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Opinion

Friday, 03 September 2021 05:43

Quest for federalism and its many ironies - Azu Ishiekwene

One month from now, Nigeria’s last batch of states created in 1996 to bring the total to 36, would turn 25 years old. The last batch of six states - Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe and Ekiti - was created by the military head of state, General Sani Abacha, on October 1, 1996. Post-Abacha, agitation for more states has continued, which is hardly surprising for a country with over 300 ethnic nationalities, where diversity has been disastrously mismanaged in recent times. Till date, no civilian government has created any state and that trend seems set to continue. The exception was…

Friday, 03 September 2021 05:42

'Abeg, forget Buhari wahala, I need a husband' - Michael West

Like the common saying, "different strokes for different folks," the prevailing economic crunch, appalling state of insecurity and rising deaths occasioned by ravaging Cholera and Covid-19 do not count in the reckoning of lonely and desperate single women who long for conjugal fulfilment. In their priority, anxiety for daily survival that bothers many homes is not a concern to the awaiting brides. "It is when you have a home that you can join others to lament the economic woes and disaster that the (Muhammadu) Buhari-led All Progressive Congress, APC's, government has unleashed on Nigeria and on Nigerians. Those groaning either…

Friday, 03 September 2021 05:41

What if the Coronavirus crisis Is just a trial run? - Adam Tooze

Almost two years since the novel coronavirus began to circulate through the human population, what lessons have we learned? And what do those lessons portend for future crises? The most obvious is the hardest to digest: The world’s decision makers have given us a staggering demonstration of their collective inability to grasp what it would actually mean to govern the deeply globalized and interconnected world they have created. There is only one limited realm in which something like a concerted response has been managed: money and finance. But governments’ and central banks’ success in holding the world’s financial system together…

Thursday, 02 September 2021 05:52

What does the DSS really do? - Abimbola Adelakun

Last Thursday, the Department of State Services issued a press statement to deny they dispersed doctors attending a recruitment for Nigerian doctors intending to migrate to Saudi Arabia. The denial was typical of the inelegant press releases the DSS churns out - a rambling word salad, full of feigned indignation, and signifying the characteristic ruse of reducing every issue to a matter of “national security.” This particular statement even read like a chatterbot cranked it up. Notably, it did not deny that the DSS was present at the venue of the recruitment. Given how much that recruitment embarrassed the Nigerian…

Thursday, 02 September 2021 05:50

The audacious mirage – Our collective hope is on trial! - Yemi Akinbamijo

Our streets wail, unlike yesterday! I have seen the clips where women cried and wailed on the streets of Jos as though in delirium. The hope for peace is fleeting and the agony of the unthinkable impending pogrom beckons. The remains of the fallen compatriots – the evidence of the unkept oaths of office taken by the leaders to preserve lives now plague our conscience! My heart bleeds, I ache, and my discomfort is unending. How long is ‘too long’? What started like a finger, became a fist and then an arm, then metamorphosed into the untamed hydra-headed monster. The…

Tuesday, 31 August 2021 05:50

The dangers of stereotyping - Dan Agbese

At our meeting of the Northern Media Forum last week, a member told us he was worried about the news media stereotyping the Fulani as being responsible in all cases of banditry and kidnapping in the North-West geopolitical zone. He said the Fulani too are victims of these crimes but that no one wants to believe that. He raised an important point that I need to address here to underline the dangers of the easy resort to stereotyping in the news media and the damage it does to inter-ethnic and individual relationships. The routine reportage of kidnapping and banditry in…

Sunday, 29 August 2021 06:01

America's prayer? Not three more years of 'Sleepy' Joe Biden - Tom Leonard

On a card in his breast pocket, Joe Biden keeps a tally of members of the U.S. armed services who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Until Thursday, none had died on his watch. The deaths of at least 13 American servicemen and more than 150 others in a double suicide bomb and gun attack in Kabul has plunged Biden into the greatest crisis of his presidency. It has also helped reveal the essence of the man who said he would lead us out of the chaos of the Trump era. A politician who came to power on a ticket…

