AFRICAN PLUME

By Akin Ojumu I’m at the Harvard University this weekend visiting my daughter and attending the annual First-Year Family Weekend Event. Lo and behold, I find myself in the middle of aluta continua with placard carrying students milling around yelling, “We no go gree o, we no go gree…” – well not exactly, but the American version of it. The graduate students and fellows of the university are out protesting low wages and generally poor employment conditions. The striking students are joined in solidarity by other Labor Unions of the Ivy League school. Some classes, especially for the first-year students, have been cancelled because of the strike since the graduate students and fellows lead and teach many of the classes. While the strike is unlike the student protests I experienced as a university student in Nigeria, it is still a sight to behold in this prestigious Ivy League school and it is the last thing I expect to see in this University that has billions of dollars in endowment and

By Akin Ojumu When Neil Cavuto recently took to his show, Your World With Neil Cavuto , on Fox Business Channel to literally beg his listening audience to set politics aside and get vaccinated, he did so out of an abundance of responsibility he felt he owed his loyal audience. All he ever wanted was that these folks, who tune in on a daily basis to watch his show, live long, healthy, and productive lives.  Out of sheer concern for their safety and well-being, and himself having just experienced a near death experience with the COVID-19, he thought it would be an abdication of his civic and moral responsibility for him to have such a massive platform and not use it to inform the millions of people who watch his show about the lethality of COVID-19 and the benefit of the vaccines approved to combat it. What he said, in of itself, was not threatening and the tone he used was not at all condescending. Nevertheless, from the grooves across his brow and the quavering in his voice, you’d imme

By Akin Ojumu It is a massive football derby, and perhaps the biggest game of the season, against your fiercest rival. You are a mega football star and world-class player with a €105 million (£89.3 million) price tag and big sized ego in one of the biggest football clubs in the world. In your mind, you believe you are the best player your team has on the roster. Shockingly, the manager leaves you on the bench and does not include you in the best 11 players chosen to start the game. Fuming, you go, “Me? You mean this guy doesn’t even think I’m good enough to play in the first team? Who does this baby face manager think he is not to include me in the starting line up?” So, you sit there on the sidelines mad as hell. Before long, you watch your team get mauled and whipped on the ground as they go down 1 goal, 2 goals, 3 goals, 4 goals within 45 minutes. You cannot believe what is happening to your team. Again and again, you rubbed your eyes. You pinch yourself a couple of times, thinking

By Akin Ojumu Data doesn't lie, conspiracy theorists do. Vaccination saves lives. The chances of surviving a severe COVID-19 infection increases considerably for those who are vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is not an informed choice and resistance to vaccination is a stance not grounded in sound reason. There is no nobility in stupidity, fanatical antagonism is not heroism, and senseless outrage against a lifesaving treatment is no courage at all. Snap out of it, do yourself a favor, go get the jab.

By Akin Ojumu Let's talk about the man who sold Nigerians a bill of goods. Some have called him the “snake oil salesman,” but me, I won’t go there – I’m in my politically correct mode today. What’s undeniable, though, is that the man sabi talk, no be small. His mouth sweet pass garri Ijebu loaded with lots of crushed sugar cubes. As soon as he starts spinning his yarn, people stand transfixed, they gaze with mouth ajar and tongue hanging out. The man has a way of creating a Pavlov’s effect in his listening audience. I’m talking about PYO, the man who sold us change. With the cunningness of a used car salesman and the craftiness of an Onitsha market spare parts seller, the Pastor Professor cum Politician sweet talked us into buying a lemon which he successfully convinced us was a brand spanking new tear rubber. He showed us the shining wheels, the buffed body, and smooth leather seats, they all look new, but it’s all a lie. What he conveniently forgot to show us, and what we failed

