THE TIME BOMB
Can you hear the clock ticking? While I used the human condition as a metaphor for Nigeria, you know, High Blood Pressure and all that, it was clear in my
Can you hear the clock ticking? While I used the human condition as a metaphor for Nigeria, you know, High Blood Pressure and all that, it was clear in my
At the time this was written, Lagos was an ‘overcrowded’ city of some five million people. Since then, Ikoyi and Victoria Island have been supplanted by Banana Island as the
This is an eerily prescient piece because it echoes the near-universal global angst about the future of planet Earth and locally, the present sense of hopelessness we feel about the
We have to lift a 100 million Nigerians out of poverty. That’s all I have to say. Enjoy! Dear Oga Patapata, I throwey salute o! I know say you never know
This was written in the immediate aftermath of the coup that ushered in the military government of General Buhari. In those days we naively believed that a Military government was
I still get the occasional reference to this piece by total strangers who somehow still remember it 36 years on. As far as allegorical stories go, this is a classic
This piece was the preface to a longer lead story that was possibly about justice. Again against the backdrop of the #EndSars…Justice today remains elusive. Enjoy! The law is an
Against the appropriate backdrop of the ongoing pro-reforms protests is the sobering fact that close to 50% of Nigerians are in the death grip of multi-dimensional poverty. Nigeria as the
It is inescapable given the present outrage expressed in the #Endsars movement not to connect the systemic impunity of uniformed officers with then and now. The disdain and disrespect for
Ah… sometimes I wistfully ache for the good old days when the media channels for this political war was limited to a predictable daily cycle of newspapers, television and radio.
Mr. Lardner holds a Bachelor degree in Philosophy from the University of Lagos, and over the last twenty-five years gathered wide international experience including serving as an Adjunct Professor, Centre for New Media at the Columbia University School of Journalism (1996-8) and as a Research Fellow, Freedom Forum Media Studies Centre (1992-3) also at Columbia University. Mr. Lardner was also a Reuter Scholar/Knight Fellow with the Department of Communications at Stanford University (1988-9).
Mr. Lardner is an Internet savvy and globally recognized media and communications expert, having managed complex communications advisory services for various countries including Nigeria, as well as a sought after public policy analyst with a deep and broad understanding of the uses and impact of new information technologies and communications paradigms in the process of good governance in transiting democracies. He is a TED Fellow and the Executive Director of WANGONeT a technology-based non-profit he founded in 2000. He is currently sits on the board of Orun Energy, a promising business start-up focusing on providing alternative power for the Telecommunications sector in the developing world.