Chances are that, when you think of the late former Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, your mind also recalls the 2017 “constituted authority” episode. As it happened, he addressed the students of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology who were protesting the extended closedown of their school. Unwilling to condone their belligerence, Ajimobi launched into a tirade. After reminding them he was not responsible for shutting down their school for eight months, he scolded those student-protesters for not respecting “constituted authority.” Although the flared tempers that heated up that encounter eventually simmered, Ajimobi would go on to wear the tag…

The spat between the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero and Air Peace, one of Nigeria’s major airlines, has once again, among other issues, brought on the front burner the twin issues of delay and cancellation of scheduled flights. More fundamentally, it has also peered searchlight into and serves as a throwback to the awesome powers enjoyed by Nigerian, African traditional monarchies, provoking in its wake a discourse of the relevance of the Nigerian monarchy. Embedded into it is the need to look at the African big man syndrome, otherwise known as the BMS. In it, the bigman, whether in…