This is Nigeria

Everybody be criminal!

I hardly meddle in religion but this one got me.

I can’t believe what l just heard and saw.

How can we set Nigerians free from SLAVERY?



Fatal Distractions

Clemens Westerhof said qualifying for the African Cup of Nations is a birthright of the Super Eagles of Nigeria. Guess which country is conspicuously missing in action again as you get wallowed with religious issues.

Fatal Distractions

By Adeola Aderounmu


This past week, as usual, l have listened to some Nigerian radio programs, read Nigerian headline news and followed keenly Nigerian discussions on the social media.

These past few days have been dominated by matters relating to religion, the opium of the Nigeria masses.

In southern Kaduna, there are evidence to show the persecutions of christians. Genocide under the watch of Mr. El-rufai should hopefully lead to his trial and total annihilation from politics in the future (if Nigeria should suddenly become a normal country).

This is the country where a criminal like Ibori became a governor and other top level criminals have also gone to occupy both local, state and federal positions. Nigerians hail them and forget their sins.

Invariably though, it would appear that the cold war in Kaduna’s politics and tribal game of thrones got matured and became blown open. The brewing had been there forever.

Some people have also warned about the APC and some people have stated that the APC-Buhari mandate came with an lslamic agenda. The unfortunate massacre in southern Kaduna at this time, and the silence of Mr. Buhari on the matter is either a bad coincidence or a credence to the allegations against the APC-Buhari mandate. Either way, it does no one no good.

The other distraction bothering on religious matter plaguing Nigeria at this time concerns one of the pentecostal churches in Nigeria and their super general overseer. The man Adeboye is so powerful he is a god to his followers. For people like him who became gods to their followers, laws were made. For him specifically, a law was discarded.

There are more fatal distractions. We all got used to the religious gangsters in the North. Boko Haram, nototrious for abduction and rape of women remained established. Nowadays they hardly make the news for their religious views. After fulfilling their sexual orgies, they continue to find both soft and hard targets daily across north-eastern Nigeria especially. The bombing of Adamawa is still so fresh.

You can imagine how many times you will hear the falsehood that the potent terror group has/had been defeated. It’s like you cannot get rid of a monster that you created by yourself.

So, if you are interested in research on a people who love to be distracted and deceived, take a trip to Nigeria. If you also want to analyse a people who are easily distracted, come again to Nigeria.

For those who have their eyes on the ball all the time, they know what time it is now. This weekend the most important sport tournament in Africa, the African Cup of Nations started in Gabon.

When l told one of my colleagues that Nigeria did not qualify for the competition after he wished me goodluck for the tournament, his eyes nearly popped out of his face in both disbelief and shock.

As he walked away from me, l could not find the expressions to explain why Nigeria was missing in action. When he returns to work after his leave in 4 weeks, the tournament would have been over. So, my shame is postponed for 4 weeks.

But who remembers this?

When former super eagles coach Clemens Westerhof was in charge, he said that no one should ever worry about Nigeria qualifying for the African Cup of Nations. He puts our minds to rest forever on the matter. In his words, he said ”to qualify for the ACN is the birthright for the Super Eagles of Nigeria”.

Since 1994, other nations may have become better, that means Nigeria should have become the best too over the years. But that was not the sequence, sadly. Nigeria as a country may have gone to bed since 1960.

Nigeria is missing in action and many of us, thousand of miles away from home are  covering our heads in shame. Our people at home remain distracted by the major impediments to their growth and development, religion and religion-related matters.

Rather than bemoan the decline and even the dearth of national sport activities in Nigeria, our people are discussing religion. They did not even come out to fight for the super falcons. They did not use the opportunity of the super falcons’s protest to call for accountability in the sport ministry.

Our people are boasting of exporting religion especially churces back to Europé and America. Our minds are definitely wasted. How can our hearts not ache for this growing tragedy?

Apart from sports, there are many things too numerous to mention that should draw the anger and engagement of our people. What can happen if we hypothetically take this energy and committment away from religion and place it on one of Nigeria’s prominent problems, say lack of electricity for example?

