Taiwo Olaniyi

I read Harry Henderson's Privacy in the Information Age between August 29th and August 30th, 2020. Privacy is a desirable fortune for every human. We all always crave some sense of autonomy - the desire to be spared from unwarranted intrusions either from individuals or corporations. Unfortunately, this desire is becoming a pipe dream as our control of our own privacy is increasingly spiralling out of our control in the current age of internet. In other words, our privacy is not fully guaranteed in this current information age. This is because there has been an explosive growth in our appetite for information and dependence on the internet for it. However, the more we depend on it to fulfil our needs for information, the more we reveal our innermost self which was fondly kept private before the current infiltration of internet into our lives. The phenomenon of privacy, particularly information privacy is the core preoccupation of Henderson's book which considers the...

I read Chinweizu Ibekwe's Anatomy of Female Power between August 25th and August 26th, 2020. Matriarch exists. Does matriarchy exist powerfully as patriarchy does? This is the question which this book proffers answers to. It is a brief essay which, with persuasive series of evidence, challenges the catholicity of the impression that matriarchy is a mirage. It evidently submits that female power exits and "the power they wield is neither illusory nor a joke." Theirs is an amorphous mass of power which calls the shots for men all through their lives.  To contest the men's supremacist attitude towards women, it handily details how women's influence cut through men's existence like a thread. The three phases of men's life are ruled by women's power: motherpower, bridepower and wifepower.  The motherpower manifest in the cradle and espouses the universal truth that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." The...

I read Toyin Falola's A Mouth Sweeter than Salt between Saturday 22nd August and 23rd August, 2020. The book gives full rein to anyone who is interested in having an intimate view of Falola's childhood experiences in Ìbàdàn. The events recounted in the book cover the first thirteen years of the author and profoundly spread across places such as Agbọ́kọjó , Ode Aje and Elepo , all in the current Ọ̀yọ́ state. These experiences as Falola alluringly presents them will easily have special resonance with every Yorùbá that had their formative years steeped in Yorùbá mores, particularly patriarchy and polygamy.  Although the only child of his mother for his father who died barely five months after his birth, his early life was moulded and mothered by different Mamas. Besides the zillion filial duties he performed for them in return for handsome rewards in cash and kind, the talk that curiosity killed the cat almost held true for him. But his own cat did not died; It was r...

To demonstrate the tips in items 3 and 4 in  my reading habits , these are the books I have read in August and the ones I intend to read from September, 2020 to June, 2021.  3. List of Books I have read  ➡️ AUGUST, 2020 i. Lewis Carroll's Alice Adventures in the Wonderland (3:40AM to 4:45AM) 09/08/2020 ii. Andrew Walker's ‘Eat the Heart of the Infidel (09/08/2020 to 13/08/2020) iii. Chinelo Okparanta’s Happiness Like Water (15/08/2020 to 16/08/2020)  iv. Toyin Falola's A Mouth Sweeter than Salt  (22/08/2020 to 23/08/2020) v. Chinweizu's Anatomy of Female Power (25/08/2020 to 26/08/2020)  vi. Harry Henderson's Privacy in the Information Age  (29/08/2020 to 30/08/2020) 4. List of books I want to read ➡️ SEPTEMBER, 2020 PROFESSIONAL BOOKS  i. Rebecca Boden, Debbie Epstein and Jane Kenway's Building your Academic Career (08/09/2020 to 09/09/2020)  ii Ron Fry's How to Study  iii. Anna Wierzbicka's Imprisoned in English  iv Godfrey Ashe's...

I read it between Saturday, 15th August, and Sunday 16th August, 2020. The book is a collection of short stories with border on family and love. Told through first person narrative technique, the stories explore the lives of the narrators across different intrigues of love, family, and domestic violence, particularly the haplessness and powerlessness of women within the firm grip of patriarchy. The narrators are mainly female except the last story which has male narrator. The settings of the stories alternate between Nigeria and America, with majority of them set in Port Harcourt, Nigeria.  The stories tows a different line in 'America' where the narrator embraces highly-forbidden love with another character of the same sex. Same sex affairs are unlawful in Nigeria where the story is set, and attract stiff penalties. However, America is recognised by the parents of narrator as a safe haven to practice such type of love without any fear. This represents a widening ...

When I was offered admission into St. Patrick's Grammar School, Adenuga, Gbongan in 2004, my aunt who had attended the school earlier used to threaten me that the school principal, Prince Adébáyọ̀ Bínúyọ́, would beat my puerile naughtiness out of me. She would then cite innumerable instances that would definitely make one liable to receiving stinging strokes of cane from him. I would always cower in fear whenever she threatened me with these realities. But my grandmother would graciously dispel my fears in Yorùbá that 'Inú Bínúyọ́ máa yọ́ s'ọmọ mi' (Binuyọ́ will be pleased with my son).  Weeks into my admission to St. Patrick's (as it was popularly called then), I experienced these realities with him. He was on the one hand a bundle of awesomeness and on the other hand a wise and constructive disciplinarian when it came to such issues as students' truancy. He was a principal whose stance would crumble every form of academic infraction. I can still vividly rememb...

I read it between 9th August and Sunday 13th August, 2020. Walker was a journalist with Daily Trust and BBC when he wrote this book in 2016. It is a well-researched book which traces the beginning of Boko Haram insurgency in the North East from the power tussle between the Hausa and Fulani communities to the contemporary time of the powerlessness of the Nigerian military to contain it. The title of the book is from the speech Abubakar Shekau made in 2014 “Shekau! Eat the heart of the infidels, since infidels want to disobey Allah.”   Walker first locates the radical Islamic ideology being championed by the Boko Haram sect in the purist agenda previously advocated by different radical Islamic scholars such as Shehu father of Othman dan Fodio who waged different wars to correct “heathen practices”, Abubakar Gumi who challenged prevailing Islamic customs, and Mohammed Yusuf, who set and enforced strict standards of religious practice and started Boko Haram on the ideo...