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Opinion

Friday, 24 December 2021 06:02

I’m in a fix, please help! - Michael West

From time immemorial, Yuletide is a season of fun for children, affection for the loved ones and the time for caring, sharing and ample demonstration of love both in cash and in kind to the needy, neighbours, family and friends. It is the most celebrated festival the world over. Ornamental decorations, special songs, carnival like events, cold and chilling harmattan weather and bustling economic activities are the hak of the once-in-a-year festive season. As joyful and pleasant the season is, it also portends a grieving and sad reality of situations in some homes, especially for those in bad marriages and…

Friday, 24 December 2021 06:00

Water as an asset class is here - Willem H. Buiter

Just over a decade ago, I predicted the arrival of water as an asset class. I foresaw “a massive expansion of investment in the water sector, including the production of fresh, clean water from other sources (desalination, purification), storage, shipping, and transportation of water.” This would result in “a globally integrated market for fresh water within 25 to 30 years. Once the spot markets for water are integrated, futures markets and other derivative water-based financial instruments – puts, calls, swaps – both exchange-traded and OTC [over-the-counter] will follow. There will be different grades and types of fresh water, just the…

Thursday, 23 December 2021 06:03

Atiku’s ‘sound bite’ at Achievers University: Real or feigned? - Bola Bolawole

Penultimate week I returned to my hometown, Owo; specifically for the 14th Foundation Day and 11th convocation ceremony of Achievers University, a private university founded and nurtured by Bode Ayorinde (Pro-chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council) and an erstwhile member of the House of Representatives. My first trip to Achievers was last April at its 10th convocation ceremony. At a time when many universities merge streams of graduating students into one convocation ceremony for paucity of funds, pulling through two such ceremonies in a year is a feat. This year’s Achievers University convocation lecture was delivered by former Vice-President…

Tuesday, 21 December 2021 05:52

The end of neoliberalism and the rebirth of history - Joseph E. Stiglitz

At the end of the Cold War, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a celebrated essay called “The End of History?” Communism’s collapse, he argued, would clear the last obstacle separating the entire world from its destiny of liberal democracy and market economies. Many people agreed. Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries that contain well over half the world’s population, Fukuyama’s idea seems quaint and naive. But it reinforced the neoliberal economic doctrine that has prevailed for the last 40 years. The credibility of neoliberalism’s faith in unfettered…

Monday, 20 December 2021 06:10

Rule of law: Nigeria’s only hope of survival (2) - Hassan Gimba

This is the second part of our treatise on the rule of law that started last week. The rule of law is about the creation of laws, their enforcement so that no one - including the most highly placed citizen - is above the law. When one looks at how organised countries have control over their affairs, one sees how the weakest as well as the strongest face the same law and get the same justice when they get caught with a misdemeanour. In an ideal country, those who are at the helm of affairs are ever mindful of doing…

Monday, 20 December 2021 06:09

Why China continues to rise - Zhang Jun

In just four decades, China’s economy has achieved an unprecedented level of wealth and development, and, until recently, its upward trajectory of economic growth and prosperity seemed set to continue. But as political pressures and the coronavirus push many countries – particularly the United States – to embrace more nationalist policies, the heyday of globalization soon could be replaced by a post-pandemic era shaped by national-security concerns and border controls. This is not good news for China, which would prefer that the world maintain the economic openness it achieved in recent decades. For that reason, China had been working hard…

Sunday, 19 December 2021 06:26

How not to kill the ‘hustle’ of Nigerians - Simon Kolawole

Do you know how many bakeries I have shut down today? That was the sadistic boast of an official of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on an “inspection” visit to a bakery in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) some years ago. To her, it is a lifetime achievement to shut down people’s businesses, rupture an economic vein and render people jobless. To be clear, I am not saying standards should not be enforced. Rules are rules and should be obeyed. The regulations are designed for order, health and safety. They are not for window…