Lack of electricity is a major contributor to the recession in Nigeria. Despite all the monies that our criminal politicians have stolen and continue to steal from the treasury Nigeria would still not have gone into a recession if only there is constant power supply. Today is not the day to prove that theorem.

The sacking of Mr. Obazee shows that things can actually happen if the Nigerian government and the people become sincere to themselves. A swift change was made as a result of personal ego and ambitions. Why is it difficult to effect the changes that would rub on the common good of all?

The hullabaloos  about religion, lslam and Christianity, are never going to be over in Nigeria and sadly too, the problems will stay because our energies are focussed on the wrong issues. The people are permanently distracted because the truth did not even set them free and it also appears to be too late to make religion a private matter for the people of Nigeria.

If l had a magic swerve or swagger, l would redirect the rage (waited all my adult life for it) to the biggest problem with Nigeria which is the political problem.

Nigerians will know no freedom until the country’s number one problem which is the politicial problem is solved. Religion will never solve Nigeria’s problem. The best that religion can do is to break up Nigeria, violently.

Mr. Buhari and the self-serving executive and legislators sitting down in the comfort of their mansions in Abuja will not solve all the problems in Abuja. How can they solve the problems of the people of Idanre, Okokomaiko, Akwa, Chibok or Moniya?

There is no greater insanity of a political system where almost anything that affect 200 m people depends on one man.

The knee jerk responses will remain the hallmark of this reactionary, redundant system of government in Nigeria. The greater proportion of the third generation of post-independent Nigeria, about 100 m people, is already wasting away in abject poverty, extreme penury and hopelessness.

With the failure of governance and Nigeria currently in recession and therefore a failed country, the churches and mosques will still be there to receive this miserable proportion of the population living from hand to mouth and suffering amidst abundance resources.

Religious institutions will not be converted to factories to provide work and wipe away hunger and frustrations. The Nigerian government will continue to neglect civil responsibilities while sending folks on tourism to Mecca and Jerusalem with taxpayers monies.

Life will always be short and not many people count their days or months to actually know this. Instead we opted to even devalue those days on earth. We demean the essence of life. It’s the same cycle of idiocy.

Just when we thought our clamour should move towards cooking by induction if our electricity is improved, we got a rude shock that the people  are now cooking with firewood even  in western Nigeria, the part of Africa  that was most advanced in the earlier parts of the 20th century.

What a tragedy!

Believers are rejocing over the sack of Mr. Obazee. Nigeria is definitely a one chance ride for all. Well done all for keeping up with the distraction games. Even with your academic intelligence (and too bad for those deprived of the right to education), it helps your politicians to continue to enslave you in your belief that the solutions to your problems lie in religion rather than the use of common sense and the application of social and civil responsibilities.

My colleague loves the game and even though he left South America many years ago, he kept his eyes on the ball and he knows the game. He loves it and he believes in Nigeria. He often spoke of her exploits at Atlanta 96 especialy the game against Brazil.

I’m glad his eyes didn’t pop out of his face. But our people back home are still busy killing in the name of religion. They are busy wallowing and hallowing in the name of imported religions and missing the simple essence/purpose of life- to live and let live.

No greater fatal distraction!

2016: The Heart-breaking Year 

There are so many things about 2016 that broke my heart into pieces.

In Nigeria today, ordinary common sense, profound reasoning and life changing positive reflections have been thrown into the gutters.

When money is taken out of the ratio, the next most influential factor for getting political appointment in Nigeria today is religion.

2016: The HeartBreaking Year



By Adeola Aderounmu

”To even imagine what lies ahead in 2016 under the prevailing global crash in oil-prices and other  revolutionary advances in the world is totally heartbreaking”-Adeola Aderounmu, December 2015.

The immediate quote above was how l ended my last essay in 2015. It was titled, Not Another Great Year.

I was among the people who expressed utmost pessimism for what the future (2016 and beyond) had in stock for Nigerians.  Our people in their gullibility prefer to hear such obvious omen from their pastors and imams at worship centers.

