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Opinion

Friday, 25 April 2025 03:25

Waiting for an African Pope - Azu Ishiekwene

It’s nothing to laugh off, however tempting. If the movies imitate life, we may not be as far away from an African pope. It happened in The Conclave, a film by Peter Straughan released in 2024, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Through the intrigues, rivalries and scandals of the plot, Adeyemi, a Nigerian cardinal at the Conclave, almost emerged as pope before a contestant snookered him with the scandalous love story involving him and a nun, Shanumi, who had a child for him while he was 39 and she was 19. If the plot sounds like something from…

Thursday, 24 April 2025 04:17

Nobody is talking about you - Tola Adeniyi

Most times, in our self-absorption, we assume that people are talking about us. When some of us enter a social gathering, we are so self-conscious in our exaggerated self-importance that we think that all eyes at the party are centred on us especially so, if we believed the designer-dress we adorned was the rarest attire in town. Actors, writers, newscasters, musicians and other artistes engaged in various genres of the performing arts belong in this category of people who believe that the world owes them attention and notice. Politicians, notorious for flaunting their presence on captured citizens also belong in…

Thursday, 24 April 2025 04:16

Pastor Poju doesn’t understand his terrain - Abimbola Adelakun

For a sermon that urges people to “understand their terrain”, it is ironic how many things Pastor Poju Oyemade got wrong in his message that compares realities between Nigeria and the USA. Most of the blowback to the respected pastor focuses on the controversial claim that Nigerian doctors are trained with a mere N500,000, but his sermon contains the same fallacious claims Nigerian leaders make when they relativise their country with advanced economies. It is one thing for the average talker on social media to construe subsidised medical education as a government charity to doctors, but it is another thing…

Wednesday, 23 April 2025 04:53

Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu: Indictments of Nigeria that still persist - Firdausi Abubakar

Monday, 14 April marked eleven agonising years since the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by the Boko Haram terrorist group. What should have prompted a swift, coordinated national emergency response instead revealed deep-rooted inefficiencies, systemic neglect, and an alarming failure of governance — failures that tragically persist. In the immediate aftermath of the 2014 abduction, both Nigerians and the international community watched in disbelief as the administration of then President Goodluck Jonathan faltered in its response. Despite offers of assistance from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and France, the…

Tuesday, 22 April 2025 03:18

Pope Francis [1936-2025]: His times and seasons - Mathew Hassan Kukah

He entered the world with the candescence a meteor, blazing new trails and igniting enough light to show that he wanted any lingering swamps and dark alleys of the Church to be cleaned up. He wanted to reposition the Church. We all remember that day on 13 March 2013. The world was still recovering from the sight of the white smoke and barely catching its breath from the announcement of the famous words heralding a new pope, Habemus Papuam [We have a Pope!]. Millions strained their eyes to behold who the new pope might be and then, presto, there appeared…

Tuesday, 22 April 2025 03:16

Much ado about a Black Pope - Seun Kolade

I just saw a post to the effect that Cardinal Arinze is in the frame to be the new Pope. The poster declared that that Cardinal would, if it turns out to be true, be the first Black pope in history. And then it occurred to me that we’ve had a previous iteration of this frenzy before. Yes, that’s right- in 2005, following the passing of Pope John Paul. It came to nothing. Two other things struck me. The first is that, in fact, a Cardinal Arinze or Cardinal Lumumba will not be the first Black Pope in history. That…

Monday, 21 April 2025 04:03

The wages of presidential subterfuge - Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On the evening of 5 April 2012, the prime-time bulletin on the television news of the Malawi Broacasting Corporation (MBC), announced to the country that the president, Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mutharika, “had…taken ill and had been flown to South Africa for specialist treatment.” At another end of the capital city, Lilongwe, a presidential convoy was on its way to the Kamuzu International Airport (KIA), where an air ambulance awaited with instructions to fly a president who was supposedly alive but unwell to South Africa. Earlier in the day, around 11:00 in the morning, Ngwazi Bingu had collapsed while receiving…

