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	Tunde Adenodi Pharmacist  East Orange New Jersey, USA
Tunde Adenodi	Tunde Adenodi's Special Column
Vacationing in Nigeria with pain by Tunde Adenodi. January 05, 2009 Going home is always fun. There is always an air of anticipation of what you are going to meet: Your relatives, your friends, your neighbors. There is also always an air of serious apprehension on what you will not want to meet: Armed robbers, NEPA and serious traffic jams that discourage the avid fun loving vacationer from having some fun out of your immediate environment. Certainly, no one wants to have anything to do with the police, customs immigration, the local government, the state and Federal Governments. Not that you can do without them. But the most minimal contact you have to have with those bodies, the better for you.  NigerianNews Special     Ribadu: Fighting Corruption Nigerian Style by Tunde Adenodi. December 08, 2008 In 1966, the army took over the reign of governance and listed corruption as one of the reasons for their action. But what they called corruption in those early days was nothing compared with what they handed over to Shagari in 1979 after 13 years at the helm. And each successive government after Gowon lamented the degree of corruption they inherited from their predecessors and swore to fight it to a standstill. They said they did. But corruption has always won. The result of their fight is that Nigeria has emerged the 38th most corrupt nation on earth in a list of 41 countries. Put in another way, we are the third most corrupt nation on earth. And if President Yar’Adua continues the way he is going, we will catch up with the last two countries and emerge as the most corrupt nation on earth!  NigerianNews Special   Obama’s bumpy ride to the White House by Tunde Adenodi. November 20, 2008 Let us allow our imagination to run wild for only a fleeting moment: Suppose Barack Obama won the presidential election hands down like he just did and suppose the incumbent, the lame-duck US President George W. Bush announced with an unsigned statement that he was annulling the election because of fear of “judicial anarchy”, what reaction do you expect from Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar or Sani Abacha, were he to be alive? What would Obasanjo say? Or Buhari? Or all the anti-democracy leaders who have led us to the cul-de-sac we have found ourselves in since independence? Can you imagine the stress the US would have to go through? Can anyone imagine the stress the whole democratic world would have to go through?  NigerianNews Special   Obama: No victory song until November 5 by Tunde Adenodi. October 13, 2008 Pollsters have been dead right in most elections held in the US in the last 20 years especially as it concerns the presidential elections. But in 1982, Tom Bradley, Mayor of Los Angeles ran for the office of Governor of California and lost! And so what? And so what?! Polls had indicated that he was heading for a landslide victory over his white rival in an election period not too different from the current socio-political and economic environment engineered by the Republican brand of unbridled capitalism. Bradley was a democrat and have I told you that he was also black?  NigerianNews Special   Backing the Delta People to the Wall by Tunde Adenodi. August 12, 2008 Normally, a sheep does not bite. But when you chase it around and back it to the wall, it would bite! This is a Yoruba adage. Collectively, we, all of us Nigerians, have backed the people of the Delta to the wall, and bite, they will. And if they bite, we shall all suffer the consequences.  NigerianNews Special   Northernizing the Nigerian military… yet again by Tunde Adenodi. July 28, 2008 By selecting what he thought was an urbane intellectual from deep north*, also known as the Sharia States or “Gideon Orkar excised states” (my own coinage), former President Olusegun Obasanjo had hoped that his work of 8 years might not necessarily be overturned.  NigerianNews Special   Northern Plot to Subvert the Constitution by Tunde Adenodi. June 26, 2008 The northern power brokers are at it again doing what they know best: plotting and scheming on their method for retaining power, fair or foul. Forty years of failure has not dissuaded them from this line of action, the mafia style.  