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SATURDAY 6th March 2021 was the birthday of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo GCFR. Emeka Ojukwu famously described him as “the best president Nigeria never had”. Indeed, former military strongman General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida described him as “the main issue in Nigerian politics”.
Awolowo’s shadow looms over our political firmament like a colossus. Had he been alive today, he would have been 112 this month. Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo, made the transition into the great beyond on 9 May, 1987. He was seventy-eight. Avatar and visionary, he saw it coming and seemed to have prepared for it. During his 77th birthday, in March 1986, he told the world that he was celebrating “the imminence” of his transition to the life eternal. Only an avatar could have predicted his own death with such millennial calm.
Awolowo and the immortals
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Fresh Push to Unperson Thatcher, Rhodes, from British Universities
1 Mar 2021
The Black Lives Matter inspired attacks on British heritage in universities shows no signs of abating, as students at Durham have removed Margaret Thatcher from a list of inspirational women and academics as Oxford plot to remove Cecil Rhodes’ name from a professorship.
Baroness Thatcher was removed from a list of women set to be honoured in a portrait competition at Durham University’s Art Society after students complained about Britain’s first female prime minister being included, who they alleged was homophobic.
According to the
Mail on Sunday, the organisers of the competition apologised for even including Baroness Thatcher, saying: “Considering Durham’s history as a former mining town, the impact of Thatcher’s policies, as well as her homophobia, her inclusion was an error.”
Oxford University academics to vote on renaming Cecil Rhodes professorship
The Rhodes Professor of Race Relations could be rebranded amid claims Rhodes legacy is quietly being removed
Oriel College set up an inquiry to examine the legacy of Cecil Rhodes
Credit: Bloomberg
Oxford University is attempting to change the title of a professorship named after Cecil Rhodes, The Telegraph has learned, amid claims that Rhodes is “falling by the back door”.
The 900-year-old institution’s council, which is chaired by the vice-Chancellor, has backed an amendment to its statues that would see the Rhodes Professor of Race Relations renamed the Professorship of African Studies.
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Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, the first executive governor of Lagos State (1979-1983) who died on Thursday, 11 February 2021 at 91, was a rare combination of administrative genius in public governance and humility, even self-effacement, in personal life. He was a remarkable giant in public life who never made anyone feel small in his presence. Without doubt, Jakande was one of the ablest public administrators that the country has ever produced.
An encounter with the man popularly called LKJ by one of the top aides of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu illustrates the profound modesty of the spartan politician. Jakande, as the aide told me a few years ago, was in the governor’s office to see Tinubu. He had obviously announced his presence to one of the assistants in the governor’s outer office. Incidentally, he conceived and started the construction of that building. But he never occupied the office before the military seized power in December 1983. Perhaps the governor’s assistants we
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