A conservative coalition in Iraq has pushed proposals to lower the legal age of marriage for girls to just nine-years-old, sparking fierce backlash from activists and rights groups.

Protesters demonstrated in Baghdad this week to express their outrage at changes that would allow aspects of personal status matters to be legislated by religious sects, rather than the courts.

With many Iraqi marriages conducted informally and left unregistered, the revisions would allow figures from Sunni and Shia religious sects to finalise unions between people in law.

But critics fear the Shia code would be based on 'Jaafari jurisprudence', allowing girls as young as nine and boys as young as 15 to marry. Under current Iraqi law, both can marry from 18.

'The Iraqi community categorically rejects these proposals, it is a degrading step for both Iraqi men and women alike. This is what we have been fighting against for years,' women's rights activist Suhalia Al Assam told The National this week.

The amendments to Law No. 188, the Personal Status Law of 1959 have been pushed by a coalition of conservative Shia Islamist parties, which form the largest bloc in parliament.

The Coordination Framework attempted to carry out a first reading on July 24, but shelved the plans until last Sunday after meeting political resistance.

Many protesters gathered in Tahrir Square in the capital on Thursday to voice their opposition to the bill, which some said would foment further division in society.

Iraq's current law states that marriage requires 'a sound mind and completing eighteen years of age', with provisions for women fleeing abuse in annulling a contract.

Fifteen-year-olds can submit a marriage request, which judges can choose to approve if they deem the individual well and obtain their legal guardian's consent.

A judge may permit the marriage of a fifteen-year-old 'if he finds this absolutely necessary', the law states, without providing further details. 

Under the new laws, marrying Muslim couples would choose either a Sunni or Shia sect, who would be able to represent them in 'all matters of personal status' - rather than the civil judiciary.

"When a dispute occurs between the spouses regarding the doctrine according to whose provisions the marriage contract was concluded, the contract is deemed to have been concluded in accordance with the husband’s doctrine unless evidence exists to the contrary,' the draft says.

And figures from the offices of each 'endowment' would be able to finalise marriages, rather than the courts.

This may also see unregistered marriages - more than a fifth of which involve girls under 14 - legitimised by the state.

The current amendments circulating do not directly refer to the issue of child marriages - but previous drafts have, inspiring sharp and ongoing criticism from rights activists.

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), told Middle East Eye the Coordination Framework was using the changes to distract from their own 'corruption' and political failures.

She said the proposals served to 'terrorise Iraqi women and civil society with a legislation that strips away all the rights that Iraqi women gained in modern times'.

Ms Mohammed added that the bill would 'force archaic Islamic sharia on them that regards women as bodies for pleasure and breeding, and not as human being[s] with human rights.'

On July 28, activists wielded signs reading 'the era of female slaves is over' and 'no to the marriage of minors' as they walked through Tahrir Square in Baghdad, the outlet reports.

The 1959 law was introduced nearly 30 years after the British left by a progressive, left-wing nationalist government under Abdul-Karim Qasim. 

Since the invasion of Iraq and fall of Saddam Hussein, right-wing groups have tried to repeal many of these laws and rights.

Proposals have included banning the marriage of Muslim men and non-Muslim women, and legalising marital rape.

Many Iraqis, especially in built-up hubs like Baghdad, have liberal attitudes towards women's rights.

Daily Mail 

Families flee new Israeli assault in Gaza's Khan Younis

Israeli tanks returned to the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Friday, forcing families to evacuate along congested roadways, as Palestinian fighters continued to attack Israeli troops from the ruins, residents and the military said.

Israeli planes carried out strikes across the enclave on Friday, killing at least 35 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry said.

Thousands of people fled eastern Khan Younis in vehicles and on foot, belongings heaped on donkey carts and motorcycle rickshaws as they made their slow escape along congested roads.

With Israel and Lebanon braced for a possible escalation in fighting, leaders from the United States, Egypt and Qatar tried to revive efforts to halt the fighting in Gaza, scheduling a new round of talks for Aug. 15.

In recent weeks Israeli forces which swept into nearly the entire Gaza Strip over more than ten months of war have been returning to the ruins of areas where they said they had defeated Hamas fighters, while warning that they might regroup.

In the latest assault, the military dropped leaflets ordering residents and displaced people sheltering in eastern Khan Younis, Gaza's main southern city, to evacuate from an area that has already seen repeated waves of fighting.

Families packed into buses and cars, many seeking shelter in Al-Mawasi, a sandy stretch of ground along the coast, though some expressed fear over attacks there even though it is designated as a safe zone by Israeli forces.

Um Raed Abu Elyan said she and her family were "running from the fire, we are running with our children from fear".

Asked where would she go she replied: "God knows, we are walking now. They said to go to humanitarian areas, but there is no safe place here in Gaza. It is all destroyed and damaged."

Later on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed six Palestinians in Al-Mawasi, medics said. Another strike on a house nearby killed four people, including a girl, and wounded several others, they added.

Among the dead were two local journalists, Tamim Abu Muaamar and Abdallah Al-Susi, along with several of their relatives, medics and fellow journalists said. Their deaths brought the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire to 168 since Oct 7, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

The Israeli military said troops hit dozens of Hamas targets in Khan Younis and Rafah close to the Egyptian border, seizing arms depots, destroying infrastructure and killing dozens of fighters armed with weapons including rocket propelled grenades.

CEASEFIRE TALKS

The meeting called for Aug. 15 to discuss a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal follows previous talks that have failed to yield a ceasefire since a single week-long truce last November.

Israel's prime minister's office said a delegation would be sent to the talks but declined to give further details. A Hamas official told Reuters the group was "studying" the new offer for talks, refusing to elaborate. The newly appointed overall leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to run the battle, possibly from the tunnels of Gaza.

In a statement, the Hamas armed wing vowed loyalty to Sinwar in a show of challenge to Israel, which puts Sinwar on the top of its marked-for-death officials.

Fears are growing of a possible broader conflict. Iran has vowed to retaliateafter Hamas's leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran and Israel killed a top commander of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in a strike on a Beirut suburb.

A Hamas response to the latest proposal for talks "needs to be studied carefully with its allies. If Israel was serious about reaching a ceasefire, they could have simply accepted the proposal Hamas agreed to," said one Palestinian official familiar with the mediation effort.

Israel launched its assault on Gaza aiming to wipe out Hamas after the group's fighters attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to figures from health officials in the enclave, who say thousands of others are feared dead under the rubble.

Israel says it has killed or incapacitated more than 14,000 Hamas fighters, roughly half the number it estimated it faced at the start of the war.

Palestinians say that despite the near total devastation of Gaza, Hamas fighters remain able to mount guerrilla attacks and ambushes even as Israel prepares for war on a possible second front on the Lebanese border.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia fighting intense battles against major Ukrainian incursion

Russia was fighting intense battles on Saturday against thousands of Ukrainian troops as deep as 20 km (12 miles) inside the Kursk region after Ukraine's biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since the start of the war in 2022.

Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border early on Tuesday and swept across some Western parts of Russia's Kursk region, a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the U.S. election.

Supported by swarms of drones and heavy artillery fire, Ukrainian units moved quickly to carve out a sliver of the Western Russian territory beside the border while sabotage units pierced deeper inside Russia, according to Russian war bloggers.

"The armed forces continue to repel the attempted invasion by the Ukrainian armed forces," Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday, adding that intense battles were focused around Malaya Loknya, Olgovka and Ivashkovskoye, settlements around 10-20 km inside Russia.

In a sign of the gravity of the situation, Russia imposed a sweeping security regime in three border regions on Saturday while Belarus said it had repelled what it thinks was a major drone attack from Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin cast the Ukrainian attack as a major provocation and though Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Wednesday that Ukraine's incursion had been halted, Russia has thus far failed to push the Ukrainian forces back over the border.

Russian military bloggers said on Saturday the situation had stabilised after Russia rushed in forces to halt the surprise advance, though they said Ukraine was swiftly building up forces.

The Ukrainian attack has prompted some in Moscow to question why Ukraine was able to pierce the Kursk region so easily after more than two years of the most intense land war in Europe since World War Two.

"A full scale military operation is underway against a very serious enemy who are certainly not idiots," said Yuri Podolyaka, a popular Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. He said that Russian aviation had saved the day by pummeling scores of invading Ukrainian units, but also said the truth should be told about the gravity of the situation.

U.S. SUPPORT

The battles around Sudzha come at a crucial juncture in the war: Kyiv is concerned that U.S. support could weaken if Republican Donald Trump wins the November presidential election.

Trump has said he would end the war, and both Russia and Ukraine are keen to gain the strongest possible bargaining position on the battlefield.

Ukraine wants to pin down Russian forces, which control 18% of its territory, while showing the West that it can still muster major military operations that hurt Russia even if the Kursk front is unlikely to change the outcome of the war.

Ukraine has not commented directly on the attack but video posted on Ukrainian media purported to show Ukrainian soldiers in control of a gas measuring facility in the border town of Sudzha, where Russian natural gas flowsinto Ukraine for transit to Europe.

Reuters could not verify the video. Reports from Russian sources said Ukraine was in control of some areas of Sudzha. Gas was still flowing through the pipeline on Saturday.

Alexander Bortnikov, the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), ordered an anti-terrorist regime be imposed on Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions - which have a combined area of nearly 92,000 square km.

The measures essentially give the security services sweeping powers to lockdown an area, including controls on communications and limits on a host of usual freedoms. Thousands of civilians have been evacuated from Kursk region.

Some reports said Ukrainian forces were pushing towards the Kursk nuclear power station, which supplies a major chunk of southern Russia's electricity. It has a total six reactors, two shutdown, two under construction and two operational.

The acting governor of Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said drone debris had fallen on a power substation near Kurchatov, the town which serves the Kursk nuclear station, which said it was operating as normal on Saturday.

The head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency noted the "significant military activity" in the area and called for restraint.

Russian diplomats in Vienna told the IAEA that fragments, possibly from downed missiles, had been found, though there was no evidence of an attack on the station.

** Russia launches air attack on Ukraine's Kyiv, mayor says

Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv, with air defence systems engaged on the outskirts of the city in repelling the strikes, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital and military administration officials said early on Sunday.

"Air defence units operating, air raid alert continues," Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters witnesses said they heard at least two explosions in what sounded like air defence units at work.

It was not immediately clear if the attack caused any damage or injuries.

Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on Telegram that the capital remained under the threat of Russia's ballistic missiles.

Kyiv, its surrounding region and all of eastern Ukraine were under air raid alerts, Ukraine's air force said on Telegram.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missile destroys Ukrainian command post in Kursk

A missile strike has destroyed a Ukrainian command-and-control center in Russia’s Kursk Region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has claimed, releasing video of the strike. Ukrainian forces launched a large-scale incursion into the border region earlier this week.   

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said that an Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile system had carried out a strike on a previously reconnoitered command post of Ukraine’s 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade not far from the border between the two nations.  

“As a result, the command staff of the… brigade, 15 people in total, was eliminated”, the statement said, adding that “there will be no mercy.”  

Drone footage released by the ministry shows what appears to be a cluster of several buildings in the middle of a heavily wooded area, with at least one Ukrainian armored vehicle also present in the area. One of the buildings is then hit by a powerful explosion, sending a plume of smoke into the air.  

Iskander missiles can carry a payload of up to 700kg of explosives up to 500km and travel at hypersonic speeds. Russia has been using this weapon in recent weeks to strike staging areas used by Ukrainian forces, command and control centers, airfields, defense industrial facilities, and other military targets.  

The incursion into Kursk Region is Kiev’s largest assault on Russian territory since the outbreak of the conflict. While the Russian Defense Ministry initially said that the Ukrainian spearhead consisted of around 1,000 servicemen and dozens of armored vehicles, including some provided by the West, subsequent media reports suggested that the total force was at least several times larger and that some elite Ukrainian units had been thrown into the thick of the fighting.  

Moscow has denounced the raid as a provocation and has accused Kiev of targeting civilians. Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, have said that the purpose of the incursion is to instill fear in the Russian population and achieve a more advantageous position for eventual talks with Moscow.  

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Ukrainian advance has been halted and that reserves had been redeployed to the region. It claims that Kiev has so far lost up to 1,100 troops and 140 armored vehicles in the area.

** Ukrainian special forces decimated in botched landing operation – Moscow

The Russian military has wiped out a Ukrainian special forces unit that attempted to conduct an amphibious operation in Nikolayev Region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said, releasing a video showing the aftermath of a fierce battle.

In a statement on Friday, the ministry said Russian forces foiled an attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group to land on the Kinburn Spit, a narrow stretch of land that connects to Russia’s Kherson Region and extends into the Black Sea.

Officials said the group, which included up to 16 service members on two high-speed motorboats, attempted to disembark on the spit under the cover of two other vessels. They added that the force suffered its first casualties on the beach when it hit a minefield. Those who managed to reach dry land were cut down by small arms fire, the statement said.

After suffering heavy losses, the Ukrainian military tried to evacuate from the coastline. However, as they attempted to do so, two boats were destroyed by artillery and missile fire, the ministry said, adding that the total number of Ukrainian casualties was 12.

Officials also shared drone footage of the landing site, which shows at least one heavily damaged boat stuck on the shore, with several bodies lying around.

Several Russian Telegram channels covering the conflict said the Ukrainian troops had come under fire from mortars and multiple rocket launchers, and that up to 80% of the force had been eliminated. They also posted a highly graphic video from the battlefield, apparently further from the coast, showing what appears to be at least four Ukrainian soldiers killed in action.

Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has confirmed the raid, claiming its forces incurred losses on the Russians. The agency said Ukrainian special forces attacked Russian fortifications in the area and that the troops raised a Ukrainian flag near a monument to famed Russian commander Aleksandr Suvorov – located not far from the beach.

Ukrainian forces occasionally attempt to stage amphibious operations in Kherson Region, including across the Dnieper River, and sometimes in Crimea, although they almost never manage to hold on their gains for long.

Reuters/RT

There were no signs that something ominous would happen that day. No foreboding of any sort. For me, Thursday, August 1, 2024, began like any other day. I woke up feeling healthy and sound, grateful to my Maker for allowing me to see the dawn of another day. 

However, to my shock, in the eerie hours of that Thursday, news filtered in that the highly revered paramount ruler of my town, Idanre in Ondo State, Oba Fredrick Adegunle Aroloye, Arubiefin IV, the Owa of Idanreland, had gone to join his ancestors. For 30 minutes, I was dumbstruck, bewildered, and speechless. I couldn’t accept that my Owa had passed on to the world beyond. Just like that!

When I regained my composure, sweet memories of my beloved Kabiyesi began to reel through my mind. He was everything to me—a steadfast figure in my life, especially during my 32 remarkable years with the Tribune Group of Newspapers, years marked by both triumphs and trials. Through the ups and downs, God proved Himself mighty, and Kabiyesi was a rock for me.

I vividly remember the day I launched my first memoir in 1998. Kabiyesi traveled all the way from Idanre to Ibadan, accompanied by a retinue of his senior Chiefs, and stayed throughout the programme to honor me. What he said and did that day will stay with me until my last breath.

His love and affection for me went beyond that of a ruler for his subject; it was akin to the unwavering filial love a father has for a biological son in whom he is well pleased. He crowned this affection when he honored me with the traditional title of Ajagunla of Idanreland. He explained that he had been following my travails and achievements in the Nigerian Tribune, and that my victories over physical and spiritual battles called for a significant celebration.

Oba Aroloye was an extraordinary man of valor, piety, and integrity. These attributes were evident throughout his 48-year reign. He welcomed all—both young and old—with agape love. Even in his old age, he attended social and political events with vigor and affection. His reign was peaceful and marked by numerous monumental achievements, most notably putting Idanre on the world map.

Above all, from his first day on the throne, he made God his rock and pillar of support. Until his passing, his daily ritual, especially at dawn, included waking his Oloris (Queens) and other members of the royal household at 5 a.m. for early morning prayers before any other activities. No day ended without evening prayers. His devotion to God was unparalleled. He served God so fervently that a church was built in his honor. My King also had a deep love for church hymns and was never short of songs of praise to his Maker, no matter the situation. If you called him the King David of his time, you would not be exaggerating. 

Indeed, Oba Fredrick Adegunle Aroloye, Arubiefin IV, the Owa of Idanreland, knew and served his God. And doesn’t the Bible say that those who know their God will be strong and do exploits? (Daniel 11:32). The departed Owa of Idanre knew his God and did exploits, leaving giant footprints on the sands of time. 

As the heavens open their arms to welcome Oba Fredrick Adegunle Aroloye, Arubiefin IV, to paradise—God’s abode, where there is no pain or sorrow, where there is everlasting joy, eternal celebration, and endless worship of God—I have no doubt in my mind that the Owa of Idanre is happy and blissfully singing HALLELUJAH with the Angels.

Indeed, heaven’s gain is our earthly loss. Yes, Oba Aroloye was 102 years old when he joined his ancestors on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. Yes, the late Owa of Idanre was the longest-ruling monarch in Ondo State, having ruled for 48 years after ascending the throne in 1976. But despite his longevity, his passing is a significant blow to me. I will miss him sorely. Rest in perfect peace, my King.

**Folu Olamiti is the publisher of Newspot Online and former Editor of Sunday Tribune, as well as Executive Director of the Nigerian Tribune Group of Newspapers. Prior to establishing Newspot, he served as Resident Consultant, Media and Publicity, at the anti-graft agency ICPC, and as immediate past Chairman of the Board of Management Advent Cable Network Nigeria Television (ACNNTV).

The10-day nationwide #EndBadGovernance protests that ended yesterday, known by the reduplicative compound “Zanga-Zanga” in Hausaphone northern Nigeria, have ruptured the coalition that President Bola Tinubu managed to build with a portion of the northern Nigerian Muslim political establishment since 2014, which put Muhammadu Buhari in power in 2015 and 2019 and him in 2023.

But this Zanga-Zanga-inspired rupture also reveals the initial precarity and fragility of the strange-bedfellows coalition. Buhari and Tinubu were previously fierce political adversaries who distrusted each other’s motives and undermined each other. Their alliance was more accurately a political scaffold that papered over their contradictions for a temporary gain, which was the ouster of Goodluck Jonathan from power.

Tinubu’s associates and acolytes in the Southwest, who said they protected Buhari from revolt in their region even when he bungled governance with uncommon ineptitude, are understandably miffed at the rawness, fierce intensity, and undiluted anti-Tinubu fervor of the protests in northern Nigeria.

They are wondering why Buhari, his associates, and even the APC establishment in the North didn’t return the favour. The answers are obvious, but people in power are often blind to the obvious, especially if the obvious is disquieting.

First, Buhari and his supporters know that the Tinubu group, which had a tight leash on the Southwest political space, didn’t protect Buhari from the consequences of his infernal incompetence out of any high-minded considerations. They did so because they needed power after Buhari’s term in office. It was unvarnished calculative opportunism.

Since Buhari’s people have no expectation of any kind of requital from Tinubu, like Tinubu did from them, they felt no obligation to protect or explain away Tinubu’s own hard-hearted incompetence. The chase often stops after a conquest. Men who woo women can relate to this sentiment.

Second, the misery that Tinubu’s simultaneous policies of never-before-seen astronomical petrol price increase and devaluation of the naira unleashed on the country are felt more deeply in the North than in any part of the country because of the preexisting multidimensional poverty in the region and the pervading insecurity that makes farming almost impossible.

Money is now both hard to find and worthless when it is found, and food is both hard to find and unaffordable when it is found. That is an unprecedentedly profound, not to mention unsurvivable, existential torment.

Two days after the #EndBadGovernance protests started, I told someone that many people in the North have been rendered so desolate, so destitute, and so despondent by the economic crunch that they are looking to cash in on the protests to commit suicide by police bullets because Islam forbids suicide.

Islam teaches that committing suicide guarantees an unfettered passage to the hottest depths of hellfire in the hereafter. I said many people who couldn’t survive the pain and humiliation of perpetual hunger might tempt security forces to shoot them so they could end it all and not fear that they would provoke the wrath of their Creator for committing suicide.

Of course, this is twisted thinking because a famous hadith, which every Muslim who took Islamic Studies in secondary school knows, says “Actions shall be judged according to intention.”

