Taiwo Akinlami’s Blog
Taiwo AKINLAMI'S Blog
A few years ago, armed robbers visited my home. The incident lasted about thirty minutes, but it became the longest thirty minutes of my life, not only because of what happened, but because of what it left behind. They left me with the gift of fear. First, I was so shaken that I moved out […] [Read More]
Religion has done enormous damage by convincing suffering people that their suffering is sacred. Too often, people crushed by greed, exploitation, and injustice are told not to question the forces that keep them down, but to endure quietly, pray harder, and wait for reward in the life to come. Their pain is spiritualized. Their deprivation […] [Read More]
I know the power of the press. Not from theory alone. Not merely from books or classrooms. I know it from life. I encountered that power very early through the activism of my late uncle, Chief Gani Fawehinmi. As a young boy, I read newspaper reports of his battles to my maternal grandmother, who followed […] [Read More]
There is something deeply unsettling about watching a public accusation collapse in real time. Not because people cannot change their minds. They can. Not because an accuser cannot be wrong. They can. But because in a country like Nigeria, when a vulnerable person accuses a powerful official and later returns to withdraw everything, apologise, and […] [Read More]
Some interviews are difficult. Others are revealing. A rare few become something more serious: a public reckoning. Daniel Bwala’s appearance on Head to Head with Mehdi Hasan belongs in that last category. What made the exchange so damaging was not merely that the spokesman for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu faced sharp questioning on insecurity, corruption, […] [Read More]
HomilyFromthePew Today I stand on the pew where I am anointed to preach the theology of liberation, the liberation of the souls of men and women to see their inevitable roles in their own salvation. It is called the #MinistryofClarity. It is a ministry that places clarity before action, personal, corporate, private, public, social, or […] [Read More]
The first time I remember saying no to injustice, I was about eleven. I refused the oppression of my Primary 5 teacher at A.U.D., Oke-Ila, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State. My primary school teachers tormented my forming soul; one of them had nicknamed me “devil” in Primary 3. But that day, I found my courage and fought […] [Read More]
Every movement begins with a conversation. Every conversation begins with clarity. Without clarity, conversation becomes noise, an empty blowout of words, and movement becomes impossible. That is why I take seriously Dele Farotimii’s recurring insistence, calling us to clarity that Nigeria is neither a “zoo” nor a “jungle.” The popular metaphors may sound clever, but […] [Read More]
In 1997, I was rounding off at Lagos State University, restless, defiant, and convinced that rebellion was a personality. I met a man who spoke to me about Christ. In keeping with my nonconforming spirit, I rebuffed him. What followed was strange, and terrifying. In the weeks after that conversation, especially as Sunday, February 16, […] [Read More]
HomilyfromthePew I think I learned my laughter from my blessed uncle, the indefatigable Chief Gani Fawehinmi, whom I had the privilege of living with in my late teenage years. He laughed loudly. His laughter filled rooms. It broke tension. It scattered fear. It made heavy nights lighter. There was rarely a dull moment around him. […] [Read More]
