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Opinion

Sunday, 29 March 2020 05:41

Where is God in a pandemic? - James Martin

The honest answer is: We don’t know. But even non-Christians may find understanding in the life of Jesus. Last summer I underwent radiation treatment. And every time I passed through the doorway marked “Radiation Oncology,” my heart seemed to skip a beat. While I was in little danger (my tumor was benign, and, yes, one sometimes needs radiation for that), I daily met people who were close to death. Every weekday for six weeks I would hail a cab and say, “68th and York, please.” Once there, I would stop into a nearby church to pray. Afterward, walking to my…

Saturday, 28 March 2020 04:43

Weep not for Abba Kyari and Co - Abimbola Adelakun

On Tuesday, the news broke that Chief of Staff to the Nigerian president, Mr Abba Kyari, tested positive for COVID-19. Three of his aides reportedly also tested positive. Same Tuesday, it was announced that Bauchi State governor, Mr Bala Mohammed, also tested positive. Then, there is the son of former Vice President, Mr Atiku Abubakar, whose test result was announced on Saturday. Given how many people close to them they might have huddled before diagnoses, we will never know how far and wide they have spread the virus. About a year ago, The Avengers’ Endgame was all the rage. Looking…

Saturday, 28 March 2020 04:41

The next calamity: Covid-19 threatens to devastate poor countries - Leader, The Economist

The new coronavirus is causing havoc in rich countries. Often overlooked is the damage it will cause in poor ones, which could be even worse. Official data do not begin to tell the story. As of March 25th Africa had reported only 2,800 infections so far; India, only 650. But the virus is in nearly every country and will surely spread. There is no vaccine. There is no cure. A very rough guess is that, without a campaign of social distancing, between 25% and 80% of a typical population will be infected. Of these, perhaps 4.4% will be seriously sick…

Friday, 27 March 2020 05:38

The super bugs are here! - Dare Babarinsa

We are all learning science now. The Coronavirus pandemic, also known as Covid-19, is teaching humanity the lesson of a lifetime. Almost all the countries of the world are affected. On Sunday, Cuba, a small country in the Caribbean, was dispatching the first set of medical doctors to Italy to help that afflicted country fight the Covid-19. For the first time, a non-European country was sending a medical team to help a European country. The coronavirus is telling humanity how helpless we really are before the awesome power of nature. As at now, there are almost 500,000 confirmed cases all…

Thursday, 26 March 2020 05:32

JAMB 2020: Matters arising - Bola Bolawole

It is common knowledge that the JOINT ADMISSIONS AND MATRICULATION BOARD (JAMB) operations have improved drastically and dramatically since Ishaq Oloyede assumed the mantle of leadership. Improvements in administration - transparency, accountability and openness - has translated into zero-level tolerance for corruption, reduced examination charges, as well as handsome money into the Federation Account that was never before heard of. There has also been great improvement in the integrity of its examinations. JAMB as an organisation is nowadays viewed more positively by the generality of Nigerians. Thus, I dare to say that JAMB is better trusted by the public than…

Wednesday, 25 March 2020 04:39

How the world will look after the Coronavirus pandemic: Experts speak

The pandemic will change the world forever. We asked 12 leading global thinkers for their predictions. Like the fall of Berlin Wall or the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the coronavirus pandemic is a world-shattering event whose far-ranging consequences we can only begin to imagine today. This much is certain: Just as this disease has shattered lives, disrupted markets and exposed the competence (or lack thereof) of governments, it will lead to permanent shifts in political and economic power in ways that will become apparent only later. To help us make sense of the ground shifting beneath our feet as this…

Wednesday, 25 March 2020 04:38

The front line of COVID-19 war - Kayode Komolafe

Shuffling through posts on the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) one often finds some useful pieces of information buried in an avalanche of fake news, hate speech and other genres of mischief. A recent instructive material is a video of health professionals of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust of Northern Island in United Kingdom. In the highly emotive video, respiratory consultants, nurses and other professionals took turn to make a stay-at -home appeal to the public. One of the doctors pungently warns that COVID-19 “is not a rehearsal.” As the capacity of the otherwise developed healthcare system of the UK…

