WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Kharkiv strikes were retaliation for Belgorod attack, Russia says

Russia on Sunday said it attacked military facilities in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight, including a hotel housing military commanders and "foreign mercenaries", in response to Ukraine's strikes on Belgorod the previous day.

Kharkiv officials had said that at least six missiles hit Ukraine's second city, injuring at least 28 people and damaging residential buildings, hotels and medical facilities, followed by waves of drone attacks on housing blocks.

Russia's statement said its attack hit the former Kharkiv Palace hotel and the headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service for the Kharkiv region.

It said military and intelligence officers involved in Ukraine's attack on Belgorod had been among those killed, along with "foreign mercenaries and militants" preparing to carry out cross-border raids.

Ukraine military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told local media that no military objects had been targeted in Russia's attack on Kharkiv and that no one from his agency was harmed.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region adjoining northern Ukraine, said the death toll from Saturday's Ukrainian rocket attack on the regional capital had risen to 24.

In a posting on Telegram he said there were also 108 wounded and that 37 apartment buildings had been damaged.

There was no official comment from Kyiv in the hours after the attack on Belgorod and Reuters was unable to independently verify the Russian reports.

Like other Russian border zones, Belgorod has suffered shelling and drone attacks all year, which authorities have blamed on Ukraine, though none have previously been on such a scale.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in a war that Russia launched against its neighbour in February 2022. The United Nations says that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and nearly 60 people inside Russia.

Ukrainian news outlet RBC-Ukraine on Saturday quoted unidentified sources as saying that Ukrainian forces had directed fire at military targets in Belgorod in response to the massive Russian bombardment of cities and infrastructure across Ukraine the previous day.

Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Ukraine had fired its missiles from the Kharkiv region across the border.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia explains retaliation for Ukrainian ‘terror attack’

Russia’s military has conducted a string of high-precision missile strikes targeting Ukrainian military facilities and officials in response to the Ukrainian strike on Belgorod on Saturday that left more than 20 civilians dead, the Defense Ministry has said. 

In a statement on Sunday, the ministry said that Moscow’s forces had struck decision-making centers and other military targets in the city of Kharkov, not far from the border between the two countries. 

It noted that a high-precision missile strike on the building formerly housing the Kharkov Palace Hotel eliminated “representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who were directly involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attack in Belgorod.”

The building also housed up to 200 foreign mercenaries who were gearing up for “terrorist raids” into Russian territory, officials added.

Other strikes hit the building of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and a temporary deployment area of Ukrainian nationalists. “Representatives of the SBU leadership, foreign mercenaries and fighters of the Kraken unit, who were directly preparing sabotage on Russian territory, have been taken out,” officials said. 

In addition to this, an attack was carried out on a branch of the national space control center in western Ukraine, which had been used by Kiev for reconnaissance. Fuel depots in Kharkov and the Kiev-controlled part of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region were also destroyed, according to the statement. At the same time, the ministry stressed that the Russian military “only strikes military targets and infrastructure directly associated with them.” 

Ukrainian officials in Kharkov have confirmed the barrage, saying that there had been six strikes that damaged “civilian infrastructure,” with 28 injured.

The new attack comes in response to a Ukrainian bombardment of Belgorod that killed at least 24 people, including four children, with 108 injured. Moscow has said that the barrage used both cluster munitions, as well as Czech-made projectiles. On Saturday, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, accused Western countries of complicity in the attack, warning that those who orchestrated it would be “punished.”

Reuters/RT

An Igbo adage says that when an anomaly persists for one year, it becomes the norm. So slowly, steadily but surely, it is becoming a norm, an accepted aberration, for a president in Nigeria to appoint himself as a minister. It is like saying in a country of 200 million-plus, there is no one good or capable enough to hold that particular office except the man entrusted with the running of the nation.

It was President Olusegun Obasanjo that started it. Nicknamed the “Trinity President” in some quarters, for six out of his eight years in office, i.e., from 1999 to 2005, Obasanjo was president, petroleum minister and minister of state for petroleum.

It was only in 2003, the last year of his first term that he appointed Edmund Daukoru, the current traditional ruler of Nembe Kingdom in Bayelsa State, as special adviser on petroleum and energy and then minister of state in 2007.

