Chief Obafemi Awolowo specifically applied it scrupulously to Nigeria’s process of constitutionally becoming and what we may learn from his proposals as we march yet again Abuja for a national dialogue.


READ MORE AND WATCH VIDEO HERE: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/igbo-re-ona-re-nigerian-constitution.html

Watch video HERE: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/videosowore-leads-takeitback-movements.html

Omoyele Sowore, a Presidential candidate at the last general elections, who is the leader of the TakeItBack and AAC party held a world conference with party members and comrades of the #TakeItBack movement. in Lagos.

Members of the AAC political party were seen in their new emblem ( The Pink Beret which carries an inscription of the Party logo)

Sowore staged a rally with the congregation of the Party members, they rallied on the street of Lagos, Omoyele addressed the AAC party members in Maryland, Lagos.

He highlighted the current situations affecting Nigerians, he said:

" Are you not tired of kidnappers, Herdsmen, Robbers, Useless government" Sowore stated that the rally to Maryland is just a rehearsal of what is going to visit Nigeria in the next few weeks and months a massive revolution will begin in Nigeria.

He further briefed that the Nigerians are tired of the current situations in Nigeria. The negligence, weakedness of the government of Nigeria.

At the rally, Omoyele Sowore warned those plotting to hijack the party (AAC) he said " We want to warn those who are trying to hijack our party, our party is not hijackable"

Sowore stated that Nigeria will face a revolution that will change the narrative of things.

#NotOurAAC #RevooutionNow

Watch video:https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/videosowore-leads-takeitback-movements.html

Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/moments-when-muhammadu-buhari-takes.html


lalasticlala , Mynd44, Seun

On December 31, 1983, the military seized power, The leader of the coup d'état was Major General Muhammadu Buhari of Katsina. (The current President of the federal republic of Nigeria).

The coup d'état was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military, led to the ouster of the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari.

Buhari had been director of supply and services in the early 1970s, military governor of Northeast State at the time it was divided into three states, and federal commissioner for petroleum and mines (1976-78) during the height of the oil boom. At the time of the coup, he was commander of the Third Armored Division in Jos.

The coup d'état was staged sucessfully which brought him into power, immediately after General Muhammadu Buhari finished reading his speech he took over instantly.


Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/moments-when-muhammadu-buhari-takes.html

Watch video: https://www.femiotawa.com/2019/07/davidos-brother-adewale-proposed-to-his.html