Wednesday, 25 March 2020 04:37

Revisiting a national political debate - Edwin Madunagu

One of the first definitive steps taken by General Ibrahim Babangida on displacing General Muhammadu Buhari in a “palace coup” and coming to power in Nigeria in August 1985 was to set up, four months later, a 17-member committee (two women and 15 men) to organize, conduct, collate and then report on a general national political debate. He called the committee the Political Bureau. The political debate was to be on the character, content and form of a future political dispensation expected to be the legal successor to both the Second Republic (1979-1983) and the military dictatorship that overthrew it…

Monday, 23 March 2020 05:22

Sanusi: A white-washed sepulchre? - Bolanle Bolawole

The title above reminded me of a piece I wrote sometime in August 2005 on that year’s students’ unrest at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and the “White Paper” by Governor Gbenga Daniel on the findings of the commission of inquiry his government had set up into the crisis: Students against the Ago-Iwoye traditional institution. Placing the findings side-by-side the White Paper, I had described the latter as “white-washed sepulchre” Published hereunder is “An open letter to Graca Machel” on her solidarity message to ex-Emir Sanusi by Mr Babafemi Badejo, academician and diplomat. Graca Machel: Remember her? Widow of assassinated Mozambican…

Sunday, 22 March 2020 05:33

Absentee president in a season of Coronavirus - Festus Adedayo

If citizens of the world didn’t know that they lived in a global village, the COVID-19, otherwise known as the Coronavirus, has demonstrated this starkly. Virtually all parts of the world have paused on account of the ravaging pestilence, with very earth-shaking implications for the global economy. Even world leaders with war-like inclinations have come to realize, to their shame, that the virus is killing more people than bullets and armoury can at the war front. In this global shutdown, Nigeria has also wriggled herself into its consequences. As barrels of crude oil become ten-a-penny in the global market, its…

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Sunday, 22 March 2020 05:32

Coronavirus: Why Buhari won’t address Nigerians - Farooq Kperogi

In most parts of the world, it feels like the world has come to, or is coming to, an end. Routines have been displaced. Familiar reality has been ruptured. Even habitual perceptions of the world around us are being disrupted. And people are gripped by immobilizing panic and anxiety. In stressful, uncertain moments like this, people look up to their national leaders for assurance, for psychological comfort, for emotional stability, for guidance, for good cheer. Most leaders have lived up to this expectation. They have addressed their compatriots in national broadcasts and become consolers in chief. Well, except Nigeria’s Muhammadu…

Saturday, 21 March 2020 05:47

Christians without churches: Prophecy fulfilled? - Bola Bolawole

In December last year (2019) when I wrote "Emerging trends: Christians without churches...", no one knew there would be anything called coronavirus and no one knew churches would be asked to close down by government. I had simply followed trends abroad where many churches were getting empty, where professed Christians no longer patronise churches as we know them but have made their phone their new "church" building. Saying that such trends were becoming noticeable here in Nigeria, I had warned churches to prepare for it for, as they say, to be forewarned is to be fore-armed. "O nbo, o nbo,…

Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:44

The political economy of COVID-19 - Kayode Komolafe

Two days ago, Cuba gave permission to a British cruise ship with Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) patients on board to dock within its territorial waters. By this exceptional act, the struggling Caribbean Island is teaching the rest of the world some lessons about our common humanity. These are profound lessons that cannot be explained by narrow political and economic calculus. In fact, the nation of Cuba is rewriting the diplomatic rules in its own humane way. On the British cruise ship are five passengers among 600 voyagers who have tested positive to coronavirus. Several countries that are friendly to Britain had…

Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:43

Still on Sanusi and elite conspiracy... - Bola Bolawole

Elites are powerful, very powerful; especially so the political elites otherwise also called the power elites. Philosophers, political theorists and thinkers posit that the history of all societies is the history of elite rule. Elections do not abolish elites but merely replace one set with another. What even a revolution achieves is the replacement of one set of elites with another. The people never ever rule; elites do! Geraint Parry, in the introduction to his Political Elites, began the discussion thus: Ever since the issue of the political role of elites – small minorities who appear to play an exceptionally…

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