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Opinion

Friday, 17 December 2021 06:09

The big issues for 2022 - Jim O’Neill

With the calendar year drawing to a close, the parlor game of pretending to know what will happen in the next 12 months has begun. Yet when it comes to 2022 (and beyond), I am not sure whether it is worth even pretending. I cannot recall a previous time when there were so many big question marks looming over so many key economic issues. This deep uncertainty is especially intriguing with respect to financial markets. Should any of several developments to watch take a negative turn, the implications for today’s elevated markets could be dire. Among the most urgent and…

Thursday, 16 December 2021 05:59

Nigeria’s food inflation: losers, winners and a possible solution

Zuhumnan Dapel Recent inflation numbers from Nigeria are creating serious concern over the rising cost of food items in the country. But this is not Nigerians’ first encounter with food prices running hot, as the spikes date back roughly two decades. Between January 2003 and August 2021, the food inflation rate has raced to three major peaks. The first and highest was about 38% in August 2005, more than 16 years ago. The second, about 21%, was in July 2008. The third – the second-highest in 20 years – was about 23% in March 2021. Many Nigerians believe that either…

Wednesday, 15 December 2021 05:58

From Lagos to Ilorin to Ife... - Bola Bolawole

The past many days, starting from Saturday, December 4, 2021, witnessed, for me, a flurry of activities, beginning with the Distinguished Great Ife Alumni Award hosted at the Marriott Hotel, Lagos by the authorities of the Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife). Sixty alumni were honoured for contributing in various ways to the well-being of their alma mater. Yours truly was one of those so honoured - for which I am grateful! It must have been a herculean task for the Great Ife authorities to pick just 60 names out of thousands of qualified candidates – whatever the…

Monday, 13 December 2021 06:04

Rule of law: Nigeria’s only hope of survival (1) - Hassan Gimba

Our current situation of a glaring failure of the rule of law must disturb any Nigerian who has come of age. The average citizen today lives in fear. When you retire into your house, you pray to God to deliver you from evil marauders who have removed peace from the calmness of the night. When the sun rises, you again rely on God to protect you from those who have become the law unto themselves. In Nigeria today, the rule of law has taken flight. Charlatans carrying guns that are daily becoming accessible to any riff-raff who wants to own…

Sunday, 12 December 2021 06:06

Why the North bleeds and the people sleep - Farooq A. Kperogi

Northern Nigeria, particularly Muslim northern Nigeria, has become by far the most dangerous place to live in Nigeria— and one of the most dangerous places to live in the entire world. Terrorist bandits have almost literally taken over the region. Terrorists habitually waylay and burn passengers alive, kidnap Islamiyya and conventional school pupils, murder imams and worshipers in mosques, slaughter innocents in their sleep and incinerate their homes, vandalize and burn harvested crops and farms, and constitute a source of permanent terror. The carnage and terror are unabating. They are spreading out to previously sedate parts of the region. Niger…

Sunday, 12 December 2021 06:05

Bisi Akande: Beatifying Buhari in a season of the butcherbird - Festus Adedayo

As former governor of Osun State and pioneer Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bisi Akande, got ready to launch his autobiography in Lagos last Friday, a day before the launch, one very unAfrican event occurred in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. Christophe Joseph-Marie Dabiré, the West African country’s Prime Minister, presented his letter of resignation to the country’s president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. It was accepted. Dabiré threw in the towel on the heels of persistent demonstrations against his government’s inability to stop the bloodletting Burkinabe faced from ceaseless jihadist attacks. With the PM’s resignation, according to Burkinabe…

Sunday, 12 December 2021 06:04

Accessing the profits of real praise - Taiwo Akinola

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High ~ Psalms 92:1. Introduction: If you take a moment to reflect on this passing year, you will likely recall some bittersweet memories, the continued political upheavals, the insecurity challenges, the global health uncertainties, and so on. But in the midst of all these, we must not be unmindful of God’s daily provisions, His supernatural defense, His guiding light, His timely exemptions from common evils and His sure mercies to us, which must be joyfully appreciated. No act of God…