2016 wraps up for majority of Nigerians on a very low note. For several millions expectations were dashed and hopes were turned to hopelessness. It’s a cycle too easy to predict.

Way back in one of my end of year messages, probably 2012, l have stated that God will not save Nigeria. That postulation remain intact. In 2017, there will not be a divine or conjured intervention for Nigeria.

It is Nigerians who will decide when they have had enough of irresponsible government and selfish rulership. The fate and future of Nigeria will not be decided by the Church like one of my friends argued with me when l visited Nigeria this summer. If the future of Nigeria will be great, it will not depend on the Mosque either.

For in Nigeria today, ordinary common sense, profound reasoning and life changing positive reflections have been thrown into the gutters. When money is taken out of the ratio, the next most influential factor for getting political appointment in Nigeria today is religion. For the almost monolithic “religious” states, tribe is the decider. Nigerians have lost it, they have descended too low.

The trend had been upcoming and today it is well established. In the monolithic states, there is a system of rotation that ensures that the embezzlement of public funds is rotated among tribes every 4 years. If the public office is at a very local level, then it is different clans that rotate the looting of the local treasury.

Are we stiil wondering why more than 100 m nigerians live in penury, almost exclusively from hand to mouth?

In my local government, the enactment of a church beside the mosque was a reassuring signal that Christians will not be kicked out of the premises soon.

The last time l checked though, the people l met at my local government were complete outsiders. They know nothing about Festac Town and you can tell they are political leeches. They do not know the layouts of Festac and they have no idea how the community came into existence and the dreams we had when we were children.

Lagos state now provides a recipe that is replica of the failed country called Nigeria.

When religion, friendship, tribalism, hypocrisy, ineptitude, arrogance, stupidity, inefficiency, man-know-man and other vices are promoted above service and integrity, there will never be progress. Peace may even become a scare ideology. Rivalry and sometimes war will prevail even with the slightest of provocation. This is where Nigeria is today!

On a more personal note, since the summer months, l have written and called attention to the environmental issues that affect the people of Festac Town. Sadly the governor of Lagos State love the lslands more than the Mainlands, and Festac Town can rot because he does not give a damn. Both the governor of Lagos state and the ignorant sole administrator of Festac Town have pretended that they are deaf.

They don’t care about anything that does not bring returns to their pockets. How do we define political leeches again?

I think the people of Festac should be allowed to run Festac so that the people can know who to turn to when things don’t go right. The council should never be in the hands of complete strangers especially when they have used their religion as a jackpot. This is so sad and the rulers of Lagos have failed too.

Likewise, we continue to clamour that one man cannot rule Nigeria. Nigeria is a failed project under the unitary system. When the government is brought close to the people, it will be relatively easier to know who to hold responsible when projects failed and when infrastructure collapse.

Today in Nigeria, it appears that everything wrong with the country is the fault of Buhari. It is indeed true but it’s just that he is not the origin of the problems. His role has been more as a catalyst in destroying what is left of Nigeria. This is the second time he’s doing so.

The system of government in Nigeria will never work. It is designed to fail. The complain we are making today are the same complains that writers and critics made more than 40 years ago. The system of government is the same. Things got worse.

It is now not known how to convince the people that prayers don’t bring about technological development. It is not known how we can convince the people that religion and vigils do not solve national problems.

I don’t know in how many ways we can try to reach the people and tell them that it is what we do or not that affect the progress of our country. The outcomes of our actions and inactions are independent of prayers. Prayers don’t help a nation to escape poverty, food production does.

Prayers don’t help a nation to become healthy. It is the function of the health policy of the government and the investment in medicine and health care that do.

Theology does not take any country to the moon or mars. Science and research do.

Another year 2017 is here and Nigerians will start it with a crossover at churches and mosques. No matter what the calender says, it is just another day and another rotation of the earth about the sun.  Science says it’s a revolution of the earth around the sun, therefore there’s actually nothing new about rotation and revolution.

It is very hard to know how Nigerians, more than 150 million people can be reached and convinced on the meaning and essence of life. It is pretty hard and frustrating.

