Author: Osmond Agbo

If Pakistan, Nigeria, or any nation wishes to escape this cycle, leaders must abandon the illusion of clever deals with extremists. Real security lies not in proxy wars or militant allies but in building just societies, resilient institutions, and inclusive politics that deny extremists the grievances they exploit. Anything less is sowing seeds for future catastrophe. In the jagged mountain ranges straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan, a resurgent Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (T.T.P.), are ratcheting up a relentless and deadly guerrilla war against Pakistani security forces as I write this piece. Roads clogged with convoys of battered trucks, overloaded…

Sixty-five candles, yet the flame gutters in the wind, smoke curling over a nation that learned to crawl backward. Independence, they said but what freedom lies in a land independent but totally dependent, a giant bound by its own chains? Broken roads, broken homes, broken people trudging through the wreckage of dashed hopes. We speak of the dead, the dying, the better dead, the long gone— our roll call of grief longer than any anthem. Mega-churches swell with hymns, while empty classrooms echo with silence. Masjid al-Haram finds its mirror in the scattered prayers of almajiri, children of dust…

There’s an image I can’t shake when I think of Nigeria’s young people: a baby impala dropped into the savannah, wobbling on fragile legs as its mother disappears into the tall grass. In those first moments, the calf either finds its feet or is eaten by predators. That is the Nigerian youth story in miniature. A friend of mine visited from Nigeria not too long ago. He runs an oil servicing company back home and arrived in Houston with the usual armour of his tribe; a MacBook, headphones, and a half-dozen Slack channels humming with activities. On the second day,…

I dusted off my dad’s pet name for me, Mondus, and paired it with his own name, Fidelis. Voilà, Osmund Agbo became Mondus Fidelis. It sounded classy, almost like a Roman senator or a luxury brand of whatever. I hadn’t heard of Dauda Kahutu Rarara until my friend Farooq Kperogi wrote about him on Facebook. Apparently, he’s a highlife maestro whose music has captivated northern Nigeria and earned him a massive following. But Farooq wasn’t writing about “Aisha,” or any of the singer’s big hits, which has racked up millions of views and streams across platforms. Instead, he was zeroing…

The unfinished work of Africa’s liberation is not merely political or economic; it is psychological. We need not abandon faith, but we must unmask its misuse. We must recognize when religion serves liberation and when it serves control. We must reclaim the ability to question, to value substance over spectacle, and to prioritize collective progress over empty promises of heavenly reward. The first time I watched the video clip of Charlie Kirk’s murder, I knew I had made a huge mistake. The assassin’s bullet was brutal and merciless, an image now lodged in my mind like a splinter. I wailed…

That day, all I wanted was a quick dash to Chicken Republic. Simple mission: rice, chicken, maybe a few slices of yam with stew to top up the reserves. But in Lagos, no outing is ever truly simple. A short trip can turn into a full cultural immersion. The moment I hopped into a korope, that miniature bus that looks like it was designed by someone who thought humans were made of rubber, I knew food wasn’t the only thing I was about to collect. What I got instead was a buffet of fresh street lingo, served hot and unfiltered.…

The tragedy is that imagined suffering is not harmless. Chronic anxiety triggers cascades of stress hormones, raising blood pressure, impairing sleep, weakening immunity. Our bodies pay interest on emotional debts we do not owe. We rehearse pain, and in doing so, we harm ourselves twice: once in anticipation, and once if it comes, in reality. Our one and only daughter has gone off to college. Madam and I dropped her off the weekend before. As we made the four-hour drive from Houston to Baton Rouge along I-10, the road stretched ahead, both endless and fleeting, as if time itself were…

It’s also easy to dismiss this memoir as the musings of someone born into privilege, destined to succeed regardless of effort. And yes, Otedola’s background undeniably gave him a head start. But this line of criticism collapses under closer scrutiny. For every privileged heir who becomes a billionaire, there are dozens more who squander their advantages and end up struggling to pay their bills. Privilege may open doors, but it does not guarantee resilience, vision, or the capacity to recover from crushing failure. What Otedola’s story illustrates, whether one admires or resents it, is that success, even when aided by…

..the unpalatable reality is that in Nigeria, institutional checks and balances, the very scaffolding of democracy, are now a mirage. The judiciary, legislature, police, and electoral body have been reduced to instruments of regime entrenchment. The only force that could realistically disrupt this entrenched order is fear, the fear, on the part of those in power, of mass, unpredictable, and potentially violent public backlash. I was minding my own business, staring dismally at Delta’s underwhelming low-budget Jollof rice and resigned to the dreary choice between chicken and fish, when a man, leaning forward from the row behind, tapped me on…

In 2017, the Nigerian Immigration Service disclosed that over 10,000 Nigerians perished in a mere five-month span while attempting to flee. Nearly half drowned in the Mediterranean; the rest succumbed to the desert’s merciless embrace. Such figures, while staggering, cannot begin to encapsulate the sorrow of entire communities emptied of their youth. A few days ago, a haunting image surfaced on my Facebook feed that I cannot unsee; sun-bleached human remains lying half-buried in the arid vastness of the Sahara Desert. No plaques. No mourners. Just a silent testament to lives extinguished by thirst, exhaustion, and despair. These were not…