I think Muhammadu Buhari got so fascinated by this “Trinity” arrangement that he saw Obasanjo run that he too made himself the Czar of Nigeria’s petroleum sector by appointing himself into the same offices.

One curious observation is that they both chose to head the petroleum ministry despite their shallow knowledge of the sector. Both presidents were soldiers who rose to become generals. Nigerians would expect them, especially Buhari, to head the defence ministry if they must be ministers. But the Ministry of Petroleum holds an enticing attraction to them. Can it be because Nigeria’s crude oil is called “sweet”?

Addressing some select reporters at a Global Leaders’ Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism, in London, Buhari said: “I will remain minister of petroleum. I will appoint a minister of state for petroleum.”

And that was even before he had taken the names of his prospective ministers to the Senate. Unlike Obasanjo, he had once served as oil minister and, unlike him again, he appointed a minister of state earlier.

When the news broke that he was going to announce himself as petroleum minister, Vanguard newspaper published an editorial advising against such a move.

“The nation is still at sea over how Obasanjo handled the same job for six years from 1999 when he assumed power. Several turnaround maintenance projects were undertaken and billions of naira sunk and yet the refineries remained comatose,” the article read.

But how did Nigeria’s oil sector with its “sweet crude” fare under the two former generals-turned-civilian presidents?

Reports have it that Obasanjo’s leadership at the petroleum ministry was characterised by lots of opacity and breach of due process. The seeds of the controversial Malabu oil deal were planted in that period.

The Guardian, on January 13, 2008, wrote, “Under Obasanjo, the government was not run based on budget and he did not consider himself bound by the budget. He was the budget. He provided figures and allocations and spent money as he liked without any evidential accountability to the National Assembly. Nobody knew what the revenue was. The National Assembly didn’t know; he was not revealing anything. How much came into the government coffers from the oil sales? Nobody knew except himself. He was the sole minister of petroleum.”

And because of this, in December 2007, seven months after he handed over power to Umar Yar’Adua, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) petitioned the anti-graft agency he set up, the EFCC, demanding that Obasanjo be probed as he no longer enjoyed constitutional immunity.

The petition read in part: “Let us start by stating that Obasanjo, during his tenure, illegally appointed himself the minister of petroleum resources, contrary to section 147 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Secondly, his activities in the oil industry were shrouded in secrecy, as he never rendered proper accounts of the oil revenue to relevant agencies like the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

“Thirdly, it is also on record that neither the Federal Executive Council nor the National Assembly was ever presented memoranda or budgets of the oil industry.”

Buhari’s case was almost similar. Probably no other leader in Nigeria’s history has had the swell of goodwill to tap into as him when he took over in 2015, but he sadly turned such enthusiasm into grave disappointment, his regime falling from what many, rightly or wrongly, had high hopes on, to one that the nation couldn’t wait to see the back of.

According to Buhari, the reason he wanted to be the minister was to right the wrongs in the oil industry, which was plagued by corruption, massive fraud, and crude oil theft.

But in his “determination to sanitise Nigeria’s oil industry and free it from corruption and shady deals,” he spent over N11 trillion on “subsidies” and over $19 billion on the maintenance of refineries that did not refine even a single litre of petrol throughout his eight years.

The Constitution of Nigeria that authorised the president to appoint ministers also gave the power of their vetting and confirmation to the Senate of the Federal Republic. Specifically, section 147 of the Nigerian constitution provides that: “(1) There shall be such offices of Ministers of the Government of the Federation as may be established by the President. (2) Any appointment to the office of Minister of the Government of the Federation shall, if the nomination of any person to such office is confirmed by the Senate, be made by the President.

Neither of the presidents presented himself to the Senate for vetting and clearance as enshrined in the Constitution. And all of them shunned defence, their field and what needed professional supervision for sweet crude. This made some people think that if Emefiele became president as he wanted, he may also make himself minister of petroleum as well as CBN governor.

But when this trend first reared its ugly head, some conscientious Nigerians did not take it lying down. A group called the Niger Delta Democratic Union went to a Federal High Court, asking it to issue “an order directing Obasanjo to appoint a Minister of Petroleum Resources under the mandatory provisions of the Petroleum Act Cap 350 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 as amended.”