Well, my predictions turned out to be accurate. A friend shared a video of scores of protesters in a northern city chanting, “da yunwa ta kashe mu, da ma bullet ya kashe mu” (rough translation: “Instead of dying of hunger, we would rather be killed by a bullet”) as they confronted gun-wielding military and police officers.

There is also the viral video of protesters bursting into the Zamfara State Government House in Gusau and defying, even daring, menacing, gun-toting soldiers who tried to stop them. Several such scenes have been replicated throughout the North.

The mistake the government is making is to dismiss the protests as entirely politically motivated. They are not. Even if they wanted, Buhari and his associates couldn’t stop the protests both because the shelf life of Buhari’s “magic” has expired (his own house was besieged in Daura, and he had been pelted with stones while he was in power in cities like Kano and Maiduguri where he had been idolized) and because the extent of anguish people are going through now is unappeasable.

Apart from the usual criminals of opportunity (who exploit every unrest to steal and destroy), the vast majority of protesters think their only hope of living is to risk death and push back at policies that kill them slowly but surely. You can’t persuade people who have nothing to lose by dying.

That was why American author Dan Groat pointed out in his 2014 book titled In Monarchs and Mendicants, “Not interested in scarin’ anybody, but people with good sense are afraid of a man with nothin’ to lose.” Lance Conrad echoed this in his book The Price of Nobility when he said, “Only a fool would underestimate a man with nothing to lose.”

People who weren’t exempt from the rage of protesters can’t stop protesters from protesting.

The self-inflicted attenuation of Tinubu’s political capital in the North plays into the old debate in the Southwest about the best coalitional strategy to attain and retain power for the Yoruba.

The Obafemi Awolowo strategy, which Afenifere still believes in, sees the Muslim North as a competitor and not an ally. The Awo strategy for getting power is to build an alliance between the entire South and Northern Christians.

But the Ladoke Akintola template sees the Muslim North as a strategic partner in light of the deep historical and cultural ties that bind Yoruba people and several linguistic, ethnic, and cultural groups in the Muslim North, such as Borgu, Nupe, Igala, and Hausa people. (Read my October 9, 2021, column titled “Arewa and Oduduwa More Alike than Unlike.”) This is hardly surprising because even though Akintola was a Christian, he was from Ogbomoso whose traditional ruler traces ancestral roots to Borgu.

MKO Abiola—and now Tinubu—subscribe to the Akintola template. Abiola was briefly vindicated when he won the June 12, 1993, presidential election with enormous support from the North, including Kano, his opponent’s home state.

But the revocation of his epochal electoral triumph by a Northern military head of state—and the decidedly ethnic and regional character the fight for and the opposition to his mandate later took—appeared to justify the distrust of the Muslim North by the Awo group, which nonetheless gave full-throated support to Abiola to reclaim his mandate.

Tinubu, undeterred by Abiola’s experience, reinvented the Akintola template. It’s as if he wanted to prove that he could tread the same path and get to the destination that Abiola couldn’t get to. That must be why he called his presidential bid “Renewed Hope.” Abiola’s was “Hope.” Like Abiola, he chose a Muslim running mate. And, like Abiola, his running mate is a Kanuri man from Borno.

With the Muslim North now souring on him only one year into his first term and the unlikelihood of his ever recovering whatever goodwill he had from the region if he continues with his economic policies that push people to the brink of the existential precipice, the Awo/Afenifere group may be having the last laugh.

So, what should he do? The best option is to discard the IMF/World Bank neoliberal policies he’s enamored with (which have never worked anywhere in the world) and embrace Awolowo’s welfarist capitalist template of governance that puts the development and wellbeing of people at the center of policies. That may restore his goodwill with the North—and even earn him more support elsewhere.

The other options are non-starters, but I’ll mention them anyway. Like Olusegun Obasanjo who won his first term with the support of the Muslim North, but who later used the Awo/Afenifere template to get a second term, Tinubu can court the Christian North and galvanize the South. Goodluck Jonathan used this template in 2011 and won.

The problem is that if Peter Obi runs in 2027, and I don’t see any reason why he won’t, Tinubu won’t be able to galvanize the South into a unified voting bloc. And, although the worst fears of his Muslim-Muslim ticket among Christians haven’t materialized, northern Christians are unlikely to embrace him wholeheartedly, however hard he tries to woo them.

In other words, Tinubu is cooked, as Gen Zs say. Anything short of bringing down the cost of petrol, restoring the value of the naira, and making everyday things affordable will doom Tinubu’s first term and deny him a second term because he is now effectively a political orphan.

Undoubtedly, the political matrimony between President Bola Tinubu and Northern Nigeria is at Talaq stage. 

Talaq is the Islamic unilateral repudiation of a marital union. There are no sobs, no wails. No dabbing of the face with a handkerchief. But, the dusts provoked by the matrimonial dislocation hang notoriously in the sky. Even bystanders miles away can see them. The marriage is only 15 months old but the couple’s patience for each other is rope-thin. As our elders say, right in the presence of the kolanut seller, irreverent worms slide inside his pods. A matrimony celebrated with pomp and ceremony is now a chaotic market row. The gluttonous cat has eaten the poisonous meat of a toad. A post on X late last week even claimed that “Northerners have (begun) Al-Qunut prayers against Tinubu…Al-Qunut prayers (are) done…to eliminate evil.” There is a litany of allegations hung on the neck of the seismic marriage. It ranges from prostitution, abandonment, betrayal to battery. While the world sees the palm fronds, (mariwo) the egungun of the matrimony would seem to have been long gone.

Well, as the saying goes, a household of misbehaving children is a reflection that it is devoid of elders with wisdom – (T’ómodé ilé bá ńse réderède, àgbà ibè ni ò ní làákàyè). Elders then summoned the couple and demanded the reason for their tiff. Flaunting patriarchal righteousness, the husband has kept mum, dragging smoke off his burning cigarette intermittently. The Northern wife however did the narration, tears coursing down her cheeks. On her knees, she tells the story of Lagere, the cripple and Python, a huge heavy-bodied reptile which kills its prey by constriction. Lagere was a prince crippled from birth. At his turn to succeed his father, Kingmakers bucked, citing an existing tradition forbidding disabled on traditional stools. Downcast, Lagere hopped down river road to commit suicide. As he folded his deformed leg to jump into the river, a huge python emerged from nowhere and demanded why he contemplated suicide. Moved, Python promised to help him. The snake jumped up, wrapped himself round Lagere and constricted him. Upon unwrapping self from the cripple, the deformed leg received strength. Overexcited, Lagere swore to show gratitude to Python.