Recently some hopeless people gathered in London to celebrate the release of a criminal called Ibori. The likes of Ibori are numerous in Nigeria. They are the ones running the country. They should be happy because they are the lucky bastards. In some countries where corruption is not tolerated, their graves will be unmarked after they must have been summarily executed.

It pains and infact it hurts to see the foolishness of Nigerians on a global scale. People like the supporters of lbori and the praise-singers of other politicians help Nigeria to wash her dirty linens in public. The global shame is indelible and embarassing.


Many of them are repetitions of the inexplicable circumstances surrounding the governing of Nigeria, the attitudes of Nigerians, the behaviours of Nigerians and the irreconciliable diversity of the notions of the Nigerian state or statelessness.

Let me be clear, Nigeria is being misgoverned. This is not news. The country has been on a roller coast to hell since 1960. Therefore when the APC-Buhari mandate promised changes, Nigerians bought it. But it has been business as usual, and the status-quo after 18 months shows that this government is ideologically clueless. The economy is lying prostrate.

After the crossover ceremonies at the churches and mosques, who will tell Nigerians that the crossover is meaningless without the necessary actions aimed at progress, prosperity and the common good.

We must change the system of government even if we cannot change every other thing. We need to bring back governance to the doorsteps of the people. It won’t matter who we usher to Abuja in 2019 because one man will not rule Nigeria successfully.

Lets fight a common fight now. Let’s write about it, let’s talk about it. Let us enforce it. If we can, let us occupy the streets and the citadel of corruption called Abuja and call for a rapid response to the change in the system of government. It’s the biggest gift we can bestow on the unborn generations.

At the regions, there will be closer monitoring of infrastucture and health provison.  Educational needs will be tailored to local situations. Even housing will be structured based on regional population and peculiarities. Power can be generated using local needs instead of senseless national jargons. These won’t happen overnight, but our grandchildren will be happy we started a journey with their needs and prosperity in minds.

If all we want to leave to our children are our imported religions and ill-acquired wealth, then let’s all brace up for a 2017 filled with pain, anguish, sorrow and disappointments. we are used to them any way.

For as long as we continue to lie and pretend that the unitary system of government will get us somewhere, these outcomes, to different degrees in different homes and communities will remain our common denominators.



The Broken And The Unbroken



To Nigeria, my first love.

Adeola Aderounmu





































It is a sad situation for Nigeria.


Is there a way out?








Sadly too, history has massive records of betrayals and deceits.


An Invitation To Ile-Ife


An Invitation To Ile-Ife

Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

By Adeola Aderounmu








What is the limit of hypocrisy?









He taught us about Ajobi.





























Who knows how evil rose and triumphed among them?






That moral consciousness will not be an obligation.


The Kings Are Mad (Part 1)

Hope is quenched when we die. Maybe tomorrow will be better, Mama Esan thought out loudly pondering what she was going to do next as she stood on her feet. She is awake now. Still a voice echoed in her head: what if it is true that tomorrow never comes. Then she sat down again, and wept.

The Kings Are Mad (Part 1)

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Mama Esan ran out of the house. The rain was heavy. She quickly cleared her stall and salvage the remaining items she could grab. Earlier that day she had hoped that things would get better and that her dreams would come true. The heavy rain destroyed almost everything including her temporary stall, her wares and then some parts of the house itself. The roof is always the first part you can imagine.

Her husband has been jobless for 7 years. The dwindling economic fortunes and the total collapse of infrastructure especially the absence of power supply led many companies to shut done their operations. Some of them declared bankruptcy just as a way of getting out of the unrealistic economic environment. If I want food, it doesn’t mean I have to be able to manufacture a gas cooker or an electric heater, one of the affected CEOs declared, proverbially. Then he went to another land.

All of Mama Esan’s children have been withdrawn from their different schools. No one had expected that the cost of education will be so high. No one thought a time would come when there will be no food on the table. But like a pestilence the day came.

In mama Esan’s existence, hope no longer seems to have a place. For her, only vengeance was sure if she could have one. Mama Esan knew though that her situation was not an isolated one. Many people suffer similar fate as she does. Life no longer presented them with choices. For some people the dictionary can as well be rewritten and the non-applicable words deleted.