Filed by Austin Ayowe and Dafe Chuks on behalf of the NDDU, the plaintiffs also sought “an order restraining President Obasanjo and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority (PPRA) from further exercising any function or powers of a minister of petroleum resources.”

Even though the suit was struck out on 15 September 2004 by Stephen Adah, the presiding judge, who held that the applicants had no locus standi to file the suit, perhaps that case forced Obasanjo to appoint Daukoru as minister of state the next year.

However, in November 2018, a Federal High Court in Abuja declared that Buhari cannot legally double as the minister of petroleum resources.

The court made the declaration while giving judgment in a suit filed in 2017 by the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olisa Agbakoba, who urged it to restrain Buhari from continuing to hold the office of the minister of petroleum resources, contending that Section 138 of the 1999 Constitution forbids the president from “holding any other executive office or paid employment.”

We are quick to shout that Nigeria borrowed its system of governance from America, but tell me which American president was a secretary (minister) at the same time.

Unfortunately for our nation, our leaders pick and choose according to what suits their purpose from the American system. The United States enacted the 1967 Anti-Nepotism law which forbids federal officials from employing family members into certain governmental positions and the cabinet. Can anyone mention that to recent Nigerian public officeholders? We have recently been regaled by stories of how even in the temple of justice, some senior judiciary figures make way for their children, wives and mistresses to become judges. It is the same in practically every segment of public service.

We still have a long, long way to go before we can get it right. But the worrying question is: are we even willing to try?

** Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.

Clare Coffey

Gone are the days when stopping by a certain kind of bar pretty much guaranteed some human contact. These days, bars can feel like the loneliest places on the planet.

When the first wave of lockdown regulations ended, back in 2020, I can still remember what I was most excited for. Going to bars again. Perhaps, during a moment of such gravity, this excitement may seem trivial, or even louche. But I love bars, and always have. I love the opportunities (increasingly rare) that they present for just quietly sitting and thinking, for luxuriating in a small pleasure. I love the way they mark the end of the work-day or the work-week and the entry into leisure. I love the way that you can walk into a town as a stranger, and leave knowing a fair cross-section of its dynamics and characters simply by spending a few hours sitting at its bar. I love the space they open up to talk to strangers, or merely observe them. I love that you never know exactly what you’ll get.

I was excited to go back to the bars again, but when I did, something felt different–something felt off. Everything felt a bit smaller, a bit faded. I don’t think anything had actually changed that much from a few months of closure. But I do think that my anticipatory excitement, coupled with a period of forced separation, made me notice something that before had slipped past my consciousness as, over a decade, it slowly became the new normal.

It was the creeping spread of the lonely corner.

The Lonely Corner

As long as I can remember, a certain kind of un-fancy, middle-of-the-road bar has had what I call “the lonely corner.” Someone is always huddled over the glowing pay-to-play machines mounted on the bar, sometimes gambling, sometimes playing simple touchscreen games. They’ll order beer after beer, barely looking up as they while away one, two, five hours.

I always thought these machines were predatory, luring the exhausted or emotionally dysregulated or unhappily solitary into one of the saddest possible ways to drink: alone in a crowd, without alcohol’s social boost, without much apparent joy in the drink, as part of a compulsive routine.

But the lonely corner used to at least be a corner. Now, those same bars often host an eerie vision: a row of barstools filled with people downing their beers and hunched over their hands, scrolling their feeds, never taking an eye off their screens. The lonely corner is everywhere.

Smartphones make bars worse places. In an ideal scenario they wouldn’t. In an ideal scenario the most disciplined smartphone user would be the model smartphone user. The little pocket computer would come out to answer a message, look up a piece of trivia to settle an argument, or take a picture, and then go back in the pocket. But in real life, what you largely get is the doomscroll. And the doomscroll destroys what is most wonderful about bars. The quiet moments of reflection, the silences and pauses that become opportunities to chat with your neighbor, the way the whole bar can become participants in the banter between a bartender and a patron–these are all casualties. Scrolling on your phone is an obvious defense against the awkwardness of sitting silent and alone in a place built for social encounter–you feel like you’re doing something, you look like you’re doing something. But in providing an easy out from those awkward moments, scrolling also removes the openings that allow awkwardness to blossom into conviviality. And each time you take the easy out, I have found, the psychic cost of sitting through the awkwardness or boredom becomes higher.

