Olatunji Ololade

Lagos

Associate Editor at The Nation

Multiple Award-winning Journalist, Multimedia Specialist, Editor

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Articles

The fire next door

2 weeks ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

There are truths that are better said untempered: that nobody savours the bitter taste of the herbs we season for others. That hate looks like other people’s torment until it pulses at our doorsteps. This much is affirmed by the reactions to the sad fates of Apesuur Ukechia and Ward Halil. On a Sunday morning, just after church, Apesuur Ukechia watched her world vanish. Not in a metaphorical sense.
Ghosts of Hurti - The Nation Newspaper

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

To walk the trails of Hurti today is to plod through ash and blood. It is to inhale the silence of a town stripped of laughter and homesteads where children’s voices once echoed, until they got choked forever by gunfire. Hurti, that rustic hamlet cradled within Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State, was not the first, nor, ominously, the last.
Dangerous lust - The Nation Newspaper

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

Life becomes breathtaking for once, and only once, everyday, for Aliyu Salisu. Just before dusk, while he is perched on the rail tracks of Galadima, in the bowels of Maiduguri, Borno State. Out there, in the sweltering heat, he tastes the unprecedented cool of ‘Ice.’ He sees for the umpteenth time, the city’s limitless possibilities and his place amid the urban sprawl.
Day Hallmarks of Labour Foundation recognised eminent Nigerians

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade |Gbenga Bada |Alao Abiodun

It will be near impossible to forget in a hurry the night change-makers and impactful Nigerians were celebrated recently by the Hallmarks of Labour Foundation (HLF). Keeping faith with the established tradition of excellence that has defined previous editions, the annual award event celebrates distinguished Nigerians who have lived up to expectations, for their exemplary leadership.
Ghosts of Hurti - The Nation Newspaper

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

Even vultures do not feast on their young. Yet in Hurti, Nigeria nourished on the blood of her children. The narrative is bloodcurdling: severed throats of innocent children, salty tears of sorrowing mothers, and decapitated fathers who bled out. The victims’ fates invoke the mindless grief of a nation too brutalised to feel empathy. Yet Hurti’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back. The horror that befell the hamlet on April 2nd is no accident of history.
In April, Hurti kids were fed to the blade

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

How a hamlet’s pain became Nigeria’s shameThe terror of moving on: Child survivors of genocide spiral in throes of trauma – PsychiatristAt least 52 children, adults murdered across Bokkos council, 1,820 displacedCulprits will be prosecuted – President Tinubu, NSA RibaduThere was no pity on the edge of the blade that butchered the Mangut boys. There was no mercy in the heart that furnished the knife.
The joyless parable of Mr. Whiner

1 month ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

Mr Whiner is Nigeria’s worst nightmare. A kindred spirit with the dubious patriot; while the latter devastates the country with bad politics, Whiner fulfills the role of a mortician. He is the proverbial pallbearer who spirits out a coffin at the first scent of roses. In Whiner, we encounter a parable of the Nigerian soul.
Genocide, not wordplay

2 months ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

In Hitch 22: A Memoir, Christopher Hitchens recalls his conversation with a genocide survivor in Rwanda. She lamented to him that there was now nobody left on the face of the earth, either friend or relative, who knew who she was. No one who remembered her girlhood, early mischief and family lore; no sibling or companion who could tease her about that first romance; no lover or pal with whom to reminisce. All her birthdays, friendships, kinships, gone.
Nigeria in age of economic reset

2 months ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

The bounty winds have changed course. Across oceans and continents, the pillars of the old world buckle under the weight of new contradictions. Power is roaringly shifting, as nations once constrained by historic fetters jostle for inadequate pickings. Does Nigeria stand a chance in the unfolding world order? What are the chances of transforming hardship into strength, turning away from borrowed dreams and building something enduring from within? America is retreating.
Her right-handed serve to glory: On Aishat Raji’s becoming

2 months ago | thenationonlineng.net | Olatunji Ololade

Aishat Raji enchants the tennis court. Not from electric chants or thunderous applause, but from the sheer astonishment of her being. Just 14, she saunters into the Games arena shorn of symmetry but with the sovereign gift of a single right hand that swings like a poet’s plume. Raji is a product of grit. Her left hand—once part of her whole body—got severed by the cold blade of tragedy in 2014.