Dr. Obadiah Mailafia

My gentle readers would know that the title of today’s piece is borrowed from the famous autobiography by the long-reigning founder-leader of Singapore, late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015). In those eponymous memoirs, Lee sought to explain how his country raised itself, as it were, from its bootstraps as a marshy, mosquito-infested backwater into one of the most prosperous nations of our twenty-first century. As we face the prospects of electing a new leader to preside over the high magistracy of our federal republic, there has been no discussion whatsoever on how we can move our country from third to first world status. The British political philosopher Isaiah Berlin made a famous remark about the fox and the hedge hog. The fox is full of all sorts of ideas, some of the hare-brained, of course. The hedge hog, on the one hand, is driven by a big idea. Almost all our politicians are foxes. They have all sorts of ideas – most of them puny and quite often, pedes...

Dr Obadiah Mailafia, Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) has called upon all Nigerians to maintain peace and exercise nonviolent restraint throughout the coming elections. He reiterated that the ADC stands for peace and solidarity and is committed to promoting the welfare of the people in an atmosphere of hope and social justice. He therefore Nigerians to vote wisely in exercising their democratic franchise. Happy Happy elections to you all. God bless you and God bless our great country Nigeria! https://www.facebook.com/obadiah.mailafia.180/videos/303083093727613/

  For the records: I am no hater of France. This is the first line of defence for scoundrels. As a matter of fact, I hate nobody on earth – not the French, Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Japanese or anybody else. I am a humanist and international socialist. I believe in human solidarity. I had the benefit of a French Government scholarship which enabled me to have some of the best education in France that anyone could boast of. I love France, its cultures and peoples. But I can never tolerate the historic injustices, rapine and enslavement that France has meted out and is still meting out, to the African people. Of course, Africans have themselves to blame, by and large, for allowing themselves to be raped in such a wanton manner. A few centuries ago France was the leading continental power in Europe. After the 1789 French Revolution Napoleon Bonaparte became master of Europe. A man of great ambition, he aimed to bring all of Europe under French hegemony. He almost succe...

For reasons that I now find to be quite ominous, the British preferred to grant independence to most of her colonial dependencies at precisely the hour of midnight. The Anglo-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie wrote one of his best novels with the title, Midnight’s Children. It tells the story of infant Saleem Sinai, who was born at precisely the moment the clock struck midnight on 15 August, 1947, coinciding with the very moment of India’s independence from British colonial rule. A decade later, Ghana was also granted independence at midnight on 6 March, 1957. We in Nigeria also received our so-called independence on 1 October 1960. In a manner of speaking, we are all midnight’s children. One of the caricatures made about we Africans is that, like children, we never think about tomorrow. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a famous Franco-German missionary doctor who spent a whole lifetime serving poor wretched Africans in the primeval tropical forest of Gabon. His remains are bu...

A fortnight ago former foreign minister and distinguished scholar of international relations, Bolaji Akinyemi, raised an alarm about the upcoming elections; drawing a parallel between what’s happening in our country and the tragedy that has befallen Venezuela: “I cannot but bring to the attention of Nigerians the significance of the latest development in Venezuela where the international community, under the United States, has accorded recognition to the opposition leader as the alternative president as their reaction to what they perceive as a flawed election….(we must) avoid a repetition of the Venezuelan nightmare.” Professor Akinyemi is one of our ablest foreign ministers -- an oracle of international relations scholarship. His warning must be taken seriously.   Sadly, we’ve started off on a poor footing. At the eve of the elections at dawn of last Saturday, INEC Chairman Mahmood Yakubu announced that the elections are postponed to 23 February. An unexpected tu...

  Saturday 16 February was supposed to witness the first leg of a series of elections that will likely determine the future direction of our country. Unfortunately they were postponed to Saturday 23rd February. Last week also witnessed Valentine’s Day, precisely 14 February. St. Valentine dedicated his life to love and to helping others. Lovers the world over mark the day by re-dedicating themselves to each other and reaffirming their testimonies of undying love. I don’t care what you profess, the person you spend that day of all days with is your true love. And so it has always been for ages and ages, world without end! The stellar constellations may be telling us something by putting the elections in the same week with St. Valentine’s Day. Love and politics have more to do with each other than we imagine. It is said that electioneering politics is a form of warfare without bullets. It is also true that war is the continuation of politics through the barrel of a gun. ...