NigerianNews Special   Obasanjo as the Villain? by Tunde Adenodi. May 29, 2008 The collective amnesia of General Obasanjo’s detractors is astounding. But reading through General Theophilus Danjuma’s interview on his old friend can be revealing. Between the detractors and Danjuma, his old friend and mentor, can be found the truth. Fact: Detractors can never find anything good in their target. Danjuma, however, was the one man who, in deference to the Chief of Staff under Murtala Muhamed, offered the Presidency to Obasanjo in the aftermath of the coup that got Murtala killed. NigerianNews Special The Oil Windfall this time Around by Tunde Adenodi. May 18, 2008 The Bush family has done some good for Nigeria in the last 20-odd years. Not because they wanted to; but because they had to, if they must do some good for themselves. Father and son are into oil and Dick Cheney, their surrogate. Of course, Nigeria swims in oil; probably even chokes with oil! And Nigeria has the best oil, sulfur free and more amenable to the basic procedure of separating the different components called fractional distillation. NigerianNews Special The Barack Obama Phenomenon by Tunde Adenodi. March 18, 2008 Shirley Chisholm, a New York House of Representative member in the 70’s blazed the trail. Then, Jesse Jackson, the fire-brand president of the rainbow coalition in the 80’s. Revd. Al Sharpton took the baton, along with the Abacha friend - Carol Mosley-Brown ( I did not say girl-friend) in 2004. NigerianNews Special   Obasanjo, Gbenga and Mojisola: Defiling Yoruba Culture by Tunde Adenodi. January 31, 2008 Curiously, I am hoping no one will read this article! The obvious solution to this dilemma is not to write it. No one can read what is not written! This is not so simple especially when I feel a compulsive, probably even a compelling need to write it. Compulsive, because a person’s gut reaction to issues is often the right one and compelling, because it is wrong not to comment on the bizarre stories coming from Obasanjo’s staple. NigerianNews Special   Saudi Arabia: Where rape victim is jailed and lashed! by Tunde Adenodi. January 05, 2008 It happened not long ago in Kano? Hawa, I believe the name was, had a fling. She became pregnant. A regular secular court would think that a man would not be too far from the scene of this “crime”. Not so for Sharia court! She was prosecuted for adultery and was to suffer jail term; but for the intervention of the international community and some Nigerian human rights lawyers. As for Hawa’s baby’s father, he was left off the hook. NigerianNews Special   Pauperization of Zimbabwe by Tunde Adenodi. October 02, 2007 My generation got inspiration from the likes of Robert Mugabe, Abel Muzorewa and Joshua Nkomo, the Zimbabwe trio that fought Ian Smith to a standstill. Before these was Nigeria’s trio: Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Ahmadu Bello. Not to talk of Nelson Mandela, the greatest of them all! There was the dare-devil Wole Soyinka who would confront a sub-machine gun with a mere pen. He dared the usurpers in an adventurous confrontation at the WNBS studios in Ibadan in 1965. NigerianNews Special   Yar’Adua’s Presidency: Nature of Things to Come by Tunde Adenodi. June 17, 2007 I had planned to wait to see the list of President Yar’Adua’s cabinet before writing this piece. But now, I cannot wait. What he has done so far is enough to draw some important conclusions. Or at least, it is enough to suggest, to a reasonable degree of certainty, his future moves on the issue of what we all know as Federal Character. NigerianNews Special   Professor Wole Soyinka: Let this Yar’Adua be by Tunde Adenodi. June 14, 2007 Professor Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in literature has come a long way. In 1965, by his own account, he forced his way into the NBC studios in Ibadan to switch Chief Akintola’s victory speech for his own. While his “crime” was political, his prosecutors sought to make it criminal by charging him for armed robbery! He escaped being criminalized by whiskers! NigerianNews Special   Obasanjo’s Legacy by Tunde Adenodi. May 11, 2007 This subject is very broad. We will attempt to discuss it under the following headings: The Economy, Political Development, Electricity, Foreign Policy, Security of Life and Property, the Delta Region and Official Corruption. We will also discuss what is expected of Obasanjo’s successor. NigerianNews Special   Buhari: The Born Again Democrat! by Tunde Adenodi. May 07, 2007 General Muhammadu Buhari has never called himself a democrat. Even while running for president in 2003 as well as in the last election in April, he never pretended to be a democrat. It