Sunday, 29 August 2021 06:00

Commodore Olawunmi and the maladies this time - Festus Adedayo

An early morning inferno broke out in Circus Maximus, Rome on June 19, 64 A.D. It spread like bushfire through the ancient city. Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar’s reaction was immediate: he scapegoated Roman Christians of the time and inflicted a persecution scarcely heard of in Roman history on them. Highly chagrined by the nauseating no-holds-barred interview granted by Retired Commodore Kunle Olawunmi on Channels television last week which exposed its security underbelly, the current Nigerian government found the template of this Roman emperor, renowned for debaucheries and political murders, fascinating. It thereby went on a route similar to Nero’s, unleashing…

Sunday, 29 August 2021 05:58

Available now: Glorious Heavenly resources! - Taiwo Akinola

And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready ~ Luke 14:17. Introduction: God is always open-handed to supply His people with all good things that appertain to life and godliness, but mortal men are not always well positioned to receive them because of lack of adequate knowledge. We know from fundamental wisdom, and basic laws of demand and supply also confirm it, that any good thing being anticipated must be available in order to complete any supply transaction. In this regard, I am highly enthused to inform…

Sunday, 29 August 2021 05:51

Article of faith: God is not good all the time (3) - Femi Aribisala

The God of the holy scriptures does not conform to human expectations of goodness. A good man does not tell his son to marry a prostitute, as God did with Hosea (Hosea 1:2). A good man does not instruct his servant to walk around without their trousers for three years, as God did with Isaiah (Isaiah 20:2-4). A good man does not put diseases on people (Exodus 15:26). A good man does not kill off millions of his children over 40 years in the wilderness, as God did to Israel. If Jesus were a good man as men call goodness,…

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Saturday, 28 August 2021 05:50

Professors indoctrinating students? In reality, it’s the other way around - Brian Broome

During the first few days of class, my students are silent and nervous. They are college first-years and the class is English Composition. My job is to teach them to communicate effectively through writing. They file in anxiously and choose their seats. The majority are White and have come from suburbs around Pittsburgh, north New Jersey and Philadelphia. Most are away from home for the very first time. I try to look the part of an English professor in shirt, tie and jacket with jeans. Professional but not too fussy. This is an insecurity on my part. Many of my…

Friday, 27 August 2021 08:58

So NBC wants us to start telling radio and TV guests what to say on air? - Agba Jalingo

I am a radio host. Jonathan Ugbal and I host a weekly political talk show, "The Dialogue With Agba Jalingo" on Hit 95.9fm, in the ancient city of Calabar. The program airs every Sunday 6-7pm, and can be joined by listeners from anywhere. The implication of Thursday’s invitation of Channels TV anchors who interviewed Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state and Commodore Kunle Olawunmi, by the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is that, each time I am on air and I ask my guest a question, I must also censor or determine what the guest should say, else I’ll be punished…

Friday, 27 August 2021 05:48

Stolen crown, failed coronation and the other Sultan - Azu Ishiekwene 

Last week, while the eyes of the world were on Afghanistan, a fellow in one of Nigeria’s most tradition-bound states attempted the royal equivalent of a military coup.The leader of the Shua Arab in Edo, Idris Adanno, in a curious, latter-day rediscovery of his linguistic and cultural identity, arranged for his own coronation as the “Sultan” of the Shua Arab in Edo. It was a sign of displeasure, if not rebellion, against the current practice of lumping together all leaders of Hausa communities as “Sarkin.”When the epistemology of northern traditional institutions would be written, however, it will be recorded that…

Friday, 27 August 2021 05:46

Families groan as hunger, insecurity and Covid-19 rage - Michael West

This is not the best of times in Nigeria. Many families are in financial mess as the means to meeting the basic needs: feeding, rent, medicals and children's school fees, are getting harder by the day. It is not funny at all. Families are caught in the webs of threatening hunger, worsening insecurity and ravaging health challenges as posed by Covid-19 and cholera. More than Covid-19, cholera has claimed far more lives in the last few months. A total of 816 deaths have been recorded in Nigeria due to cholera outbreak since the beginning of the year. This is according…

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