Ns-Opinion

Opinion

Tuesday, 25 October 2022 06:12

National awards for dogs and baboons - Aba Saheed

King Nebuchadnezzar and Emperor Nero lived in different eras but they both shared similarities in history, especially the unforgettable tyranny and terror their reigns inflicted on their repressed and oppressed peoples. One was famed to have turned to an animal and roamed in the wild for years as punishment for his sins against humanity and for playing God. The other was famed to have literally set his empire on fire by his acts of commission and omission and while the fire was raging, he was playing on his pipe, and picking his teeth if you like. I will be using…

Monday, 24 October 2022 06:03

The confessions of a First Lady - Bola Bolawole

Mrs Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, Muhammadu Buhari, has been quoted as saying she did not know whether or not her husband met the expectations of Nigerians. The Aisha statement is capable of many interpretations. One is that she knew he did not but is only trying to find a decent, palatable or less offensive way of saying what she knew. Her husband has fallen far short of the expectations of Nigerians and Aisha knows it. For this reason, she has fought battles with the presidency cabals she accused of hijacking her husband’s government and turning Buhari himself into…

Monday, 24 October 2022 06:00

And what’s so special about Switzerland, anyway?: Readers’ comments - Hassan Gimba

When on 17/10/2022 I wrote about what happened to me and some World Cancer Congress delegates that were denied visas by the Switzerland Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, the embassy the next day requested six of us, including Alhassan Adamu, the president of the Nigerian Cancer Society, to return “for an extraordinary interview” so as to be granted visa. I refused to return, even though the other five went. Unfortunately, they remained in front of the embassy from 12pm till 4pm with no one casting a glance at them, not to talk of letting them in for the so-called extraordinary interview.…

Sunday, 23 October 2022 06:44

Oluwo, Wande Abimbola and philistinism of culture - Festus Adedayo

Sometime in the 19th century, as he stood in the ancient town of Ijaiye in present day Abeokuta, Ogun State, American missionary, Richard Henry Stone saw a young man by the gate of the mission premises. The young man was prepping himself up for a war expedition, probably the Ijaiye war. The young man boasted to the people who milled round him that the vest he wore over his coat was so fortified that no bullet could pierce it. From the outwards however, the vest was made of shells. The missionary said that after he watched him swagger for a…

Sunday, 23 October 2022 06:43

Attracting unfailing help at desperate times - Taiwo Akinola

Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies ~ Psalms 108:12-13. Introduction Man cannot do any piece of useful work, small or great, without energy. Energy is the ability required to get works done. The potential energy stored within us is what produces the outward kinetic energy we see in all our functional operations on earth. However, times come in life when it appears as if all hope is gone, and the situations in which we find ourselves look so…

Friday, 21 October 2022 06:11

A professor’s pay-slip and lessons from ASUU strike - Azu Ishiekwene

After eight months’ strike, one of the longest in the country’s history, university teachers finally returned, at gunpoint, to the classrooms on Monday. It was the 16th time university teachers would be striking in 23 years. Frustrated parents and distraught students just couldn’t wait to hear that the strike had been suspended and schools reopened. It does appear, however, that if all we’re interested in is to tick the box, it won’t be long before we’re back to square one. There is a clear and present danger that we’re kicking the can, with the teachers, down the road. And this…

Friday, 21 October 2022 06:10

In Kogi, it is raining wahala - Dare Babarinsa

It is good and commendable that after many weeks of hesitation, the Federal Government decided to intervene in the dispute between the Kogi State Government and Dangote Industries Plc over the ownership of the Dangote Cement Factory in Obajana, Kogi State. Since Dangote opened the cement plant in Obajana in 2002, that town has never slept until Governor Yahaya Bello intervened and tried to put the town to sleep. Anytime you get there, no matter the hour of the day or night, the industrial town is always awake. I am sure that even from space, that plant, occupying more than…

Thursday, 20 October 2022 06:16

Is the US better prepared for a nuclear blast today than it was 60 years ago? - Wilfred Chan