Doomscrolling is the gateway to doomdrinking

If smartphones diminish what is best about bars, they also enhance their worst possibilities. The doomscroll is a self-soothing mechanism that accelerates and distracts from the passage of time. Alcohol, in certain quiet, ugly moments, can be a much more potent and dangerous version of the same. There’s great pleasure in a mindless beer, staring off into space, content in the moment–but add the scroll and you’re likely to get a mutually reinforcing compulsive cycle. Drinking takes on the logic of the infinite feed: endless, mindless, appetite without the possibility of satiety. I don’t like the way I drink when I have my phone in my hand. These days, I pretty much only stop by the bar if I’ve left it at home. It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a convenient arrangement. And for a more disciplined person it’s probably an unnecessary one. But then again, a more disciplined person is probably already at home doing pilates. Drinking in bars is life’s gift to the undisciplined–unproductive, pointless, lounging fun–and I’m not about to let my smartphone take it away from me.

I am not suggesting that all bars have always been, or must be, non-stop festivals of spontaneous joviality. People have always gone to sports bars to watch TV; plenty of people go to bars to read a book or a paper, catch up on mindless paperwork, jot things down in little notebooks. I’ve done all the above, and it’s very pleasant and cozy to do these solitary activities in the company of others and with a drink in your hand. But there are important differences.

Watching sports is already a shared activity; people do it in bars to react with others, to share their pleasure and their pain. The others are discrete tasks, with natural bounds and breaks built in. They are different types of human activity that take place within their real physical context, visible to others and enriching the shared space as objects of conversation or curiosity. The scroll is different. It fills up any and all empty moments. It offers no obvious conversational ingress. Mentally, it takes you into the alternate virtual world of the screen and out of your physical context, and it creates no silent, enriching presence. To the outside world, whatever you are doing on a phone looks like the same thing: being on your phone.

Doing a crossword puzzle at a bar makes a solitary activity social. Smartphones at a bar make social experiences solitary.

Decades ago, we realized that some technologies were too powerful to be safely combined with the effects of alcohol. “Friends don’t let friends drink and drive” was painstakingly hammered from a mere slogan into a social norm. It may be time to consider a similar norm (though without, of course, the legal prohibition) for a technology whose dangers are chronic and diffuse rather than acute and concentrated. There is a growing awareness of the way smartphones can hinder serious pursuits: distracting children at school, reducing the capacity for sustained attention at work. But I think it is worth guarding our unserious pursuits, our inattention, our trivialities, from their depredations as well.  Friends don’t let friends drink and scroll.

Fast Company

Residents of Lagos Island and traders at the popular Idumota market have decried the increasing hunger and desperation inflicted on them by the President Bola Tinubu-led administration.

The residents were seen in a trending video telling President Tinubu in Yoruba language that they are hungry - “Ebi npa wa oo”.

Filed on both sides of the road as seen in the video as the president’s long convoy passed through the ever-busy market, the traders didn't hail him.

They instead kept talking of their pains, which they accused his administration of inflicting on them by bad policies that didn't factor the poor and working class in the country.

The complaining voices in the video were heard saying the presidency had known the plans of the people which was the reason for the heavy security. However, the alleged initial plan was not made known.

Sahara Reporters

Nigerian lawmakers approved a N28.77 trillion ($34 billion) budget for 2024 on Saturday, accepting a funding increase which the government had sought due to higher revenue forecasts and a weaker currency.

President Bola Tinubu had initially presented a N27.5 trillion budget to lawmakers, projecting a deficit of 3.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) and assuming an average exchange rate of N750 per dollar.

But at a special sitting on Saturday, the Senate and House of Representatives separately debated the budget and resolved to adopt it with the changes sought by the government.

The government said it expected more revenue from government-owned enterprises and now expected an average exchange rate of N800 to the dollar, which would boost export income. Economic growth is forecast at 3.88%.

Tinubu campaigned on a promise to revive the country's struggling economy but Nigerians have endured increased hardships this year after the president removed a decades-old petrol subsidy and scrapped currency controls, helping to push inflation to its highest level in two decades.