Before he was crowned king, continued the Northern Wife, the Ifa Oracle summoned to divine Lagere’s reign muttered a saying, the purport of which was cryptic to all at the time. The Oracle said, “Oore tán, asiwèrè gbàgbé” meaning, at the fullness of time, the foolish will forget a kindness of the past. Lagere then ordered that a groove be earmarked in the palace for the worship of the mysterious reptile. He indeed worshipped Python for months. One day, however, having smoked alien weeds, the king’s head exploded with pride. Lagere reasoned that His Imperial Majesty shouldn’t be seen groveling before an ordinary reptile. He then ordered that the animal be brought to the palace to be sacrificed to him. On seeing what King Lagere was about to do with him, Python cried passionately and asked for mercy. Lagere would not listen. But as he was being dragged down for propitiation, Python suddenly pounced on Lagere, twined self round him. Instantly, he returned to his old cripple state. The town then dethroned Lagere. “That, elders of the land, is my story,” narrated the Northerner wife.

Being a student of Nigeria’s political history and one right inside its vortex, from its beginning, it should have occurred to Tinubu and his Northern bride that their matrimony would be short-lived. As the one who holds an umbrella all-day long would find out only later at sunset that they carry a heavy object, only at dusk would an Oko Ìyàwó Elépòn Búlúù (a vulgar Yoruba folksy appellation for a newly-wedded groom) realize that wedlock is the least of matrimonial rituals. Meeting responsibilities of matrimony is the toughest nut to crack. So long as there is a colony of lice on clothe, the fingernail cannot be devoid of blood. While narrating her ordeals and betrayal of trust from Lagere, the Northerner wife had lapsed into a Yoruba proverb which says that if a monkey is uncertain about the danger upon a tree, it should not be found climbing it (Bi oju alakedun o da igi, kii gun) to which the elders nodded in unison.

Before the #EndBadGovernance protests which began on August 1, the depth of the matrimonial discord between Tinubu and the North was, at best, at the level of guesswork. For instance, we knew that it is almost an impossibility that tantrums won’t follow a stubborn child given a knock on the head. When the Tinubu government thus disgraced Nasir el-Rufai last year, tantrums were expected. So when the Tinubu government, for which he pulled critical chestnuts off the fire, rewarded him with a non-ministerial clearance by the Senate, many could swear by their mothers’ graves that the northern Eliri, the minutest of all rats, will become one of the rebellious faggots that will upset the fire. And that, whenever the North was reorganizing for an Araba, Eliri would play a prominent role. Araba should remind any student of Nigerian history of the historical Northern Nigerian cry of disaffection with the Nigerian state of affairs immediately Aguiyi Ironsi promulgated the highly objectionable Decree 34 which rendered Nigeria’s federalism unitarist. The North had earlier visited midless pogrom on eastern Nigeria. I got a whiff of the heartlessness of the bloodletting from a live play of Yoruba Apala music lord, Ayinla Omowura, recently. He sang, “wón ńpa yíbò bí eni p’eran alápatà…” – they butchered Igbo people as though killing cows in a meat shop.

In June, Northern politicians began coalescing around Muhammadu Buhari. They advertised this in a visit which anyone familiar with the colour, tone and tenor of historical serpentine regrouping of the north would know was the beginning of a call to put spanner in the works. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto state’s ex-governor, kicked off the visit. It was to Buhari in his Daura hometown. Within 24 hours, el-Rufai followed suit. Photograph of the former governor’s legendary stoops to shake hands, similar to Iscariot’s kiss of Jesus, a notorious signature tune heralding betrayal, was amply advertised. Packaged as “Sallah homage,” political watchers claim the visits were the beginning of a packaged northern tempest against the Yarbawa who the north was wedded to in a matrimony that has now gone sour. Shehu Sani, Afro-haired ex-senator said this much in a release and attributed it to an attempt to build a strong northern alliance using Buhari as a rallying point to challenge and evict Tinubu in 2027. On the comedic scene, a Bello Galandachi satirizes the rot in the Tinubu government almost weekly.

The #EndBadGovernance protest was the strongest alibi for Northern Nigeria to ventilate its 15-month accumulated angst. It has been said that the protest, which kicked off on August 1, was a reflection of the geographical and ethnic politics that Nigeria had practiced from pre-colonial times. While the southeast, in a bid to stamp its disavowal with its typecast as a bellicose race, signed off from the protest, the southwest, which goes on protests, whether it is convenient for it or otherwise, marched out, while the north, often pacifist in matters that doesn’t personally concern it, was at the height of its hostility. The social reality of protest against the status quo in Nigeria is that, outside of university campuses, protests are a rarity on the streets of the Muslim North. For the eight years of Buhari’s non-governance, the north was as constantly docile as the northern star. But in this protest against bad governance, not only did northern protesters go to the Hobbesian state of nature, inflicting nasty, brutish jabs on sanity, some protesters even waved Russian flags, shouting “Putin!”

There is no denying the fact that the current Tinubu government has made life very excruciating for the people of Nigeria - perhaps, like no other government in recent history. The pain is such that, as the elders will say, it is only a child who has not beheld the sight of a lion’s devoured carcass in the forest who will pray to be killed by a leopard (Bí omodé ò rí àjekù kìnìhún nínú igbó, á ní kí eran bí ekùn ó pa òhun).The truth is also that, the government has democratized sufferings across board in Nigeria. Tinubu dishes out pains, death, escalating food inflation and hopelessness to Nigerians without any ethnic, religious or social discrimination. As the poor of Kaura-Namoda feels the cluelessness of Aso Rock, the poor of Nchatancha and Telemu equally feel it. But the way the North has taken the lead in escalating the protest this murderously, the question that begs for answer is, what exactly is that region beefing Tinubu about? Hunger? Certainly not. Since we have agreed that no part of Nigeria is spared Tinubu’s merciless, slavish Bretton Woods economic policies, why then is the north crying so vociferously as if it is the only bereaved?

After his announcement as winner of the 2023 presidential election, one of the victorious thoughts that must have crossed Tinubu’s mind was that the ground Obafemi Awolowo wobbled while treading, he gallantly stomped on it. Awolowo’s famous 1959 election campaign round the north, which roused Ahmadu Bello from his slumber, culminating in a Sardauna embarking on a political campaign which got his royal face caked with dusts in the process, opened Awolowo’s eyes to the myth of a monolithic north. Awolowo then came to the conclusion that an alliance of Southern Nigeria with the Middle Belt and Christian North holds the key to a southerner’s presidency of Nigeria. An alliance of his AG with NCNC to form UPGA had Michael Okpara, Eastern Premier, campaigning on the streets of Ibadan. This model still didn’t work during the Second Republic. Citing S. L. Akintola in his book, House of War (2003) Dare Babarinsa said Akintola, Western Nigeria Premier, rationalized his romance with the feudal north in that, the economic, educational and commercial aggressiveness of the Igbo was a greater danger to the Yoruba than the political hegemony of the Hausa/Fulani. An alliance with the NPC, he believed, was the surest way of rescuing the Yoruba from political annihilation. MKO Abiola lapped up the Akintola power model. From his alliance with Muhammadu Buhari in 2014, Tinubu also dusted the Akintola and Abiola handbook hook, line and sinker. On a superficial level, the trio of Akintola, Abiola and Tinubu would seem to be right and Awolowo wrong, right?