There is a man called Chinedu. The first time mama Esan saw her was around 1985. He was just a boy. At that time he enjoyed a lot of facilities. But all of those (fading) facilities and infrastructure soon disappeared completely. The best thing in his life was that he got the education he wanted. This was not possible in every part of the land.

When he left high school in 1990 Chinedu decided to try his hands on business and he started as a learner. He learnt the buying and selling trade and gained his freedom when he became an expert. Then he was able to rent an apartment though he was a bachelor at that time. He had his eyes on the future.

However since 1993 no one knew or understood what went wrong. Perhaps people just denied the knowledge of what went wrong with their lives. Some people said the gods got angrier, and others said their ancestors are now restless. Some people read the new foreign holy books and thought they found new hopes.

If anyone had told Chinedu that he was going to be living from hand to mouth in 2014 he would have sworn to Amadiora, one of the gods he knew before 1985, that that day will never come. He would have called the Alusi, if he knew how, to strike the speaker of the strange words.

Now married with children, Chinedu can no longer afford the cost of running his business. It’s too hard now to tend a family. He is terrified everyday and he had seen some people landed in prisons after attempting to push hard drugs as a way to keep their businesses going. The law is not effective but it always catches up with the people who need protection the most, if they erred. One of his friends died with foam puffing from his mouth. The wraps of cocaine inside of him exploded before he could deliver them.

The power generating plants kept breaking down and the cost of petrol for home and business became unbearable. Chinedu gave up. One day he survived an unexpected explosion. The generator was bad but he didn’t know about it. Now, he’s not sure if he should move back to his village with his family. He can go back to his grandfather’s farmland. He is afraid he may be called a failure. His mind kept roaming, as he ponders on the alternative “businesses” of armed robbery and kidnapping. By resisting the temptations, he thought he had rebuked the devil.

Some people think that the devil exists and that he is male. People think the devil should be blamed for all the negative things in life. When he was a student, Chinedu learnt about the culture and mythology of the people in Ebute Meta. He was held spellbound when he learnt that the devil was not Esu. He knows now that it was the invaders who taught about the devil.

Among all the tribes in the land, the people of Ebute Meta, Amuwo and Araromi have no version of the devil in their existence and traditional institutions. It was also the foreigners who invented the term religion and misapplied it. Ignorance ruined the minds of men and they thought that the white man’s devil is the Esu in Ifa’s mythology. Ifa is not a religion; it is a way of life and the explanation for everything associated with mankind.

It was about time the human race laid the blame for global ruins at own doorsteps. Man is responsible for the evil deeds in the world, not an imaginary demon. Man created religion and a place in his own heart called “devil”. Ifa is not human but it can admittedly be either good or bad depending on the man that applies it. When people find evil in (d)evil, maybe they will be convinced that both terms are the inventions of ordinary mortals.

Many people in Ebute Meta are happy for the knowledge that came their way through basic education. But they are now sad because of their misfortunes. What they have learnt have seen them through many life changing experiences. Their hope is that the prevailing problems they encounter will pass away. But what are they doing about these new problems?

There was a man who left Ebute Meta. He went to a very far place in the land called Abuja. He was in search of fulfilment and his name was Muyiwa. He was killed in a bomb explosion. The bomb was set off by the dissidents in Abuja. No one can see the future unless the gods smile down on them and when risks are not taken sometimes, it’s hard to tell what the outcomes could be. After more than 10 years as a jobless engineer in Ebute Meta, this young man was exterminated. He was just 37, which is 3 years shy of age when they say life begins.

Muyiwa was a brilliant man and he was originally from the village of Eniyansoro. He had been told of a job opportunity in the far place. He thought he’d try out his luck. The debt he owed to get to this place of death will never be paid back. The dissidents from the North have now come to Abuja. People say they are also mad because they do not believe in visions but accepted the foreign teaching that they will be alive as martyrs in an unknown place by killing innocent people in suicide missions.