The budget will be sent to Tinubu on Monday to be signed into law.

Nigeria has struggled with high deficits over the years due to low tax revenue and falling production of oil, its biggest export, forcing the government to borrow more.

Africa's biggest economy is also in the grips of widespread insecurity, which has worsened in some places since Tinubu came to office. He is yet to spell out how to tackle the problem.

The lawmakers separately debated last week's attacks by suspected herdsmen in central Plateau state, which left at least 140 people dead and resolved to invite security chiefs to explain the circumstances around the incident.

Reuters

Nigerian Catholic couple Jane and Lucy have little hope their local parish church will bless their same-sex union anytime soon, as conservative priests across Africa choose to ignore a landmark Vatican ruling allowing such blessings.

Conservative Catholics have condemned the Vatican's declaration two weeks ago, which was approved by Pope Francis, that will allow blessings for same-sex couples, as long as they are not part of the regular Church rituals or liturgies.

The pope has hit back against the criticism and what he called inflexible ideological positions that hinder the Church from moving forward.

But in many African countries, such as the continent's most populous one, Nigeria, even having a same-sex relationship is outlawed and often punishable by long jail terms.

Little wonder that 39-year-old Jane, who has been living with her partner for six years, does not feel the Vatican's declaration will change much.

"Maybe in the next 20 years (or) next 30 years but right now it will be difficult for them (Bishops) to just accept this," Jane told Reuters inside her room in north central Benue state.

In the Anglican church, the issue has caused deep divisions for more than two decades, most recently following Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby's proposal earlier this year to allow priests to bless same-sex unions, bringing the faith close to splitting point.

The Catholic Church has so far sought to avoid the impression of conflict.

Catholic bishops from Angola, Kenya, Nigeria, Malawi to Sao Tome and Principe, Uganda and Zimbabwe are among clerics who have said they will not bless same-sex couples, but have argued that the Pope's decree can be interpreted as optional.

Father Patrick Alumunku of St Louis Catholic Church Mbora parish in the capital Abuja said the Vatican declaration was unsettling for many followers but should be viewed as a move towards inclusiveness for all God's children.

He denied that this was an incremental step to eventually accept same-sex unions in the church.

"There are laws that have been made by God and by the church in 2000 years which cannot change," said Alumunku.

For activist and poultry farmer Jane, the fact that the issue is being discussed openly is reason enough to consider eventually approaching her priest for a blessing, if her partner agrees.

"I think he (Pope Francis) tried to understand the feelings of people who tend to be born different or people who basically are now becoming like the outcasts of this society," she said.

"We are getting there, a moment of self expression and acceptance is coming."

Reuters

Netanyahu says Gaza war on Hamas will go on for 'many more months,' thanks US for new weapons sales

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza will continue for “many more months,” pushing back against persistent international cease-fire calls after mounting civilian deaths, hunger and mass displacement in the besieged enclave.

Netanyahu thanked the Biden administration for its continued backing, including approval for a new emergency weapons sale, the second this month, and prevention of a U.N. Security Council resolution seeking an immediate cease-fire. Israel argues that ending the war now would mean victory for Hamas, a stance shared by the Biden administration, which at the same time urged Israel to do more to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians.

In new fighting, Israeli warplanes struck the urban refugee camps of Nuseirat and Bureij in the center of the territory Saturday as ground forces pushed deeper into the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that more than 21,600 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. The ministry, which does not distinguish between the deaths of civilians and combatants, said 165 Palestinians were killed over the past 24 hours. It has said about 70% of those killed have been women and children.

The number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza combat rose to 170, after the military announced two more deaths Saturday.

The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless bombed. Palestinians are left with a sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.

With Israeli forces expanding their ground offensive this week, tens of thousands more Palestinians streamed into the already crowded city of Rafah at the southernmost end of Gaza.

Thousands of tents and makeshift shacks have sprung up on Rafah’s outskirts next to U.N. warehouses. Displaced people arrived in Rafah on foot or on trucks and carts piled high with mattresses. Those who did not find space in overwhelmed shelters pitched tents on roadsides.