The above, however, cannot elicit a QED (quod erat demonstrandum) answer. The northern establishment’s political pedigree hoists it as a typical African witch. Of the many symbols and attributes of the witch, she holds tightly to her ferocious mystic power, using it as bait. She is also reputed with the upside-down symbolism. Among the Akan tribe of Ghana, the witch is literally "inverted." Hans Werner Debrunner, in his Witchcraft in Ghana: A Study on the Belief in Destructive Witches and Its Effect on the Akan Tribes (1961) said of witches, “Before they leave the body, they turn themselves upside… They walk with their feet in the air, that is, with the head down, and have their eyes at the back of the ankle joints.” The Ewe in same Ghana also believe that witches walk backwards and, in walking upright, have their feet turned backwards. The witch is represented by such animals like snakes, owls, hyenas, and leopards, characteristically nocturnal animals.

As it romances political power like the witch, the Northern establishment has an inverted thinking as well. Awolowo’s welfarist philosophy futuristically foretold that a feudal north not weaned of its weaponization of the large population of its Talakawa and roam-about Almajiri children would pose huge danger to the rest of Nigeria. That prophecy has made him a Nostradamus today. In a 1978 presidential speech, Awolowo had said, “For the North, I have three things, Education, Education and Education.” He also maintained that, “The children of the poor you failed to train will never let your children have peace”. The bulk of Nigeria’s social malaises today – insecurity, bloated population, renteer system of overdependence on the lean purse of the federal – come from the north. This has bred multidimensional poverty, misery and anger in the region. Governor Uba Sani recently said the region has over 70% out-of-school children and same number living in grueling poverty. You cannot solely blame Tinubu for all these as the north’s vulture has been suffering the merciless trouncing of rainfall strokes for more than a century. From Yakubu Gowon, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar to Musa Yar’Adua, as well as their northern accomplices, successive northern leaders share huge slices of the hopelessness that the north is today. Not minding the multidimensional poverty, the northern establishment still frantically shuts the door against education of this crop of persons, lest they be liberated from its chokehold.

At the turn of Lagere to narrate the root cause of the tiff, the elders were aghast. Rather than him being an ingrate, the python is almost the equivalent of Omolokun, he said. Omolokun is a Yoruba Ifa deity scholar and practitioner, Araba Ifáyẹmi Ọ̀ṣúndàgbonù Elebuibon’s drama series that ran on western Nigerian television in the 1980s. A couple, suffering decades of bareness, besought a deity for a child it named Omolokun. A spoilt brat who demanded the impossible at every point, when Omolokun one day demanded a human being to be propitiated to him, it dawned on the couple that it had a misbegotten ghormid in its household. Lagere reminded the elders that but for him, their son, Buhari, could not have won the presidency. Like Omolokun’s parents, the Lagere in Aso Rock has bent over backwards to please his Python, allocating consequential federal ministries to the North and in many cases, devoting junior and senior ministries to it. Recently, Lagere even established a Federal Ministry of Maalu as sacrifice to Omolokun. Yet, the northern establishment is steeped in roiling anger and cannot be pacified.

Lagere compared the excesses of his Northern wife to an excessive liquour that intoxicates; excessive sun that runs a child mad; excessive stronghold that begets madness and a spinach vegetable which, if it grows in excess by the stream, is rendered a common weed (Bí otí bá kúnnú, otí á p’omo; bí òòrùn bá pò l’ápòjù, á s’omo di wèrè; bí a bá l’óba l’ánìíjù, á sínni n'íwin; bí tètè ègún bá pò á di òleri). Lagere concluded that he had reverenced the cow enough and even went overboard to call it “Brother.”

The target of the Northern Witch is to stop Lagere’s reign. By now, Tinubu must have realized that the Awolowo who divined education and welfare as antidote to the tyranny of the Northern Witch was no fool. The Witch cannot be appeased. It is insatiable. Like Omolokun, this Witch will demand flesh and blood. Suffusing Nigeria with plenty and Northern Talakawa with education is the only route to rescue Lagere from the chokehold of his Python captor.

There were certain Greeks … the same came therefore to Philip, …. and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus ~ John 12:20-21.

Introduction

Over the ages, the wonderfulness of Jesus Christ has been a subject of poignant interest among believers. And, rightly so, as Jesus Christ is the One who defies every adjective that attempts to qualify Him in limited terms. He is, in all respects, wonderful - in all He is and in all He has.

History, both ancient and modern, is replete with various examples of the wondrous works of the Almighty God – from making a highway in the midst of the Red Sea and preserving a people in the wilderness, to leading them to a land avowed to their forefathers many years afore; from feeding five thousand with five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish, to walking on water and calming the storm. And, most amazing of all, reproducing Himself and dwelling in millions of believers across the earth.

Meanwhile, the wonderfulness of Jesus transcends the sheer awesomeness of the things that He did and still does. It is intrinsic to His divine person.

Even before the Master walked the shores of the earth, the wonder of His person had been known to some, by revelation. For instance, when Prophet Isaiah foretold the first coming of Jesus, he proclaimed that “His name [would] be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”(Isaiah 9:6). Note that all the attributes inherent in the other names – His guidance, might, everlasting love, the peace He gives – are best summed up in one word: wonderful.

In an angelic form, He mercifully visited the home of Manoah, whose wife was barren at that time. Manoah was clearly overwhelmed, and He asked, “What is thy name”. And, the angel answered: “it is wonderful” (Judges 13:18, ASV).

Again, while in captivity, Daniel saw a revelation of Jesus and His “dominion .... which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed”

(Daniel 7:14). What a wonder – a universal kingdom and dominion that knows no end! Yet, nothing tells the story of His wonder as much as His matchless love, which saw Him voluntarily take on the human form and submit Himself to the death on the cross (John 3:16).

Truly mind-blowing! But, the most exciting part of the story for the believers is that we can actually live as proxies of Jesus’ wonder on the earth – because Jesus Christ Himself dwells within us (Luke 17:21; 1 Corinthians 3:16)!

Desiring More of Him and of His Sure Mercies

Now, those that would have the true knowledge of Christ must seek it. Those who really perceive the fragrance of His matchless grace cannot but ask for more of Him and of His sure mercies. And, receiving any lasting blessing from God (including salvation of the soul) often comes through in an atmosphere of curiosity. Hence, all great men and women of all ages, who enjoyed true communion with Christ, showed considerable desire to have a spiritual sight of Him, the glories of His person and the fullness of His grace. Yes, indeed, He is all in all to them that truly know Him.