Sunday, 20 April 2025 05:03

If the foundations of logic be destroyed - Simon Kolawole

In July 2005, I was aboard an Egypt Air flight from Cairo to Lagos on my way from Saudi Arabia. As we approached the Nigerian air space, the pilot announced that we would be landing in Kano because the Lagos airport had been closed. An airplane had crash-landed and blocked the only runway at the time, leading to the diversion of flights. I found it unsettling as I had meetings to attend and I was unsure of when we would leave Kano. But as we were lamenting over the situation, one passenger said at the top of his voice: “Why…

Sunday, 20 April 2025 05:02

Celebrating Christ, our passover Lamb! - Taiwo Akinola

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us ~ 1Corinthians 5:7. Preamble: Happy Easter Sunday, beloved friends and brethren. This is not just another Sunday; it’s Easter Sunday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.The Son of God walked among us as a Son of Man, died a sacrificial death once for all, but He arose and now lives forever(Hebrews 10:5‑14). Alleluia! Easter is the oldest and the most deeply Christian feast of the year, which is celebrated with greatest…

Sunday, 20 April 2025 05:01

Article of Faith: The mind of Christ (1) - Femi Aribisala

In 1997, I rented a building in Victoria Island, Lagos for two years for N1.5 million. When I did, God told me He had given the building to me, even though I was only a tenant. I believed Him because I have a mind of Christ. He says to me, “Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear.” (Matthew 13:16). The mind of Christ hears the voice of Jesus and believes the word of God. Jesus says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27). Jesus’ sheep do…

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Sunday, 20 April 2025 04:59

War on truth: Why 'science' keeps changing — but the Bible endures forever

Diane Schrader Western culture has been weaponized for many decades to legitimize whatever narrative the powerful want to push. This should be self-evident after the COVID-19 debacle, where nearly everything that was labeled a "conspiracy theory" turned out to be true, and nearly everything the powerful told us turned out to be false. Remember President Biden threatening us with a “winter of death” or promising that the shot would prevent contracting COVID? Christianity is a complete, evidence-based worldview that stands on its own But it goes back much further than that, and it isn't always about following the money, although…

Saturday, 19 April 2025 04:16

What was Jesus doing on the Saturday before His resurrection?

Hedieh Mirahmadi The Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is often shrouded in mystery and anticipation. While the crucifixion and resurrection command our attention, we must not overlook the profound significance of that silent Saturday. It was a day filled with palpable tension, a day suspended between the agony of the cross and the triumph of the empty tomb. In that solemn silence, the world held its breath, waiting for the dawn of redemption that was yet to come. What transpired in the depths of that day? What divine mysteries unfolded as the world waited? Let us explore the…

Friday, 18 April 2025 04:40

Do children of politicians in power make sense? - Azu Ishiekwene

It’s understandable if you have not paid attention. I can’t help noticing because minding other people’s business is a part of my job description. On Tuesday, the newspapers reported a spat between the children of two leading politicians, Mohammed Abubakar and Shamsudeen Bala Mohammed. Mohammed and Shamsudeen are the children of Atiku and Bala. Atiku was Nigeria’s vice president, and Bala is the Bauchi State governor and chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum. Both are ranking members of the main opposition, PDP, a party making as much effort to find its way as it is desperate to…

Thursday, 17 April 2025 04:27

NBC’s ban on ‘Tell Your Papa’ beyond free speech - Abimbola Adelakun

Perhaps the most telling moment in the National Broadcasting Commission’s ban of rapper Eedris Abdulkareem’s track, “Tell Your Papa” is its acknowledgement that the song was already trending on social media. If they knew that many of us had already listened to the song, and we have almost endless means to access the track anytime we wanted, why did they impose a ban on it? Of what use is such a ban in a country where the reach of social media surpasses that of broadcast media houses? How many people get their news from the traditional media compared to those…

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