Sunday, 19 December 2021 06:25

Only Buhari’s switch to Christianity will nudge the North - Farooq A. Kperogi

Quite a few readers requested me to offer a perspective on the protests that seem to be sweeping the North over insecurity, especially in light of the observation I made in last week’s column that “there are only muffled, barely audible voices of outrage from everyday northerners” and that “there are no mass protests in the streets and no consistently violent maledictions against Buhari in mosques—like there would have been if the president were a Christian.” Well, firstly, the protests are not “mass,” don’t seem to resonate widely, and are already caving in before they have even started. Give it…

Sunday, 19 December 2021 06:23

Circumstantial evidence says it’s murder, sir! - Festus Adedayo

(A factionalized – fact and fiction – account of murder in a hotel) Media frenzy over the death of Tim Goke, a 37-year old man whose remains were found in a hotel, had been very huge and unsettling. As Police Detective and Head of its Legal Division, Muhammadu Kura sat on the swivel chair in his office at Kam Salem Police Headquarters this Wednesday afternoon, he reflected on his encounter with the Inspector General of Police about 40 hours back. The media had literally dragged the IG off his fanny to begin to take drastic actions. The social media had…

Sunday, 19 December 2021 06:22

Christmas lightings and life’s rough experiences - Taiwo Akinola

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed ~ Luke 2:1. Introduction: Christmas season is here again! Of course, this is one of the greatest seasons of all times, with lots of pomp and pageantry, as well as lively recollections of communal joy, tasteful meals, bright lights, new clothes with a kaleidoscope of colours, surprising gifts, and so on. Yes, all these stem from the real reason for the season — Jesus Christ — the all-surpassing and the Transcendent Gift from our Heavenly Father…

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Sunday, 19 December 2021 06:20

Article of faith: When God loves you, He programmes something bad to happen - Femi Aribisala

My first name means “God loves me.” When God called me to ministry in 1994, He called my name three times. Then He said to me: “I have loved you from the foundation of the world.” The Bible says: “The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” (Hebrews 12:6). God so loved me, He sent armed robbers to waylay and shoot me. He told me so Himself and validated this with scripture: “Who gave Jacob for plunder, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, He against whom we have sinned?…

Saturday, 18 December 2021 06:14

My son is not alone. Millions of young people commit his crime - Laila Soueif

Standing outside the Tora prison complex, where my son is held, a mother asks me: What’s your son in for? “Politics,” I say. She looks surprised, not because you can be imprisoned for politics — there’s nothing strange about that in Egypt — but because most political prisoners are Islamists, and she doesn’t think I look like the mother of an Islamist. “He was one of shabab al-thawra, ” I add, the young people of the revolution. No further explanation is needed. Why is my son, Alaa Abd El Fattah, in prison? He is one of tens of thousands of…

Friday, 17 December 2021 06:11

Travellers’ misery and Nigeria’s slot war with UAE - Azu Ishiekwene

It’s not been a merry run up to Christmas for many Nigerian travellers. It all started with Canada, Saudi Arabia, and then the UK, red-listing Nigeria (and 10 other African countries) for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in spite of relatively low reported cases. If there were any remaining doubts about Covid-19 racism, these countries shed it and showed the world they could not help wearing bigotry on their sleeve. Countries that were rightly opposed to labelling Covid-19 the “China virus”, were quick to target Africa, which is not the original source of the new variant, for detecting it among…

Friday, 17 December 2021 06:10

Marital rape: An exotic idea, joke or crime? - Michael West

Until last Tuesday, I didn't know that Western society "crime" has found its way into our consciousness and as we speak, efforts are being geared towards making what is termed "marital rape" a crime in Nigeria. I would not feign ignorance of the law. It actually exist and it is actionable in the court of law in advanced countries; but applying such a law here is like courting trouble, at least, for a start. I was a member of a five-man panel at the symposium organized by the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency, DSVA, held at Agip Recital…

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