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Articles by Jimi Bickersteth
Politics of the Mace, of Morality and Dove on the Mast -By Jimi Bickersteth
“It is terrible to speak well and be wrong“.-Sophocles. This evening I lay sleepless, staring into the darkness, (yes, the PHCN, a derivative for light, was on strike,) my mind began a postmortem of the Third Republic, better still, the nation’s two decades of uninterrupted Democratic experience, it was all like been caught in a spiral like a squirrel in a cage. Going over the past. The nation’s past, from circa. independence, its military interregnums, through to the second Republic and now.
The Failed State and its aftermath - a view to tomorrow -By Jimi Bickersteth
Prologue. Small, yellow-tipped flames danced above the campfire’s white-hot embers. The air had a sharp harmattan nip to it, and overhead, a canopy of stars winked brightly to compete with the light of a sickle moon. I stared at the campfire, not focusing on the flames themselves but rather on the charred ends of the sticks that lay on the outer cycle. The partially burned wood reminded me of the homesite I had seen earlier in the day.
Building from the Roof to the Foundation -By Jimi Bickersteth
While musing on this piece, the true situation of the nation and the likelihood of its cherries blossoming at all, the distant sounds of instruments at the New African shrine triggered in my mind a flow of thinking that I had to isolate to be able to sequence properly and with the right perspective the thoughts coming in series and torrential.
Living on the Precipice of Danger Hands Across the Sea -By Jimi Bickersteth
This day, I was meditative. Thinking about the nation’s conditions, its politics, economy, reforms and or change, the USA’s intelligence reports, deaths, alcoholism, drugs and substance abuse, and, generally, where the nation was headed.
A Nation, and its Politicians - In a Moon to Its Audience -By Jimi Bickersteth
”’I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench” William Shakespeare – The Tempest. This evening, the sun was already low in the sky; it would soon be dark. I was relaxing in the study, after a dinner of sliced mushrooms quiche, an open pie filled with a mixture of eggs and bacon, cheese and milk.
Exposing the Colic in the Turkey - What Must Change in the Nation -By Jimi Bickersteth
While on a lunch-break at a parley on: ”Media, Education and Good Governance as Forces Of National Integration in the 21st century” in this serene-setting of Akodo-Ajah, Lagos, and reminiscing on the new-found craze “…walk for…”, ” the take back your country,” and the “take-over-Lagos,” chants, something in me brought to my mind the pictures of the bitter, hard smile that remained after the laughter on the lips of Nigerians, lately! A grand picture that was so palpable, a picture of a static...
The Scourge of the Moving Targets Silently Singing in the Shrouds of the Gulf -By Jimi Bickersteth
The trip toward 2023 has begun and the nation began to count loudly. The pounding of our hearts kept pace with the counting. The birds in the trees around me awoke to the dawn and twittered as they foraged for breakfast. On the other side of the perimeter fencing the city came to life. A train whistle shrieked, wagons rumbled over cobblestones. Men on the wagon tops. Shopkeepers came out of their homes, breathed the crisp morning air deeply, and headed for their businesses.
The Deluge of the Nation and a Complacent Cat -By Jimi Bickersteth
It is amazing how the nation has made its 360 degree turn from a humbling majesty to a dwarfing grandeur and with a head hidden in the clouds and the faint light of the never-quite-dark twilight which has given the once colourful and ebullient nation its present dark glow. The problem is not Nigeria, it is you, you, you and you.
Vision 2020, Political Development Enterprise in a Country of Giant Children -By Jimi Bickersteth
“How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning!” — L.E.Landon The harmattan breeze was fresh and cool, the train was rolling its bogey clumsily. I felt alone in a wonderful world. Wrapped in a strange peace, I stood there taking no heed of time, and as 2023 nvariably, come into site one became lost in a reverie and an aura of contemplation about us, about our nation and things in general.
To Give and to Serve, Faith or Fantasy - the Fuzzy Writing on the Wall -By Jimi Bickersteth
“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions” – Betting Brecht.
The Nation in the Eyes of its Component Contents and its Contending Youths -By Jimi Bickersteth
I sat down under the sun and ruminating on how and why that fragile thread that has been holding the reason for a united federation together was likely soon going to be jeered, jarred and snapped if the appropriate rules congruent to the situation are not deployed. The thread had been under one form of summation, jigging, rejigging and threats for some time, precisely, circa.1965.
