TAIWO ISOLA'S BLOG

Even if the road to the cemetery is closed, We would buried our hero in the earth of Words. Uncle Pius Adesanmi, Thoughts are deep but the words are few, Humanity is paled by your gallant death, You are a deep fountain of intellect and illumination, Whose streams run through the crevices of the earth, Of which we have all worshiped and drank. For the first time in many moons , Humanity is stunned by the demise of a towering figure, The shadow of which influences our literary world, Vanguard of our fragile democracy, Shepherd of our national sanity, The mid-wife of our emancipation: Your words beautifully and humorously crafted, Nurtured the fading silhouette of our dreams, And we long to dance to the beats of your creativity. But suddenly the beats stopped… The water spilled and the gourd split! And what manner of life is this? Even if the road to the cemetery is closed, We would buried our hero in the earth of Words. Uncle...

As we dipped hands into a big plate like children of the same father to celebrate the successful outing of Sokoto TEDxArkilla 2018’s Festival of Ideas, it rightly dawned on me that the future of a multi-cultural and highly-sensitive society like ours depends on shared convictions and intelligent conversations that positively shape our perspectives about the prejudices and biases we have against people of different religion and tribe.   Despite our tribal, religious, sexual and even professional differences, TEDxArkilla 2018 afforded me and the 23 people on the volunteers’ team the once-in-a-lifetime golden opportunity to brainstorm, network, synergize and work with diverse people: a Muslim from the north teaming up with a Christian from the south, an Igbo with an Hausa, a banker with a student, a youth corps member with an engineer, a Master’s student with an artisan just to put Sokoto State on the map of global relevance! It is sheer buffoonery to use the index of minor...