“We don’t have water. We don’t have enough food,” Nour Daher, a displaced woman, said Saturday from the sprawling tent camp. “The kids wake up in the morning wanting to eat, wanting to drink. It took us one hour to find water for them. We couldn’t bring them flour. Even when we wanted to take them to toilets, it took us one hour to walk.”

In the Nuseirat camp, resident Mustafa Abu Wawee said a strike hit the home of one of his relatives, killing two people.

“The (Israeli) occupation is doing everything to force people to leave,” he said over the phone while helping to search for four people missing under the rubble. “They want to break our spirit and will, but they will fail. We are here to stay.”

MORE U.S. WEAPONS FOR ISRAEL

The State Department said Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Congress he approved a $147.5 million sale for equipment, including fuses, charges and primers, that is needed for 155 mm shells Israel bought previously.

It marked the second time this month that the Biden administration is bypassing Congress to approve an emergency weapons sale to Israel. Blinken made a similar decision on Dec. 9 to approve the sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than $106 million.

Both moves have come as President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly $106 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other national security needs remains stalled in Congress, caught up in a debate over U.S. immigration policy and border security. Some Democratic lawmakers have spoken of making the proposed $14.3 billion in American assistance to its Mideast ally contingent on concrete steps by Netanyahu’s government to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza during the war with Hamas.

THE WAR’S TIMELINE

Blinken, who has repeatedly traveled to the Middle East during the war, was expected back in Israel and other countries in the region in January. U.S. officials have urged Israel to start shifting from high intensity combat to more targeted operations, but said they were not imposing a deadline.

Netanyahu said Israel needs more time.

“As the chief of staff said this week, the war will continue many more months,” he told a televised news conference Saturday. “My policy is clear. We will continue to fight until we have achieved all the objectives of the war, first and foremost the annihilation of Hamas and the release of all the hostages.”

More than 120 hostages remain in Gaza, after militants seized more than 240 in the Oct. 7 assault that also killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Netanyahu is also at odds with the Biden administration over who should run Gaza after the war. He has rejected the U.S.-backed idea that a unified Palestinian government should run both Gaza and parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to eventual statehood. Instead, he has insisted on open-ended Israeli security control in Gaza, without saying what would come next.

TRADING FOR HOSTAGES

Families of hostages and their supporters have demanded that the government prioritize hostage releases over other war objectives, and have staged large protests every weekend, including Saturday.

Egypt, one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas, has proposed a multistage plan that would kick off with a swap of hostages for prisoners, accompanied by a temporary cease-fire — along the lines of an exchange during a weeklong truce in November.

Hamas insists the war must end before it will discuss hostage releases. Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, reiterated that position Saturday, but also told The Associated Press that “we have not given any final answer so far” to the Egyptian proposal.

Asked about reports of possible progress toward a deal, Netanyahu said Saturday that “we see a possibility, maybe, for movement” but that he did not want to raise “exaggerated expectations.”

DIFFICULTIES IN DELIVERING AID

More than a week after a U.N. Security Council resolution called for the unhindered delivery of aid at scale across besieged Gaza, conditions have only worsened, U.N. agencies warned.

Aid officials said the aid entering Gaza remains woefully inadequate. Distributing goods is hampered by long delays at two border crossings, ongoing fighting, Israeli airstrikes, repeated cuts in internet and phone services and a breakdown of law and order that makes it difficult to secure aid convoys, they said.

Nearly the entire population is fully dependent on outside humanitarian aid, said Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. A quarter of the population is starving because too few trucks enter with food, medicine, fuel and other supplies — sometimes fewer than 100 trucks a day, according to U.N. daily reports.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian air assaults target Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine says

Russia launched a fresh bombardment of Ukraine in the hours leading into New Year's Eve, Ukrainian officials said, targeting Kyiv and inflicting damage on residential areas of the country's second largest city of Kharkiv.

Ukraine's air defence systems in the region surrounding Kyiv were engaged late on Saturday to repel Russia's drone attack, the military administration of the region said on its Telegram messaging channel.

The scale of the attack and any damage were not immediately clear.

In Kharkiv, in Ukraine's northeast, a fresh drone attack in several waves hit residential buildings in the city centre, spouting fires, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram. Twin missile strikes by Russia on Saturday hit the city and injured at least 21 people.