The Greek worshippers, in wisdom, approached Phillip and insisted, “Sir, we would see Jesus”(John 12:21). This implies a strong desire to know Jesus better, and to hear more from Him. They wished to see the Person of whom they had heard so many wonderful things. And in pursuit of this, they demonstrated great diligence in making their application to Philip, one of His disciples.

We should improve our acquaintance with good people who know the Lord, if our knowledge of Christ must increase, and we must defer to His ministers, whom He had appointed for this purpose, if we would see Jesus by faith now. Paul must send for Ananias, and Cornelius must send for Peter.

Please, Respect Grace to Attract It!

Note that the Greeks here addressed Philip with a title of respect as one worthy of honour, because he was in relation to Christ: “Sir, we would see Jesus”.

Disrespect for persons deserving of reverence has shut more doors for many people than most demons have been able to. If you disrespect grace, you are denied of it; if you disrespect anointing, you miss its workings in your life. Respect is what excites the glory (John 12:23). And, it is what you respect that you attract!

In all our attendance unto holy ordinances, including fellowship with the brethren, the greatest desire of our souls should be to see Jesus, to deepen our knowledge of Him. Our dependence on Him should be encouraged, and our conformity to Him enhanced by His grace. Certainly, any man that fails to see Jesus has missed all already.

Conclusion

Friends, I ask in conclusion, how are you fitting into God’s plans now as we await the Second Coming of Christ? Are you truly focussed on Him, or entangling yourself with the affairs of this life? (2 Timothy 2:1-7). Are you fully committed and faithfully serving Him, or disobeying the biddings of the Holy Spirit? (Colossians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 15:58). Are you giving necessary attention to spiritual things, reaching the unreached with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ by all worthy means, or allowing distractions that could in many ways undermine your destiny? (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

More than ever, we must must arise now and allow Christ’s love to perfect us (1 John 4:17). And, still cruising on the platitude of His love, and regardless of the situations, we should live ready to always glorify Him, our Redeemer, who has chosen us as His people on earth. Rejoice and keep your heart stayed on Him. He is ever set to make you, like the Psalmist, a wonder unto many (Psalms 71:7). Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

They contradict the counsel of the Lord without batting their eyelids. They plant church parishes like supermarkets on every street corner. They build cathedrals and church monuments like World Trade Centres, each one striving to be the biggest and most splendiferous in the universe. They gather thousands, even millions, of “worshippers” in front of television cameras every so often in the mountains of Kilimanjaro. They are the new spiritual superstars; the mega-pastors of the mega-churches.

In this conceit, one of my former churches takes the cake. While its emphasis on branch networking and exponential growth might be a wonderful policy for a fast-food chain, as a framework for a Christian organisation, it has tended to produce half-baked pastors who exhibit flagrant disregard for godly propriety.  

Carnal Growth

In the world today, success in “Churchianity” is measured by the size of the congregation and not by changed lives. Accordingly, highfalutin mega-pastors have fine-tuned church-growth strategies. It is all a question of numbers, numbers and more numbers. Numbers determine how much money is fleeced from the flock. Numbers determine the extent of pastoral control and captivity of men. When pastors meet, the unspoken question is “How big is your church?”  The answer determines social status. Like Mordecai to Haman, the mini-pastors must bow down to the mega-pastors.

One of these putative timber and calibre pastors even maintains God specifically gave him the mandate to establish mega-churches. He claims God said to him: “I am about to raise up a mega-church in Europe, at this end time and I am calling people who will establish those churches. Some people have already responded to my call. Your destiny and that of millions of other people depend on whether or not you will obey me. The primary assignment is to raise up a mega-church.”

However, God does not raise up churches. He has only one church. He does not ask men to build churches for Him. Jesus says: “I will build My church.” (Matthew 16:18). Moreover, God despises what men esteem. (Luke 16:15). Therefore, He prefers the mini to the mega. He says: “Woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas.” (Isaiah 17:12). Jesus identifies God’s flock as little, as opposed to large. He says: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32). Thus, Zechariah asks rhetorically: “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).

Deceitfulness of Riches

The Lord says: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey.’” (Matthew 21:5). Daughter of Zion, Jesus was not husband-material. He did not drive around in a Mercedes-Jeep but on a donkey. He did not even build His own house. Instead, He said: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Matthew 8:20).

Think of a woman of great and dazzling beauty. Our very own Agbani Darego easily comes to mind. She blazed the trail as Nigeria’s first Miss World; for a season the acclaimed most beautiful woman in the world. But if we were to seek God’s opinion, he would regard her beauty as ugly. For this reason, Jesus had to be an ugly man; that his beauty might be exclusively divine. Isaiah says of Jesus: “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” (Isaiah 53:2).

However, because Jesus was ugly according to the values of this world, He was handsome according to the values of the kingdom of God. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness. (2 Chronicles 20:21). His beauty is the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit that is of great price in the eyes of the Lord. (1 Peter 3:4).

Kingdom Dynamics

Indeed, according to Jesus’ kingdom dynamics, the popularity of a church is an eloquent testimony of failure and not success. Jesus told His disciples: “The world would love you if you belonged to it; but you don’t- for I chose you to come out of the world, and so it hates you.” (John 15:19). However, the world loves today’s mega-pastors. Nothing rubbished the ministry of a popular pastor more than Newsweek Magazine’s declaration that he is one of the world’s most respected men. Jesus says: “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26).

The wisdom of God is contrarian. “She calls aloud in the street; she raises her voice in the public squares.” (Proverbs 1:20). “No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.” (Psalm 33:16-17).

 When applied to our vainglorious mega-churches, this means no man is saved by the size of a church. Neither are the wicked delivered by the great charisma of a pastor. When we play the numbers game in churches, we are guilty of trusting in the multitude of our mighty men. (Hosea 10:13). “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain!’” (Zechariah 4:6-7).

One of the great mountains before Zerubbabel was Solomon’s temple. Those charged with rebuilding it were intimidated that the new temple would not have the splendour and majesty of the old. But God is not concerned with size and other externalities. Through Haggai, he notes that, despite its physical shortcomings, “the glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former.” (Haggai 2:9). Before Zerubbabel, the great mountain of Solomon’s temple would become a plain.    

When the disciples extolled the splendour of the Jerusalem temple to Jesus, He replied: “All these buildings will be knocked down, with not one stone left on top of another!” (Matthew 24:2). The same fate awaits the magnificent cathedrals of today. However, the real temple of God, the body of Christ, remains impregnable. Jesus said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19).

God’s Verdict

In the kingdom of God, it is the stone that the builders reject that becomes the headstone. (Psalm 118:22). This prophecy is bad news for mega-churches and their mega-pastors because it predicts they will ultimately be rejected. According to Jesus, the first will become last and the last first. (Mark 10:31). So today’s “first-class” pastors and their majestic churches will eventually be humbled.