By Akin Ojumu While other world leaders are pouring encomiums on the late Colin Powell, who died yesterday from complications of COVID-19, and at a time when people around the globe are saluting the legacy of this great American patriot, Donald J. Trump decided this was the moment to heap opprobrium on the late General. In such an inopportune time and in a gross display of a classless act, the doyen of the American right-wing and the messiah of the Christian conservatives chose to throw mud to disparage an American hero. In a statement released today, through his Save America political action committee, Trump wrote: “Wonderful to see Colin Powell, who made big mistakes on Iraq and famously, so-called weapons of mass destruction, be treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media. Hope that happens to me someday. He was a classic RINO, (i.e., Republican In Name Only), if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistakes, but anyway, may he

By Akin Ojumu In 705 BC, the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel had become apostates who engaged in all kinds of wickedness, wantonness and idolatry. So, God allowed the army of the Assyrians to overtake and destroy the land. Fifteen years later, in 720 BC, the people of Judah (the Southern Kingdom), who had erstwhile lived in the fear of the Almighty God, had now taken to the same evil and depravity and had gone the way of the Northern Kingdom. So, God sent Isaiah to warn them of the coming doom that will overtake them. Repeatedly, Isaiah engaged the leaders and elders of the people in dialogue, pleading with, and cajoling, them to return to the LORD. On many occasions, he reasoned with the leaders calling them to repentance. Like a broken record, he reminded them of the goodness and mercy of God. Isaiah 28 is a narrative of one of those dialogues. On this occasion, Isaiah confronted the leaders at one of their parties. Succumbed to debauchery, they were drunk and covered in the

The COVID-19 menace claims another scalp today.  In the early hours of Monday, October 18, 2021, Colin Luther Powell, retired four-star General, succumbed to the complications from COVID-19.  He was 84 years old, full vaccinated, with underlying conditions – had several bouts of multiple cancers. Child of Immigrants Black Man Soldier’s Soldier Decorated Warrior General Diplomat Statesman Public Servant Trailblazer Truth Teller Gentle Soul Leader Hero Role Model Inspiration Nation’s Conscience Honorable American To me, Colin Powell was all of these things and more. There's no public figure I respect more. No one served their country more wholeheartedly – as a solider, politician, and civilian – than the gentle General. Salute, General! God's speed!!!

By Akin Ojumu “Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” – Rick Warren. Acrimony and rancor are the end products of principles not marinated in the dressing of charity. Convictions not rooted in compassion lack the power of persuasion, they are only good at engendering unproductive controversies and only profitable for producing a brood of revulsions. You don’t have to be a jackass to demonstrate your convictions and you can hold on to your beliefs without hating anyone. The strength of your stance is not determined by the decibel level of your voice and the size of your clenched fist is not in any way an indication of the power of your position. Those who draw the sword to champion a cause project a shaky certitude in their beliefs. I

By Akin Ojumu During my recent visit to Nigeria, I happened to have traveled from Akure to Ado-Ekiti via Iju-Itaogbolu, despite having been warned by family members never to take this particular route. The experience, captured in a video posted on my YouTube channel, was harrowing to say the least. While my ordeal was nothing like what some other people have had to go through on this particular road, still, it was for me, something surreal. The video depicts the intolerable condition of this stretch of road between Akure and Ikere-Ekiti at Iju-Itaogbolu. To even call this a road is a gross mischaracterization; it is an insult on roads. This is more or less a treacherous path through muddy gullies. There’s barely any sign that this was once a tarred road and the little asphalt now left on it is riddled with potholes and manholes. Traveling through here is torture and a journey on this route is risky business. This less than 10 miles stretch that ordinarily shouldn’t take more than 15 mi

By Akin Ojumu Whenever I'm back home – yes, you heard that right, home – a wave of nostalgia washes over me. There's something in the air that takes you into a deep state of reminiscences about the good old days. One look at the sight of the mass of sweaty black faces milling around, a single note of the cacophony of sounds hitting your eardrums, and a little whiff of the exotic scents in the air that hits your smell buds are all it takes, and you are transported down the memory lane of days gone by. When you've lived in a foreign land for so long, the feeling you get of being back home – your own home among your own people – is something words cannot describe; it is worth its weight in gold. Just as you begin to enjoy the reverie, suddenly, the feel-good feeling dissipates in a flash as you are swiftly roused from the deep somnolence by an unpleasant reality check. The tangibility of the present situation hits you in the face like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown at your