We thrive on illogicalities. We neutralise curses with invectives. Suffering a headache? Take some gin. Chew some raw coconut to cure your cough. Add some tobacco snuff to the bargain. Damn the flu with a dip in a freezing pool. Tell the asthmatic we’ve found a permanent cure: inhalation of fine powdery tatashe and Cameroon Read More…
On the service lane of the Airport Road, Abuja, with a Road Safety patrol van far behind me, a commercial motorcyclist carrying three men came from the opposite direction at full speed. Riding against one way traffic on such a high profile highway? I was convinced the fellows were in big trouble as they were Read More…
Once upon a time, there was a rich duke named Magnificus whose estate was the envy of all his neighbours. It was said by all and sundry that God was partial in bestowing so much blessing on one man. Added to his richness was the man’s comeliness. “God must have made him on a Monday, Read More…
“They say the past always catches up with you, sooner or later. I prefer sooner, because by the time later rolls around, the past has picked up a lot of speed”, says writer Dan Thompson. For Nigeria’s minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Sheik Isa Ali Pantami, the speed with which his past has Read More…
In the first part of this topic, we made the point that, “Religion is not the problem. The use to which religion is put is the issue.” But it has not always been like that— especially when the issue is considered from the perspective of local influencers. What this means is that we have degenerated. Read More…
The first world is ruled by ideas, by knowledge. Africa is ruled by religion. Nigeria, the giant of the continent, is the biggest exponent of the African predilection. The majority of Africans are almost evenly divided between Christianity and Islam. Many of them combine the practice of their traditional belief with the practice of Abrahamic Read More…
If the amalgam of violent criminals — kidnappers, bandits, armed robbers, hostage takers, terrorists, or whatever other name you call them — had their way, Governor Nasir el Rufai would have become history by now. It was Nasir who made national headlines after he confessed to realising that payment of ransom to abductors was futile. Read More…
This house is falling, so say many people about the Nigerian project. They point at many indices which signal the psychological dismemberment of the notion of nationhood from every direction of the Nigerian compass. Strife here, discord there, killings everywhere. Such situations propel men and women of goodwill to put heads together in an attempt Read More…
He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk, say the elders. That is because he who walks alone is both in front and behind. In Nigeria, we used to have leaders worthy of the name, not because they were perfect beings but because their strengths outshone Read More…
Mohammed Babagana Monguno, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, usually doesn’t hug the klieg lights. In the face of the unprecedented spate of kidnappings, armed banditry and other threats to society, however, the retired army general recently spoke in unmistakable terms which many analysts have interpreted as signalling the much desired no-nonsense phase of the war against Read More…