Isaiah says: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low.” (Isaiah 40:4). This indicates that, in the day of the Lord, we are likely to discover that the big church is small in the sight of the Lord and the small church is big. Mega-church “wanna-be’s” readily sacrifice the doctrine of Christ on the altar of the imperatives for a large following. But we are not called to empire-building but to righteousness. Indeed, Jesus says to popular mega-churches across the ages: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” (Revelation 3:1).  

David got into trouble with God when he became preoccupied with size. When pride moved him to conduct a census in Israel to glory in the size of his kingdom, God responded by decimating it with pestilence which killed seventy-thousand men. (2 Samuel 24:1-15). Jesus himself was not the product of a big “church,” but of little Bethlehem Ephrathah. (Micah 5:2).

Why are Christians still so sinful?  Why is so little of the character of Christ evident in the churches?  One major reason is that too much emphasis is placed on numerical growth and too little on spiritual growth. Indeed, the messages that promote numerical growth often impede spiritual growth. Everywhere, pastors are engaged in church-planting, for the primary purpose of increasing their dominion and finances. The outcome is the mushrooming of churches that are impressive to men, but contemptible to God.

Isaiah warns: “Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold, therefore you will plant pleasant plants and set out foreign seedlings; in the day you will make your plant to grow, and in the morning you will make your seed to flourish; but the harvest will be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.” (Isaiah 17:10-11).

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; www.femiaribisala.com

Venting when angry seems sensible. Conventional wisdom suggests expressing anger can help us quell it, like releasing steam from a pressure cooker.

But this common metaphor is misleading, according to a recent meta-analytic review. Researchers at Ohio State University analyzed 154 studies on anger, finding little evidence that venting helps. In some cases, it could increase anger.

"I think it's really important to bust the myth that if you're angry you should blow off steam – get it off your chest," said senior author and communication scientist Brad Bushman when the results were published in April.

"Venting anger might sound like a good idea, but there's not a shred of scientific evidence to support catharsis theory."

That doesn't mean anger should be ignored. Reflection can help us understand why we get mad and address underlying problems. It can also aid emotional validation, an important first step towards healthily processing emotions.

Venting, however, often goes beyond reflection into rumination. The study suggests that many people also try to exorcize anger with physical exertion, which can offer health benefits but may not lighten the mood in the moment.

The studies reviewed included a total of 10,189 participants, representing a variety of ages, genders, cultures, and ethnicities. The findings show the key to curbing anger is reducing physiological arousal, the authors say, from anger itself or from the otherwise beneficial physical activity it might inspire.

"To reduce anger, it is better to engage in activities that decrease arousal levels," Bushman said. "Despite what popular wisdom may suggest, even going for a run is not an effective strategy because it increases arousal levels and ends up being counterproductive."

The research was inspired partly by the popularity of 'rage rooms', where people pay to smash objects in hopes of releasing anger, said first author Sophie Kjærvik, a communication scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"I wanted to debunk the whole theory of expressing anger as a way of coping with it," explained Kjærvik. "We wanted to show that reducing arousal, and actually the physiological aspect of it, is really important."

The team designed the review based on the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory, which describes anger (and all other emotions) as a two-part phenomenon, each comprising a physiological and a cognitive component.

Previous research has often focused on the cognitive angle, according to Kjærvik and Bushman, like examining how cognitive behavioral therapy can help people adjust the mental meanings underpinning their anger.

Research shows that can work, they say, but the review also sheds important light on an alternate pathway for defusing fury. What's more, standard cognitive behavioral therapies are not effective for all brain types.

Their study examined both arousal-increasing and arousal-reducing activities, from boxing, cycling, and jogging to deep breathing, meditating, and yoga.

Calming activities reduced anger in the lab and the field, they found, and across other variables like methods of instruction or participant demographics. Effective arousal-reducing activities included slow-flow yoga, mindfulness, progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing, and taking a timeout.

"It was really interesting to see that progressive muscle relaxation and just relaxation in general might be as effective as approaches such as mindfulness and meditation," Kjærvik said.

"And yoga, which can be more arousing than meditation and mindfulness, is still a way of calming and focusing on your breath that has the similar effect in reducing anger."

Rather than trying to vent anger, the researchers recommend undermining it by turning down the heat. Calming tactics already proven to ease stress may also rob anger of physiological fuel.

"Obviously in today's society, we're all dealing with a lot of stress, and we need ways of coping with that, too," Kjærvik said. "Showing that the same strategies that work for stress actually also work for anger is beneficial."

The review found that most arousal-boosting activities didn't reduce anger, and some increased it, with jogging most likely to do that.

Ball sports and other physical activities involving play seemed to reduce physiological arousal, suggesting exertion might be more useful for reducing anger if it's fun.

"Certain physical activities that increase arousal may be good for your heart, but they're definitely not the best way to reduce anger," saidBushman. "It's really a battle because angry people want to vent, but our research shows that any good feeling we get from venting actually reinforces aggression."

More research is needed to clarify these findings, but for now, the researchers say calming techniques – even just taking a timeout or counting to 10 – offer the best options for taming a temper.

"You don't need to necessarily book an appointment with a cognitive behavioral therapist to deal with anger. You can download an app for free on your phone, or you can find a YouTube video if you need guidance," Kjærvik said.

Science Alert

Governors from both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) have clarified that the N570 billion recently mentioned by President Bola Tinubu as support to states was not a direct grant from the Federal Government, but rather a World Bank loan.

Tinubu had stated during a national broadcast on Sunday that "more than N570 billion has been released to the 36 states to expand livelihood support to their citizens." This statement came amidst widespread protests over economic hardship in the country.

However, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State (PDP) countered this claim, explaining that the funds were actually part of the World Bank-assisted NG-CARES (Nigeria Covid-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus) project. "The Federal Government did not give any State money; they were simply the conduit through which the reimbursements were made to States for money already spent," Makinde clarified.

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State (APC) corroborated Makinde's explanation, stating that the loan predated the current administration and was specifically tied to certain projects. "The money is not for rice, it is not for palliatives, it is not for anything in that line," Sule emphasized during an interview with Arise Television.

Both governors explained that the NG-CARES programme, initiated in 2020, was designed to help states recover from the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The funds were disbursed in tranches, with states receiving reimbursements for approved projects in areas such as infrastructure, healthcare, and cash transfers to vulnerable citizens.

Sule revealed that Nasarawa State received N13.6 billion in the second tranche, while Makinde reported that Oyo State received N5.98 billion in the first instance and N822 million in the second.

The governors stressed that this was a loan, not a grant, and would need to be repaid by the states. They also highlighted that the funds were strictly regulated by the World Bank and tied to specific, pre-approved projects aimed at poverty alleviation and economic recovery.

This clarification comes as many Nigerians, including prominent figures like human rights lawyer Femi Falana, had called for accountability on how the purported N570 billion in federal support was being utilized by state governments.