is only a nucleus of his followers who insist that he has become a democrat; a democrat in their own mould. NigerianNews Special   My Dictator Is Better Than Yours by Tunde Adenodi. April 05, 2007 Let me re-phrase this title: A dictator is good as long as he is from my tribe; as long as he is my dictator! This is the acceptable schism in Nigeria. So, it is acceptable to have a dictator as long as he is from our side of the country! The corollary is obvious: Dictators that are not from my ethnic origin are not acceptable. NigerianNews Special   Yoruba Rooooo nu OOOOO!!! by Tunde Adenodi. January 29, 2007 If there is any Yoruba alive who did not know that General Obasanjo was foisted on Nigerians and Yoruba in particular, as a so-called Yoruba candidate in 1999, that Yoruba man or woman is living in a fool’s paradise. NigerianNews Special   The Buhari that I know by Tunde Adenodi. January 23, 2007 In the early hours of January 1, 1984 when General Muhammadu Buhari became Nigeria’s Head of State, this writer was not particularly unhappy at the political development. Nor were millions of Nigerians from all parts of the country. NigerianNews Special   The Caging of Babangida by Tunde Adenodi. January 05, 2007 There is no question that IBB has been a formidable power broker on Nigeria’s political theater for the past 30 years. Until at least two weeks ago. He has been close to the seat of power since perhaps the second coup of 1966. And each successful coup had moved him one notch up the political hierarchy until 1985 when he got the ultimate price and declared himself our president against established tradition of coup plotters calling them-selves Heads of State. NigerianNews Special   What Obasanjo must do if Babangida wins by Tunde Adenodi. August 25, 2006 This title is not particularly appropriate. It presumes that Bibangida can indeed win a free and fair election in Nigeria. But if I were to change it to this: “What Obasanjo must do if Babangida won” NigerianNews Special   Obasanjo’s Burden by Tunde Adenodi. April 11, 2006 President Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s Head of State in 1976 at a period of grave national disaster following the assassination of his boss, General Murtala  Muhammed. He took over the office “against his personal wish and desire”. NigerianNews Special   Igbo: Dating Yoruba but marrying Hausa/Fulani by Tunde Adenodi. It should be noted however, that Obasanjo was selected for the same reason his own people had rejected him. In fact, he was supported to spite the Yoruba and in order to be able to say that the Yoruba people are fastidious and insatiable. NigerianNews Special - July 18, 2004   Obasanjo and Babangida: The rumored deal? by Tunde Adenodi. Three years ago, I was browsing through the internet when I ran into a black and white picture of three people in military physical education gear playing what looked like the Yoruba game called ayo. General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Ibrahim Babangida were the players and General Sani Abacha was a spectator. They looked like they were all in their mid to late 30’s. They looked relaxed and contented. They had to be very friendly to engage in the game of ayo. In Yorubaland, nobody plays ayo with just casual friends. NigerianNews Special - January 07, 2004   Babangida's Project Double O Seven by Tunde Adenodi. When I came to Lagos from Ondo in the late 60’s, I got fascinated with James Bond movies, most of them written by Ian Flemming. James Bond was and still is, the major character and he was fondly referred to as Double O Seven which they interpret as license to kill. Goldfinger, the bad man in the movie named “Goldfinger” got frustrated by James Bond’s ubiquity and said and I quote, “first is happenstance, second is coincidence and third is enemy action”. IBB’s Project Double O Seven is enemy action against Nigeria and Nigerians and must be treated as such. If Babangida says to you, “good morning”, it will be in your own interest to check your watch, it may well be one hour before midnight. NigerianNews Special   2007: Those who will not be President by Tunde Adenodi. The Constitutional Conference hosted by the British Government in London in 1954 was designed by Her Imperial Majesty to watch at close range those whom the British would not hand over power to. Ostensibly, it was established to fashion out a constitution for the nascent independent country. May 10, 2005 NigerianNews Special   Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com