Democracy, Socialism and Leadership - a disharmony in marriage -By Jimi Bickersteth
As the nation’s top Sheriff’s tenure, coasting, to its end, and, he keeps seeking and ‘attempting’, albeit, feebly, a shunt in the ‘right direction’ on the issue of leadership in the most challenging season of national insecurity. Leadership, a factor that has been a bane on the nation’s oodles of marches to greatness, prosperity and glory.
Homo Sapiens; the World’s Greatest Enemy in a World Out of Control -By Jimi Bickersteth
“That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been…past.” Ecclesiastes 3:15 This early morning, precisely, 5.00a.m, I was heading for work, I had to leave my residence that early to beat the early morning gridlock.
Unveiling the Truth of the Nation’s Reality at Blue Moon -By Jimi Bickersteth
Leaning back in my chair, I regarded the activity of the street outside from the study terrace through the Venetian blinds, its traffic of cycle rickshaws, known widely as “Kẹ̀kẹ́ Marwa, I recalled OBJ brought his own version in his millennium clueless poverty alleviation problem, but that couldn’t wipe away the Marwa’s initiative from the people’s consciousness.
The Black Arrow, PMB and the APC Macramé of a Primary - a descant -By Jimi Bickersteth
The VIP movement around the Eagle Square, Abuja ocassioned traffic diversions and an affordable Gridlock. Arriving at the designated parking space, I spotted a man about to get into his car a few metres from the venue of the APC special Convention and presidential Primary. I flicked down my LX570s trafficator, braked and stopped. The drivers behind me hooted, all giving me a frustrated glare. I nearly laughed. The parked car moved into the stream of traffic and I manoeuvred into the gaping hole.
Building a Nation Backwards -By Jimi Bickersteth
While musing on this piece, the true situation of the nation and the likelihood of its cherries blossoming in the spring, anytime soon or at all, a distant sound of instruments at the New African Shrine and its jazzy effect triggered in my mind a flow of thinking that I had to isolate in order to be able to sequence properly and with the right perspective the thoughts cascading in series on the writing space.
The Nation’s Democracy and Marble Statuary on the ground - Matters Arising -By Jimi Bickersteth
An early morning fog drifted through the trees, turning the Abuja landscape cool and heavy with its dampness. Here and there, light rays splintered through its filmy web to sparkle on the dew-wet grass. It was only a matter of time before the rising sun burned off the thin layers of mist, even, as eddies of dust swirled in the road, sweeping along the streets of Lugbe with shops selling junk or overpriced imported secondhand goods.
Politics and Power and Living - a Worrisome Enigma -By Jimi Bickersteth
“There’s no art to know the mind’s construction in the face.” Shakespeare. I have watched the contours and continuous deterioration of the capital for a while; for Abuja, the nation’s federal capital, the dreams and foundations of which were laid in extravagance, and whose deterioration began in the same extravagance and luxury.
Nations of deep Metaphors, inconsolable grief and its uncertain future -By Jimi Bickersteth
This piece is echoing the Father Matthew Kukah’s treatise on “Mending a broken nation: the Easter metaphor.” The emphasis on Nigeria’s metaphors in the zango-kataf born bishop treatise were so diversely prototypical and probably has been so painted since the advent of the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket in the fall of 2014. Laughable without missing the point.
PMB’s and APC’s suspense and the Keynote for the Nation’s Political Character -By Jimi Bickersteth
On a private engagement at the Adó Àwáyè, Iyake Suspended lake, in Oyo state, I took time out to admire the ancient pottery found in stratified layers of earth and was generally having a swell moment with the locals, men, women, boys and girls all on an inspired precision ‘lockdown’ ever since the awesome pandemic. Nothing much was really happening.
A Policed Crumbling World and the Future of the Earth and Mankind -By Jimi Bickersteth
‘I promise you that this will be the final war -the war to end all wars.’ -WOODROW WILSON, U.S. PRESIDENT (1913-21). Historically, the purpose of armies has been to wage wars (or defend) against threats to sovereignty and territorial integrity, external enemies or terrorist groups within who took up arms against a government. In the contemporary world, however, the purpose in many countries has been to usurp political power or help to suppress dissent(s).