"On the eve of the New Year, the Russians want to intimidate our city, but we are not scared - we are unbreakable and invincible!" Terekhov said.

"Information about potential casualties is being clarified."

He posted several photos showing windows blown out of residential buildings and fire fighters putting out a fire at what seemed like a store.

The last week of 2023 has seen increased attacks by both sides, with Russia killing at least 31 civilians in its biggest air assault of the war on Ukraine on Friday, and 20 people killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod on Saturday.

U.S. President Joe Biden, asked if he'll speak to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy after Russia's latest attacks in Ukraine, said: "I speak to him regularly."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Kiev used banned weapons in attack on Russian city – Defense Ministry

Kiev employed rockets carrying cluster bomb warheads in its strike against the Russian border city of Belgorod, the Russian Defense Ministry stated on Saturday, labeling the attack a ”crime.” This weapon type has been banned by more than 110 nations under a UN convention dating back to 2008, due to the extreme danger it poses to civilians. Its use in densely populated areas can lead to devastating consequences.

The “Kiev regime” used several multiple rocket launchers to hit the city earlier on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement on Telegram. One was a Ukrainian Olkha system, which is capable of firing 12 guided rockets in one volley, hitting targets at a maximum range of 70 to 130 kilometers, depending on the type of system. The Olkha rockets were equipped with cluster bomb warheads, the ministry claimed.

A Czech-made RM-70 Vampire – an upgraded heavier version of the Soviet BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher – was also used, according to the Russian military.

Russian air defenses intercepted most of the incoming projectiles, but several hit the city, the ministry said. It added that “in case of a direct hit by Olkha missiles equipped with cluster munitions… the consequences would be immeasurably more severe.”

Earlier, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said that the strike claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children, and left 108 people, among them 15 children, injured.

The Russian military accused Kiev of seeking to draw public attention away from its failures on the front line, as well as provoking Moscow into retaliatory strikes of a similar nature. The ministry maintained that Russia only strikes military targets and infrastructure that is directly relevant to these military facilities.

“This crime will not go unpunished,” the military said.

Cluster munitions are highly controversial due to their design. They comprise dozens of small submunitions that can be scattered over a large area by an initial detonation, which can then also explode, causing a large number of smaller secondary blasts. Some, however, typically fail to detonate and remain a hazard for years or even decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in July that the use of cluster bombs should be regarded as a war crime. At the time, Washington had announced that it would supply Kiev with cluster bombs out of its Cold War-era stockpiles, justifying its decision by claiming that Ukraine had pledged not to use them in populated areas.

The US government also claimed that both Russia and Ukraine had been using their own cluster munitions throughout the conflict. Nevertheless, the move sparked widespread criticism even among America’s allies, including Canada, Germany, and the UK.

Putin said at the time that Moscow reserved the right to use its own cluster munitions in response. He added that Russia had previously refrained from using the weapons even when there was a shortage of other types of munitions.

Reuters/RT

For the Algerian journalist, editor and editorialist, playwright and director, novelist and author of short stories, political essayist and activist, Albert Camus, life is meaningless and absurd. To him, it is inexplicable why we live, struggle all through and die. The meaninglessness of life is explained in his book The Myth of Sisyphus where he captures the absurdity of the god, Sisyphus struggling to push a rock up the mountain. The rock is pushed uphill; the rock rolls back in an endless, fruitless fight of forces. It is what human life represents to the writer. You cannot have a full sky of happiness that will not be undermined by some clouds of unhappiness. Why? Camus says it is absurd for any man to seek meaning in life (and in the after-life) because there is none - and no one can get any. 

So if we agree with Camus that life is truly absurd and without meaning, why do we spend the whole of our days perspiring to conquer the world? Why mourn those who have exited the absurdity of life like erstwhile Ondo State governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, Ghali Umar Na’Abba and the 200 people murdered in Plateau last week? Why do we build seemingly impressionable castles as if we will inherit the kingdom of this absurd earth? Why do we take delight in gloating about our existence and why do palace people flaunt fleeting fripperies?

