Author: chicagoinquirer

Abuja: There is no small election in Nigeria. That is the gospel truth. Every election is taken as very big and everything is put into ensuring that all is a victory no matter what it will cost. In the process, death lurks around and life means nothing to the contestants as long as they are victorious at the end of the day. No scruples and nobody cares whose life is lost as long as it is not from the victor side; even with that, it is taken as part of the game. The question that has remained unanswered is…

Abuja: Nigeria sometimes amuses right-thinking individuals. What many sane minds will think can never happen usually finds itself reoccurring like a decimal in today’s Nigeria. Surprisingly, people are getting so used to the absurd that it has become the norm.  One thing you cannot take away from Nigeria is that every week there must be something that will engage discussion in the polity. If it were positive nobody would have minded, but not so, one negative action or occurrence will spring up from the blues and everyone will shrug it off as the normal thing after all there is nothing…

The questions were many but the answers were few: Can another newspaper succeed in an already saturated community? What do you plan to bring to the table? Have you thought about venturing into other areas of communication? When I met with community leaders, pastors, entrepreneurs, friends and critics about the vision of yet another newspaper, they asked those instructive and incisive questions. My reply was simple and direct. The newspaper business is one of the few things I know how to do. It is a calling. Yes, the field does appear to be saturated and challenging, but our strategy is…

Moments after Senator Barack Obama was elected in November 2004, he met with officials of the Chicago-based United African Organization (UAO) to thank them for their overwhelming support at the polls. He also shared his vision in the Senate and how he wanted to collaborate with them to move the African community forward. “Let me know the issues Africans face specifically in this country,” he told UAO officials and charged them to relay concerns that are unique to the African community instead of reiterating general trepidations like health insurance reform, low paying jobs, quality of education and employment. It was…

The election of Barack Obama as U.S. Senator was the closest African immigrants have been to the seat of power in the country. Obama, the only Black senator in the country, was not born in the Black continent but in Hawaii where his Kenyan father came to study economics after securing a scholarship in the east African nation. Before him, we had former East Cleveland mayor the Rev. Emmanuel W. Onunwor, who became the first African born mayor of an American city in January, 1998. Onunwor, who was born in 1954 in the Rumuomasi section of Port Harcourt, Rivers state…

Nigerians sometimes show up in unexpected places. One of such places was a meeting of Black-Americans elected officials conveyed in Chicago, the City of big shoulders, in 1993. Emmanuel A. Imoukhuede, then a first term board of trustee member of the affluence South West Village of Matteson and the first African born elected official in United States was in attendance. Imoukhuede like other Black Americans was having fun and enjoying the camaraderie until the master-of –ceremony mispronounced his name and the fire in him busted. I-mou-khuede-he corrected and advised the speaker to always learn how to pronounce names especially African…

Gene C. Mojekwu, President of  Matrix Engineering Corporation  may pass you by unnoticed. Petit, quite, easy going, cool and collected, Mojekwu radiates little or no attention onto himself especially if he did not lighten-up his handsome face with a beaming smile.      Yet Mojekwu’s  signature is hard to miss in and around Chicagoland area, Illinois and 39 other states where he is licensed to practice engineering. The Dinosaur at the Chicago’s Museum campus is one of his signature tunes.   Besides, Matrix Engineering designed the new fire stations being constructed across the Windy City and he is involved in…

Most reporters’ dream of the Joseph Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Some succeed and few, out of frustrations of missing the prestigious award, sometimes opt out of the vocation. The later is not the lot of Dele Olojede, joint winner of the 2005 prize and the first African born journalist to win the award. The award will be presented to him on May 23, 2005. He is said to be a finalist for the Pulitzer in International Reporting in 2005. Just like “Born To Run” a book on the life and times of his mentor Dele Giwa, Olojede co-authored with another…

He asserted that competing forces continue to keep Blacks suppressed, adding another Martin Luther King will rise again. “You can keep millions of people oppressed for too long. Another King will come back,” he stated. Below we publish the interview with Justice Pincham Inquirer: You’ve been around since the Dr. Martin Luther King era. He spoke about dreams. How far has the nation gone now that we have a black senator in Congress? Pincham: It’s nice that we have a new senator in Barack Obama but attaining the dreams Dr. King spoke about has been extremely slow and limited.…

In 10 years since the resuscitation of Major League Soccer (MLS) no known Nigerian player has been featured in the league. Yet, Abbey Okulaja, Gazelle Football Club President, emerged as the best MLS referee in 2004, his second year as a referee in the soccer league. He described the MLS as the fittest league in the world in an interview with Joseph Omoremi, editor of The Chicago Inquirer. Excerpts: Interview by Joseph Omoremi Inquirer: How has it been in MLS? Abbey: It’s been really good and exciting. I won the best referee of the year last year. And I’m…