Terrorism, Arms Proliferations in a Global Recession -Threats to World’s Peace -By Jimi Bickersteth
‘The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid…”Isaiah 41:5The clock on the mantelshelf struck eighteen-thirty five in the Liberian capital of Moronvia; having just arrived moments ago from its suburbs of Soglepie, Gbarnga, Janata and Edna. Was I well rested! Well, holiday – fourteen days in the last fourteen years was a marvelous antidote to the pressures of work.
The National Question and Politics of Representation - the Way Out -By Jimi Bickersteth
A Buddha once said there are two mistakes one can eternally make along the road to truth; not going in the way, and not starting. Prologue: Today, the moods and feelings in the nation-state was in a barrel of odds and ends. It is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and things go fairly better, sometimes worse. Here, at kwatakarshie – Zamfara, time stood still at about 1910 hours. I felt lonesome. The stars were shining this early dusk.
2023 and what’s PMB’s Partng Shot in the Nation’s Folly, Fazed Politics -By Jimi Bickersteth
Heading for Monguno via Hong – Mubi – Michika – Gworza -Bama – Maiduguri this sunny, raw and patently unfriendly afternoon, with every drag of a draught of air into the lungs a compelling effort that was making one uncomfortable and tight in the chest; I noticed the fuel gauge in the LX570 playing a pantomime villain, I realized I’d better think about stopping for petrol that is vastly became scarce in this axis of vast expanse of desert.
What in 2023 should really be the Politics of a Pampered Potentate? -By Jimi Bickersteth
The trip towards Politics 2023 has begun even as the nation began to count loudly. The pounding of its men and women’s hearts kept pace with the counting amidst hunger and disenchantment for a number of reasons, some obvious, some latent and obscure, nonetheless, good grounds for the nation and its peoples feeling the way they do.
2023, Power, its serial skit and a Cast of Thousand -By Jimi Bickersteth
It’s going to rain, as I stood staring through the window in the forecourt and the garden in the background, looking askance and puzzled at the same time dazed at the news filtering in at what Magodo has become; what the state governor versus a CSP, and an outgoing compol, a newly promoted A-I-G on a social visit, flag flying and with the full compliment of his office, were doing to the peace and tranquility of a peaceful community in Lagos.
Thorns On The Uneven Road - Random Musing -By Jimi Bickersteth
This morning, I was just musing on the nation’s insincerity to itself and its components parts, so to speak, and in the process, shooting itself on its crippled legs and creating, parts in dire need of tesseract. How do I mean? Are we talking of a four dimensions here! Yes, if that is the case, then, which is the fourth. Here lies the crux of the nation’s problems.
2023, the Dynamis of Power and a Cast of Thousand in a Cozen, Snobbish Milleu -By Jimi Bickersteth
It’s going to rain, this early Sunday afternoon as I stood staring through the window in the forecourt and the garden in the background. My face was set to the window, already streaked with rain, it was raining hard by the time I settled down at the balcony and caught a glimpse of wifey’s neat profile in the glass window.
Inside Life - a Peace, a Chance and Tickling Vanity -By Jimi Bickersteth
The monument at the UN plaza has a Peace Statue set against a background of the Isaiah Wall with an inscription, “THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES, AND THEIR SPEARS INTO PRUNING HOOKS: NATION SHALL NOT LIFT UP SWORD AGAINST NATION, NEITHER SHALL THEY LEARN WAR ANY MORE.
The Global Gravity Collapse and the Extensive Collateral Damages on the World -By Jimi Bickersteth
“Nothing is impossible,… It is often merely for an excuse that we say things are impossible.” Author François De LA Rochefoucauld. The world’s recent experience of an extensive aperçuz, a near-apocalpse whose prognosis shocked, shook, and rocked even its foundation.
A Daring Diary and Fearless Embrace of the Truth -By Jimi Bickersteth
The slow moving Akute river, (near where I was putting this together; Akute, once away from civilization, but now a bubbling commune), that supplies the ‘giant Lagos’ with pipe borne water, wound through a dense undergrowth of saw-grass and duckweed. The great naked roots of the mangrove trees in the mud give the impression of a forest on stilts. An oppressive, tropical heat hung over the river.
The Bartering Game of Death - Managing the Future -By Jimi Bickersteth
It is a season of death across the world’s vincinage, and this is no scam. In a world pregnant, but no-one could c-scan the nature of what its uterus contains, but its certainly full of meaning. Generally speaking, from the nation’s confluence states and the plateau, the northeast, north-central, and now, Zamfara in the northwest, where human beings were been macheted, slaughtered, maltreated, kidnapped, separated, and dispatched from this world to the great beyond.
