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Opinion

Sunday, 06 February 2022 06:05

Article of faith: Confessing Christ before men - Femi Aribisala

Jesus says: “Everyone who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33). How exactly do we confess Christ? Confessing and denying Many Christians take this to mean answering an altar call and declaring that Jesus is your Lord and Saviour. This is based on Paul’s assertion that: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be…

Friday, 04 February 2022 06:29

Police recruitment: Behind the figures - Azu Ishiekwene

A small news item from a police statement tucked inside the print edition of PUNCH on Wednesday stirred more interest than usual. In the statement, the police had asked those who applied for the position of constables to resume at the state commands between February 1 and 20. But that’s not the story. While the police needed only 10,000 constables, about 130,000 candidates applied; that is, for every single successful applicant, 12 will not be considered, all things being equal. It evoked sad memories of the 2014 tragedy, when six million applied for 4,000 vacancies at the Nigeria Immigration Service,…

Friday, 04 February 2022 06:28

Parental failure: Impetus for crimes, societal problems - Michael West

Our society is in moral and spiritual quagmire largely due to the negligence and compromised disposition of parents towards the training of their children. From the cradle, parents are the moral compass, role models and counsellors-in-chief of their children. The abdication of these noble responsibilities is the reason we are contending with festering criminal issues. Parents, to a large extent, are guilty as charged on the waywardness of their children. Parents or guardians that fail to provide proper upbringing based on discipline, integrity, cultural mores and societal values are complicit in the moral decadence plaguing our land these days. The…

Thursday, 03 February 2022 06:07

JAMB: Oloyede’s unending tango with exams crooks - Bola Bolawole

When Ishaq Oloyede ended his first five-year tenure as the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on July 30, 2021, many were apprehensive he might not receive the nod of the appointing authorities for a second term in office. And the reason is not far to fetch. Oloyede is not your mill-of-the-run Nigerian public officer who will lobby and fight to sit-tight in office. He finished his first term and returned home, allowing the authorities to decide one way or another. But the general public, especially the mass media that have worked closely with Oloyede, scrutinising and…

Thursday, 03 February 2022 06:04

Back to the Victorian future - Iwan Rhys Morus

Tech titans like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos present themselves as men who could single-handedly shape the future. For their supporters, their ruthless drive toward success is their key virtue. And their showmanship — Musk sending a Tesla Roadster into space on a Falcon Heavy rocket, or Bezos sending Captain Kirk into orbit with Blue Origin — is a way of demonstrating that virtue and asserting they are in control. We owe to the Victorians the idea that there is a firm link between virtue and technological agency. They established a powerful paradigm that continues to haunt us: that the…

Tuesday, 01 February 2022 06:04

What is Nigeria’s government for? - David Pilling

On the British Airways flight between London and Nigeria’s administrative capital of Abuja, one of the airline’s most profitable routes, nearly all the space is taken up with flatbeds. The unfortunate few making their way to a crunched economy section at the back must trudge through row after row of business class. Evidently, there is plenty of money to be made in Abuja’s corridors of power. Nigeria’s economy may be flat on its back, but the political elite flying to and from London will spend the flight flat on theirs, too. Next year, many of the members of government will…

Tuesday, 01 February 2022 06:03

Now is the time for mass resignations from within the ruling class - Jeffrey A. Tucker

If there is a historical precedent for the truckers’ revolt in Canada, and the populist protests in so many other parts of the world, I would like to know what it is. It surely sets the record for convoy size, and it is historic for Canada. But there is much more going on here, something more fundamental. The two-year imposition of bio-fascist rule by diktat seems ever less tenable – the consent of the governed is being withdrawn – but what comes next seems unclear. We now have two of the most restrictive “leaders” in the developed world (Justin Trudeau…

Monday, 31 January 2022 06:23

Kidnap for ransom, ritual killings and the complete cycle of dehumanisation in Nigeria - Seun Kolade

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine sent me a disturbing message: his four children had just had a lucky escape from a kidnapper somewhere in Southwest Nigerian town. His wife was driving the family car one afternoon, with their four children in the car. She got stuck in a pothole in the middle of the road. She tried to wriggle the car out, but could not. As she was struggling with the car, one “Good Samaritan” driving behind stopped and got out to help. He offered to help madam get the car out. In he went, and…

Monday, 31 January 2022 06:21

A quick return to UNILAG... - Bola Bolawole

I read my brother and friend’s treatise on the 52nd Convocation Ceremony of the University of Lagos – A Quick Return to UNILAG - and was enthralled. Babafemi Badejo of Chrisland University, Abeokuta, is no stranger to readers of my columns in national newspapers. A Great Akokite himself, Badejo went back memory lane and returned asking probing, yet germane, questions deserving of answers from the powers-that-be. Sweeping critical issues under the carpet; like the adoption of a fire brigade approach to issues deserving timely intervention, has become the hallmark of administrations in Nigeria. Will the tide ever turn? Read on:…

Sunday, 30 January 2022 06:02

Gen Abubakar, was MKO Abiola’s death really natural? - Festus Adedayo

Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English, Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, commonly known as V. S. Naipaul, would seem to have Nigeria and the facts of Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola’s death in military detention in mind when he wrote his famous novel, Half of Life. Renowned for and indeed underscored by the Swedish Academy which awarded him the 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories,” summarized, Naipaul’s Half of Life is a life of lie lionized to be true.…

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Sunday, 30 January 2022 06:01

Mighty help in the name of the Lord - Taiwo Akinola

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth ~ Psalms 124:8. Introduction: Truth be told, times do come in life when we don’t know what to do. Dark and ominous times when evil reports are rampant, when deadly darts are flying and the sparrows are falling, and yet human helpers are sleepy. Something must be done, and urgently too, but we don’t know what to do. The present situation in Nigeria is a classic example of the kind of time described above. Many things are grossly wrong, and something needs be done, but the…

Sunday, 30 January 2022 05:56

Article of faith: Christians do not believe report of the Lord - Femi Aribisala

Isaiah asks: “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Isaiah 53:1). Christians have become so self-confident that we procedurally disbelieve the report of the Lord. Jesus says to His disciples: “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me tonight.” But Peter challenged the report of the Lord. He said: “Even if everybody is made to stumble, I will never be made to stumble.” (Matthew 26:31-33). And so, Peter not only stumbled, but he also fell headlong. What should he have done? He should have agreed with the report…

Saturday, 29 January 2022 06:19

Elections: Putting the cart before the horse - Tola Adeniyi

The selfish and self-centred Nigerian political leadership and their short-sighted collaborators are gearing up for the rituals and rigours of elections regardless of the humongous unresolved maladies in the land. It is needless recounting or listing the plagues in the unfortunate country called Nigeria because they are well known to both natives and the international community. Nigeria has become the joke of the world while her citizens are derided and pitied the world over. Nonetheless, the politicians who have for long held the country and the ordinary citizens by the jugular are busy plotting who and who would be the…

Saturday, 29 January 2022 06:14

Tinubu: Nigeria no be Lagos (3) - Shaka Momodu

Despite my well-considered warning to Bola Ahmed Tinubu in my factual treatise on him sometime last year, and how his clinching the presidency would be bad for Nigeria, he has proceeded to formally declare his interest in the 2023 presidential election. It appears this mercantile politician whose character portrait is corrosive to democracy and who elevates self-interest over and above national interest will be taking no prisoners in the pursuit of his “lifelong ambition.” However, I am ready to shout it from the rooftops again and again, that his character attributes will engender a conflict of interest like never before…

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