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Opinion

Thursday, 03 November 2022 06:08

Christians in politics: Will Church leaders lead the way? - Bola Bolawole

Circumstances have an uncanny way of radicalising even the most conservative of men – and women. Such a situation is what we are witnessing right now in Nigeria. Many of those leading secessionist moves in the country today would, ordinarily and in normal situations, not do so. Many fire-eating Marxists of yore have become what some derisively call tribal jingoists and ethnic irredentists or chauvinists. Fire-spitting nationalists have retreated into their native or ethnic cocoons. Conservative Christian leaders appear the most hit; the acts of genocide perpetrated by Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen ,and bandits, directed frontally at Christians and the…

Monday, 31 October 2022 06:19

Settle the war in Ukraine before nuclear bombs start flying - SCMP

While Russia is hinting at a nuclear escalation, the United States has stepped up its force posture with the ultimate weapon of war. So while fuelling a proxy war in Ukraine, Washington is modernising its nuclear arsenal in Europe when no ally is being directly threatened. Are we drifting back to 1962 between the two old enemies when the world was on the brink of nuclear annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis? Moscow warned at the weekend that the US was accelerating its deployment of modernised tactical nukes at Nato bases in Europe that were designed for field battles with…

Monday, 31 October 2022 06:17

The rage of presidential spokespersons - Bola Bolawole

As 2023 beckons and the presidential candidates rev up their hustings across the country’s political landscape, the metamorphosis of many of the finest and best of the country’s journalism and legal professions connected with the campaigns beggars belief! Men who have toiled day and night for decades to make a name for themselves while also elevating their profession and its practice have unravelled badly – surprisingly, unimaginably, and disastrously. What is on display is worse than the king dancing naked (Fred Agbeyegbe ‘s “The King must dance naked”) – but this is nothing new! Some of the finest and best…

Monday, 31 October 2022 06:16

The elephants in PDP and APC’s rooms - Hassan Gimba

We are in a new phase of politics hitherto never witnessed in our country. Sure, politicians that lost out in their parties are known for changing platforms. That isn’t new. They call it cross-carpeting. We should, of course, know that the word “Cross-carpeting” does not exist in the English language. Politicians coined it in Nigeria to describe a common phenomenon by which politicians switch political allegiance just to achieve their personal political goals. Here, this is fueled by the politicians’ desire to attain political office or truncate someone’s march towards political victory, unlike in other parts of the world where…

Sunday, 30 October 2022 05:44

Okon appears for the goat - Tatalo Alamu

As daily existence takes on a decidedly surrealistic and absurdist hue in Nigeria, not even the sacred laws of reality are sacred anymore. Welcome to Kafkaland. Reports reaching snooper indicate that the thief that turned to a goat has been auctioned to a popular Lagos food seller who journeyed south specifically for the purpose. So then if you order for goat leg at your local eatery and you find human toes popping out of the bowl, don’t be dismayed, it is all part of growing up in cuckoo’s land. Actually before the said auction, it had been drama galore with…

Sunday, 30 October 2022 05:42

Abuja bloodshed warning and Nigeria’s Cassandra complex - Festus Adedayo

Greek mythology, in the Aeschylus tragedy called Agamemnon, told the story of Cassandra. She was a pretty damsel highly sought after by the god, Apollo. The god promised that if Cassandra gave in to his advances, he would give her the power of prophecy. Though the damsel accepted the proposal and was immediately proclaimed blessed with the gift by Apollo, Cassandra refused to return the affection. Enraged by this insolence, since the god Apollo lacked the power to revoke a divine pronouncement, he placed a curse on Cassandra, to wit that her prophecies would never be believed. The effect of…

Sunday, 30 October 2022 05:41

The God that answers by fire (1) - Taiwo Akinola

And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken ~ 1 Kings 18:24. Introduction The whole world is in a spiritual crisis moment right now. Its entire system is continuously challenging the God of the Bible, and rigorously testing the reality of our experiences as God’s children one way or the other. Indeed, these are days when the God of Elijah must prevail again so that our generation…