The king of Abuja is foolish. He believes in the devil so he did nothing about this evil when it showed its ugly head. All his life, all he-the king-wanted is power and he chose to dine with the “devil” because he had a choice. He had learnt from his youth that he could dine with the devil by using a very long spoon.

Many of the previous Kings of Abuja are known to have suddenly perished. Some people say the gods must be crazy in this land because they first make the kings deaf and then they destroyed them. But the gods are not crazy. They are probably amused.

Even so because the various kings in the different parts of the land are hypocrites who pretend about the new religions while possessing deep seated intuitions about the gods and they always thought that sacrifices are better than obedience. So they-the kings-make many ceremonies and they give away many unsuspecting fools as living sacrifices. The biggest human sacrifices have always been in Abuja and towards the North of the land.

Money and gold can make people to stop thinking, so they don’t see the evil that other men have planted in their ways. Another selected delegate to the king’s ceremony died 2 days ago and still people want to blame the devil. If the king can kill one of his brothers, who can be free from his thirst for power?

When people are hungry, they also sometimes unknowingly sell their souls. They have no food because many of them left for the cities. They thought they will get rich in the cities. Now with fewer jobs, many of them have no money as well. So the people also said that money is the root of all their problems. How can the people know that the devil is not a demon and that he does not exist? Men clothe their hearts as devils and propagate evil despite the knowledge of the truth with which they were born.

Mama Esan thought about the religiosity of all the kings that she knew: in Ebute Meta, in Abuja and even in the North. Then she wondered who God is and his relationship to Olodumare. This was the first time in her life that she gained awareness of her own thinking about religion. The present king of Abuja took religion to an absurd horizon. No king before him adopted religion as widely and open as he does today. Yet, it is now that the greatest devastations beseech the land. Mama Esan became really confused.

She was not finished with her thoughts. She knows a lot about many of the books her children read when they returned from school. The stories are mostly sad stories. In history, in geography and even in science books, she listened when her children study about many diseases and how some of them are incurable. She’ll be sad if there are no ways for the children to return to school. We are in a hopeless situation, she said to herself. Then she thought that she had a voice in her head “We become religious because we are afraid of death. Yet we die and become dust”.

She woke up drowned in her sweat. She thought about Muyiwa. Ebute Meta is not a big place. Bad news travel fast. She knew about the travails of Muyiwa and many young people in Ebute Meta. She remembered the day Muyiwa and his friends came to her and ask for some items on credit. She overheard him when he told his friends about a foreign film called Fried Green Tomatoes that he had seen and that his favourite line in the movie set in the 1920s was: no one would leave this earth alive.

One day, in order to start a discussion, mama Esan asked her neighbour: what is the meaning of premonition? One of her children had said that he thought Muyiwa had a premonition he was going to die in a far (foreign) place and that was why he talked about the foreign drama and death.

All that is foreign cannot be evil. The power of discernment is one of the greatest gifts the gods left to the people when they departed from Araromi. Muyiwa was philosophical while his travails lasted. He spoke of the several millions like him and wondered from where their hope cometh. He died along with several other innocent people. His hope never materialised and his body parts were shattered. Life can be cruel even to the kind. The evil in the hearts of men and kings does not discern because they think it is the devil’s work.

With all sorts of religions, vices and crimes are committed in the land. The taste of foreign religions left the people in this land in the rhythm of the shadows of mental slavery. It became more devastating because somehow they were not able to differentiate between rites and faith.

This king of Abuja became a master in the philosophy of modern religion. The dissidents from the North have their own ideas about it. The people are suffering and there is confusion everywhere.

From everything the people hear and see they also fail to realise that their freedom and way back to prosperity will lie in their power to discern. They must know the truth so that they can be free. Else there is a risk they will become slaves to anything that they do not understand.

Muyiwa was one of those who believed that life started and will end on earth. He had a premonition but he didn’t know it. He was a kind fellow and he lived in peace with everybody though his heart was always troubled in his private moments.


Then she sat down again, and wept.

(Watch out for part 2)


By Adeola Aderounmu










