Dr. Adetolu Ademujimi

  Happy 2025 Independence Day, fellow Nigerians. I had concluded this article a week ago and was searching for an appropriate image (not my usual picture) that would represent both its message and the significance of Nigeria’s Independence Day. Then, out of sheer coincidence, I stumbled on a message that read “I am a Nigerian. My tribe comes 2nd” at the back of a hooded white top of a fellow traveller at London Heathrow Airport en route Abuja on Friday, 26th September 2025. Gleefully, and like a man struck by love at first sight, I dashed to this torchbearer, who turned out to be Ambassador Otunba Adejare Adegbenro, to introduce myself and ask for his permission to take a picture - a request to which he passionately & humbly obliged before we exchanged contacts and boarded the plane to Nigeria. Of course, I had thought it fitting to dedicate my piece on Nigeria’s 65th Independence Day commemoration to discouraging a long-standing habit that unknowingly destroys our peace ...

  On Saturday, 30th August in Abuja, sometime between 14:30 and 15:150 hours, I was driving my car, returning from a nearby service station around Kaura Hotel and had just joined Oladipo Diya Road (Games Village-Gudu-Apo NEPA dual carriage way). I drove for less than 60 seconds to few metres before the traffic light at the junction of Kaura market and pulled over directly behind a slowly moving white-coloured Police patrol van conveying eight police officers to beckon on one of the roadside traders to replace my failing wiper blades. As three guys spontaneously wielded different windshield wipers and jostled in my direction in response to my earlier call, two police officers also ran towards my parked car to tell me “ Oga, we saw you beat the traffic light around American International School junction; so, you have to come down to talk or follow us to the station ”. Before I could say Jack Robinson, a female officer had reached for my passenger door in front, opened it and occupied...