Sunday, 30 October 2022 05:40

The rising tide of global sadness - David Brooks

Taylor Swift was quite the romantic when she burst on the scene in 2006. She sang about the ecstasies of young love and the heartbreak of it. But her mood has hardened as her star has risen. Her excellent new album, Midnights, plays upon a string of negative emotions — anxiety, restlessness, exhaustion and occasionally anger. “I don’t dress for women,” she sings at one point, “I don’t dress for men/Lately I’ve been dressing for revenge.” It turns out Swift is part of a larger trend. The researchers Charlotte Brand, Alberto Acerbi and Alex Mesoudi analyzed more than 150,000 pop…

Sunday, 30 October 2022 05:39

Wait, who did you say is middle-aged? - Pamela Paul

There’s a brutal moment in youth when you go from looking up to your elders to looking somewhat down on them. Or at least seeing them with a more jaundiced eye. Maybe it happens at a party. You glance around the room and realize the gentleman you once saw as distinguished has cheerfully dipped a half-eaten chicken wing into a bowl of hummus. You see what one might politely refer to as a “not young” woman waving her arms around with a little too much gusto on the dance floor. And it hits you: They don’t realize that they’re old.…

Friday, 28 October 2022 05:37

The rise of Rishi Sunak - Dare Babarinsa

So, Rishi Sunak is now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Sunak is the first person of Asian origin to become the PM of that great country. After the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, the great Prime Minister of Britain, was very reluctant to receive Mohandas Gandhi at 10 Downing Street, dismissing him as a “half-naked kafir.” Gandhi, the leader of the Indian Independence Movement, was noted for his simple dressing in his native shawl, with the simple slippers on his feet. He came with a staff, like Moses, entering…

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Friday, 28 October 2022 05:36

Briturkey, Britaly and fear of Britainistan - Azu Ishiekwene

In a widely shared story last week, The Economist likened the political carnage in Britain to the situation in Italy in the 1940s. Italy was a major theatre of the First World War at the end of which the country was in ruins. It is so unstable that in spite of the tenuous hold of the Christian Democrats on power for much of the time, the country has produced 69 governments since 1945, an average of one and a half governments every two years. Italy’s instability is the joke of Europe. Britain is not doing badly. With three prime ministers…

Thursday, 27 October 2022 06:45

ASUU strike: Gainers and losers (3) - Bola Bolawole

The sore – and sour - point in relations between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Government of Nigeria is the funding of the public university system. ASUU considers the funding made available by the government as paltry and inadequate – and this has been so over the years; indeed, for decades and for time immemorial. Not only the universities or tertiary institutions alone have been thus affected but the entire tiers of the public educational system – primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Year-in, year-out, the funding made available for education has been grossly inadequate, falling far…

Tuesday, 25 October 2022 06:12

National awards for dogs and baboons - Aba Saheed

King Nebuchadnezzar and Emperor Nero lived in different eras but they both shared similarities in history, especially the unforgettable tyranny and terror their reigns inflicted on their repressed and oppressed peoples. One was famed to have turned to an animal and roamed in the wild for years as punishment for his sins against humanity and for playing God. The other was famed to have literally set his empire on fire by his acts of commission and omission and while the fire was raging, he was playing on his pipe, and picking his teeth if you like. I will be using…

Monday, 24 October 2022 06:03

The confessions of a First Lady - Bola Bolawole

Mrs Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, Muhammadu Buhari, has been quoted as saying she did not know whether or not her husband met the expectations of Nigerians. The Aisha statement is capable of many interpretations. One is that she knew he did not but is only trying to find a decent, palatable or less offensive way of saying what she knew. Her husband has fallen far short of the expectations of Nigerians and Aisha knows it. For this reason, she has fought battles with the presidency cabals she accused of hijacking her husband’s government and turning Buhari himself into…

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