If you look hard enough, you’ll spot faded yellow signs proclaiming “Fallout shelter” around New York City. They are remnants of a cold war program that signaled spaces within ordinary buildings – from schools to banks to the Brooklyn Bridge – with adequate supplies and walls thick enough for riding out a nuclear blast safely. Many of these windowless shelters housed little more than rats and sewage before the practice was terminated in 1979. In 2017, the city’s department of education ordered the “misleading” signs removed from its buildings, but many others remain – vestiges of nuclear fears that never…

Thursday, 20 October 2022 06:15

ASUU strike: Gainers and losers (2) - Bola Bolawole

Biodun Oyebanji, the mint-fresh governor of Ekiti state, was quoted on Monday, after taking office from his immediate predecessor and god-father, Kayode Fayemi, as saying he has “handed Ekiti over to God”. Pray, in whose hand was Ekiti before now - Satan’s? How time flies and nothing lasts forever – good or bad! It looked like yesterday when Fayemi, leveraging on Federal might, elbowed Olusola Eleka of the PDP out of the way to grab the Ekiti governor’s seat. But it’s all over now! Four years, which seemed like eternity, have come to an end and Fayemi is today ex-Governor…

Wednesday, 19 October 2022 06:15

Tola Adeniyi: Rewarding the silent screams - Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu

Dateline: October 14, 2022. The innovational literary actor and producer moved away from his regular stage (the desk) from which his props (pen and computer) have created many interesting characters in colorful costumes, worthy of viewing over the years. He then moved temporarily to a larger and more open stage where a 'Stage Manager' paid homage to him on the stage by prostrating in greetings; an agelong way of respecting elders by the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria. Even if the 'golden fish' literary high-flier actor had thought he could hide from such performance, the stage manager proved him wrong…

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Wednesday, 19 October 2022 06:12

Oloyede, Marwa: Another feather to their cap - Bola Bolawole

JAMB Registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, and Chairman of the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Mohamed Buba Marwa, were two of the hundreds of Nigerians honoured last week by the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. Marwa was awarded the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). The complaint of many was that Marwa deserved more than that and that the second highest award of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) would have been more befitting. His exploits as the executive Chairman of the NDLEA are the reasons…

Monday, 17 October 2022 06:08

And what’s so special about Switzerland, anyway? - Hassan Gimba

I had wanted to write about the awards conferred on deserving – and not so deserving - individuals on Tuesday by President Muhammadu Buhari. I thought I would be reading it today in Geneva, Switzerland. I should have been in Geneva, today, attending the 2022 World Cancer Congress organised by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) taking place from the 18th to the 20th of this month. I was not going to the congress as a journalist covering an international event. No. I was going there as a delegate from Nigeria because I founded a foundation - Lami Fatima…

Sunday, 16 October 2022 05:52

Baba Lekki turns the table on one chance boys - Tatalo Alamu

In the darkest entrails of the sprawling megacity, a cannibal ethos prevails. You either kill or you get killed. It is as simple as that. Autochthon savages from outlying primitive enclaves and the last redoubts of Early Man in Africa finally overran the famed metropolis. Despite the bravest efforts of the law enforcement agencies, they held sway in the swampy outreach of the beleaguered city from where they spread their reign of primitive terror via the inner ghettoes to the glittering landmarks of African modernity. But help is finally on the way from traditional quarters. Where modern policing falters, African…

Sunday, 16 October 2022 05:50

Death of workplace religion: The Polaris Bank mis-example - Festus Adedayo

A letter was found in 2006 in the room of a Nigerian drug leader after his apprehension in Thailand. The note had read: “Almighty God in Heaven, I have the right to be rich. I have the right to be a millionaire and no country has the right to pass laws that interfere with my reaching my goal of being rich. Any laws that are designed to keep me from this goal are illegitimate.” Stephen Elis, the late British historian and author of an expose on the history of Nigerian corruption roulette, This Present Darkness: A history of Nigerian organized…

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