The slide picture of our world - a global aurora borealis -By Jimi Bickersteth
This wet and drizzling morning, I was watching the the flowery mint gloss of the Willow plants by my window; one, slender and upright, with a lofty bearing, the other slouches, with its head drooping. In spite of their contrasting postures, however, they are actually closely related. Willows, a truly versatile family of trees. This quiet thought brought me alive and portrayed in my faculty the picture of the world we presently live in.
Democracy, Socialism and Leadership - a disharmony in marriage -By Jimi Bickersteth
As the nation’s Sheriff’s tenure, coasting, to its end, and, he keeps seeking and ‘attempting‘ a shunt in the ‘right direction’ on the issue of leadership. Leadership, a factor that has been a bane on the nation’s oodles of marches to greatness and glory.
Violence in God’s Name - Religion in an age of conflict -By Jimi Bickersteth
This my submission on violence and religion in God’s name in an age of conflicts is going to be somewhat faith based, and that sounds unlike me. A me, who have as a matter of principle gave not only a wide berth but also often steer clear from anything or any discussion that has got anything to do with any tincture of anyone’s moral suasion and persuasions in that realm of our existence.
The Road to Happiness and Content in the Nation’s Darkened Horizon -By Jimi Bickersteth
As the nation assume a posse to move forward in its developmental stride using the upgrade of infrastructure and road network and the bold deregulation in the oil industry, in a move that is diametrically opposed to the nation’s once dilettante business-as-usual attitude, atmosphere of high conspiracy, deceit and sloppiness all around, that defy logic, it, like it or not, marks the PMB’s administration, out with distinction compared to past administrations.
The Nigerian Police, Abba kyari and Streaked Reforms -By Jimi Bickersteth
As the police and Kyari’s reputations has been caught in a cleft stick, so to speak, the question now is, how far?! So long for pleasant dreams of a once ebullient, lofty and dizzy police career, but now its horrors. Even, if he gets absolved of the wide and wild allegations and gets substantively indicted by the police force, he’ll by then have had his media created ‘supercop’ status and accolades strained and stained, as his character would have become badly flawed.
The nation must thrive and survive - hope and equality as birthright -By Jimi Bickersteth
“Troubles are like babies and man’s ergo, they become big when you nurse them“. Unknown. The pervasiveness of technology is perhaps most apparent in the proliferation of cell phones many of which are no longer just phones. The communicators revolution in the late eighties make it easy to see and hear things almost as they are happening.
Building a Nation Backwards -By Jimi Bickersteth
While musing on this piece, the true situation of the nation and the likelihood of its cherries blossoming in the spring, anytime soon or at all, a distant sound of instruments at the New African Shrine and its jazzy effect triggered in my mind a flow of thinking that I had to isolate in order to be able to sequence properly and with the right perspective the thoughts cascading in series on the writing space.
That the Nation's Myth making reality cherries may blossom in the Spring -By Jimi Bickersteth - Opinion Nigeria
This Wednesday morning, the dry moisture-laden air and the condensation that had taken place on the layers of air nearest the earth became cooled and deposited on the ground, grass, and trees and on the large expanse of carpet grass staring at me in the compound, looking somewhat beautiful. The thoughts trending in my brain and streaming in my mind was the nation itself.
An Ode - Beyond the Politics of things in need of audience -By Jimi Bickersteth
‘I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench” William Shakespeare – The Tempest. This evening, I was relaxing in the study, after a dinner of sliced mushrooms quiche, an open pie filled with a mixture of eggs and bacon, cheese and milk. The sun was already low in the sky; longer day, shorter night, I’d observed. It would soon be dark.
In what almost became an ethnic clash | By Abdulkabeer Tijani
In the race against time to do what faithful fellow calls – IMURA AWE – I settled down for the decision to visit the ancient city of BODIJA to do a student shopping that at least my tummy can always fall back on. This was supposed to be my purpose of visiting the market but eventually, I ended up being a solicitor in a minor issue that almost triggered an ethnic war.
The Shari'a: Insult the prophet and be killed | By Ezinwanne Onwuka
Sections 38 and 39 of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s Constitution respectively guarantee the rights of citizens to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – including the freedom to change their religion or belief – and the right to freedom of expression. Yet, despite this fundamental right, many Nigerians face systematic threats to their right to freedom of belief.
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