Sunday, 12 December 2021 06:02

Article of faith: Christians are not saved (2) - Femi Aribisala

Christians say we are saved. But Jesus says we are not. He puts salvation as the final bus stop, saying: “He who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22). But Christians proclaim their salvation at the beginning. Inevitably, Christians are in for a big surprise. Jesus says: “The last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.” (Matthew 20:16). Today, Christians are the first who are now destined prophetically to be last. This means we will be flabbergasted when we finally discover that many non-Christians that we have held in outright contempt…

Friday, 10 December 2021 05:58

Sam Nda-Isaiah: One year after - Azu Ishiekwene

I still remember that night like yesterday. Our lives had been turned upside down by the resurgence of the second wave of Covid-19. Like most people, my sleeping pattern was no longer regular; which is to say, out of fear and boredom, I was now learning to sleep before midnight, and waking up without any idea of what to expect. On that Friday, I had drifted off to sleep when my son rushed into my room with a phone. “Dad”, he said, “I think there’s a problem.” I grumbled that except if the world was about to end, there was…

Friday, 10 December 2021 05:56

Bullying, cultism as wages of parental failure - Michael West

And the boy died in agony! His mouth was sore swollen, writhing in pains all over his boyish body frame, unable to stand on his feet neither was he able to walk. He was crushed, dehumanized and tortured to his untimely grave. A Nigerian future leader was cut short. His bright future was shattered. His parents became bereaved in the broad daylight. While other parents came to pick their children back home from the school, the innocent soul was committed to Mother Earth in grief! What an irrecoverable loss! That was the fate that befell Sylvester Oromoni, a 12-year-old student…

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Thursday, 09 December 2021 05:45

Kokori ignites old-time fire at Michael Imoudu Institute ... - Bola Bolawole

Frank Kokori, remember him? He was the petite but fire-spitting General Secretary of NUPENG who led the oil workers’ strike that crippled the entire country and held the Sani Abacha military junta by the jugular, until he was arrested on August 19, 1994 and the strike crumbled. Kokori was thrown into solitary detention in Bama prison where he remained until the death of Abacha (8 June, 1998). Abacha’s demise threw open the prison door for Kokori's release by the succeeding military regime of Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar on June 16, 1998. Kokori’s “crime”, like that of many other civil society activists…

Monday, 06 December 2021 05:58

Needless proliferation of unviable airports - Kelvin Osa Okunbor

There seems to be needless competition in establishing aerodromes without due regard to the feasibility of the venture. In the circumstances, authorities are “forced” to spend revenues earned from four viable terminals in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano to subsidise operations in the 20 other airports managed by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). Because of necessity, we are giving space to Kelvin Osa Okunbor who examines the rationale behind establishing unviable airports by state governments and wealthy individuals. Could it be as a result of genuine interest in the economic well-being of citizens that informs the rush…

Sunday, 05 December 2021 06:06

Still on the Southwest and religious bigotry - Bola Bolawole

A saying of the elders is that for as long as lice persist on the head, blood will be a common feature on one’s fingers. That is one reason why we are dwelling on the vexed issue of religious bigotry in the Southwest again today. The protagonists of religious bigotry in the geo-political zone are not relenting – but many thanks for the firework that has clipped their wings and taken the wind off their sail. The other reason is that feedback is an integral part of communication; it is two-way affairs unlike the “Rediffusion” of old which our people…

Sunday, 05 December 2021 06:04

Dowen College, cults and beast in our children’s hearts - Festus Adedayo

In the last one week in the American and Nigerian cities of Michigan and Lagos, 1983 Nobel Literature winner and British author, William Golding, was literally woken up from the dead. Golding, novelist, playwright and poet, wrote the highly celebrated novel, Lord of the Flies. If you underestimate the holy writ’s admonition that foolishness resides (is bound up) in the heart of a child, then you need to read this Golding’s 1954 debut novel. Woven round myriad thematic concerns, chief of which was the innate bestiality in man, Lord of the Flies, as a name, derived its etymology from the…

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