As the nomination congress approaches, rumblings within the party rise to an acrimonious crescendo and the troubleshooting market blossoming in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which is in desperate yearning for his tested skills, we are surprised- so too are many others- that the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah, could still find the time for a lengthy homily on his usual target, Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria. For a man who has been spreading hate for decades, nothing new in the homily, except for the fact that while millions of Christians were remembering the…
Author: Editor
The most appropriate representation of the impending 2023 presidential election contest for the Yoruba is what is called the Odun e’gun or the Egungun Festival contest. It is a festival-cum-contest in which masquerades file out in their rainbow coloured regalia, with a mammoth crowd gathered to watch them dance. As at today, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Yemi Osinbajo are the Yoruba’s two biggest masquerades in this odun egun. The Alagbaa, one entrusted with the traditional right to preside over the ancestral rites of the festival, is however a Fulani – Muhammadu Buhari. By the way, the Alagbaa is very central…
The office of Attorney-General of the Federation is the only ministerial office or department created directly by Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution. Described in section 150(1) as “the Chief Law Officer of the Federation”, the Attorney-General is also supposed to be the repository and defender of the country’s highest constitutional and civic values. The acronym HAGF, for “Honorable Attorney-General of the Federation”, assumes that the occupant of the position embodies the trinity of honour, integrity, and professionalism. Reflecting the challenging nature of the role, the office used to be occupied by persons (so far, all men) of some stature. Taslim Elias, the…
Four years ago, precisely on Sunday, 12 August 2018, the most amazing international news was NASA’s ‘mission to touch the sun,’ by the major International News Outlets; CNN, BBC, Aljazeera, and a host of others. NASA is the acronym for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is a famous American agency with a clear vision of space exploration. NASA’s boldly written Vision is “We reach for new heights and reveal the unknown for the benefit of humankind”. This vision is diligently being pursued with billions of US Dollars on annual basis. A space mission to the moon, Mars or any…
By Mercy Omoike and Vivian Ihechu Over the years, the use of plastics has become common place in the lives of humans. From manufacturing to storage to cooking and other diverse areas, plastics are used in one way or the other. Plastics are found in educational materials, cooking utensils, on the international space station, in medical equipment, and indeed every job and livelihood on the earth. However, its single use convenience has posed challenges to the ecosystem, of which is now affecting humanity. According to the United Nations (UN), decades of overuse and a surge in short-lived, single-use plastics, has…
The dawn of human civilization is often pinned down to the rise of farming. As food production grew, so did human populations, trade, and tax. Or so the prevailing story goes. Economists have now put forward a competing hypothesis, and it suggests a surplus of food on its own was not enough to drive the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to the hierarchical states that eventually led to civilization as we know it. Instead, multiple data sets covering several thousand years show this reigning theory is empirically flawed. Even when some parts of the world adopted farming and began producing a…
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was founded in 1978. Its predecessor, the Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT), was formed in 1965 covering academic staff at the University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Ife and University of Lagos. According to its founders, ASUU is a trade union whose objectives include regulation of relations between academic staff and employers, encouraging the participation of its members in the affairs of the university system and the nation, and protecting and advancing the socio-economic and cultural interests of the nation. It is supposed to be…
Hello brothers and sisters in Christ, men and women of goodwill everywhere, I send you hearty greetings and felicitations as we celebrate the risen Christ. Easter is here again. For all Christians, Easter is a metaphor for our lives as individuals, families, communities or nations. Easter is a metaphor for how shame, scandal, powerlessness, weakness, and opprobrium suddenly transform into glory, honour, pre-eminence, laudation and applause. It is a fulfilment of what the Master himself had foretold when He said, ‘Unless a grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain, but if it…
Former governor of Osun state who was also national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adebisi Akande has revealed how Yemi Osibanjo was became vice presidential candidate for president Muhammadu Buhari. Akande in his 493 pages autobiography titled: “My Participations,” also described vice president Yemi Osinbajo as a cerebral, courageous, decent, modest and perspicacious gentleman in every sense as well as one of the ‘brightest boys’ in Yorubaland. Recalling history, Akande stated that Osinbajo’s name came up for the vice presidential position in 2015 when Buhari refused to accept Tinubu. “Osinbajo is one of our brightest boys. He was…
The state of insecurity in the country is so high that it is difficult for Nigerians not to think of jumping ship and going somewhere safer. Nigeria’s governing class, the source of all our problems have made their arrangements, they have bought houses abroad, transferred money out of the country and are ready to leave the country within minutes. That is why we have a large fleet of private jets in our airports ready to take out those who have ruled and ruined Nigeria outside the country at short notice. For the poor and even the middle class, the only…