The deaths on December 27, 2023 of former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Na’Abba and Akeredolu, erstwhile governor of Ondo State, have provoked epistemological questions on why the rich and powerful die. So also the killing, on the eve of Christmas, of 200 persons in Bokkos, Barkin Laddi and Mangu area of Plateau State. The latter gruesome deaths of those innocent, unarmed countrymen were prosecuted by animals donned in human skins. The two calibers of deaths have also further erupted questions on why human beings die at all. Why does God allow death? Is death the end of existence? Where does man go after the cessation of breath? Or does he just perish like vapour that is extinguished without trace? For ages, these questions have remained unanswered and unanswerable, in spite of religious, philosophical, psychological, cultural and clinical examinations of death and dying.

Na’Abba and Akeredolu’s deaths are very sobering. Both were staunch readers of this column and were acquainted with me. Na’Abba and I began as ferocious enemies. When he launched missiles against President Olusegun Obasanjo, he became the proverbial ripe orange on a tree, offspring of Mother Tree, which attracts pelting of stones on its mother. The impression Na’Abba created when he began that adversarial pelting of the presidency with cudgels was that he was an anvil in the hands of the northern establishment which was averse to relinquishing its presidential birthright. So Na’Abba began to receive a confetti of attacks and scrutiny of every of his actions. The attacks were so vehement that he sent his then Special Adviser on Media who later became Member of the House of Representatives, Eziuche Ubani, to the Tribune House to demand what his offence was and seek armistice. We told Ubani pointblank that we had no grouse against his boss but couldn’t stand what appeared to us as his ethnic antagonism against Obasanjo. And the flaks continued. Then one day, Na’Abba got my phone number and called. Unfortunately, I was in the thick of slumber and like one in a delirium, answered him incoherently. He promptly called Babs Oduyoye who represented my constituency in Ibadan to get in touch with me as I sounded unwell. It was the beginning of a long-lasting friendship. I was overwhelmed by his humanity, his high office notwithstanding. We maintained that friendship until his passage last week.

Akeredolu, widely known as Aketi, was an “Ibadan boy.” He was famous for his unconventionality and stubbornness. He could look at an Ominran – giant – in the face and call his bluff. Apparently bolstered by his knowledge of law, he was like an avant-garde, an iconoclast if you like and feared no man. When he later joined politics, to us, he looked like a fish out of the water. People wondered how he would acquire the opaqueness of politicians and how his lacerating tongue would fit the bill of politics. When he sought reelection, I openly queued against him and he knew. My people of the state capital he administered felt he was not fair to them, especially their highly revered monarch, the Deji. So whenever he saw me, he tagged me with the sobriquet, Akure Lo Kan – It is Akure’s turn. Some months ago, I called him to commiserate with him on his mother’s demise and I thought I had afforded him an opportunity to invoke his infamous lacerating tongue on me. The Akure group I belong – Ooye Development Initiative – had issued a very unsparing riposte to his government’s decision to stop the ancient Aheregbe festival in Akure and we felt it was unjust. I signed the press release which gave him the back of our tongue, asking the governor if he would stop the Igogo festival of his people in Owo simply because of its unconventional nature. During that call, Aketi disappointed me. He carefully explained why his government stopped the festival in a way that mesmerized me. That was our last conversation.

So, why did Aketi and Na’Abba die? Why do people die? Is the death of the body, particularly the stoppage of the working of the brain, an absolute end of any form of conscious activity? The truth is that death is universal and a biological given that no one can escape. I will die my death and you will die yours. We will all die. The only thing that is not given is how we will die and where we will die.

As I said earlier, so many scholarly works have been conducted on death-bed moments by scholars, physicians and nurses. One locus classicus study was conducted by Karlis Osis in 1961. Osis, who was born in 1917 and died in 1997, was a Latvian parapsychologist whose area of specialization was exploration of deathbed phenomenon and life after death. His maiden research, which began in the 1940s, got its inspiration from English physicist and parapsychologist, William Barrett’s work, Death Bed Visions. This led Karlis to attempt building on Barrett's research and subsequently a four-year study he did focusing on doctors and nurses in the US and northern India. He wanted to know what these medics observed about their dying patients.

While religionists say that life ends with death and the soul takes over, resurrecting on Judgment Day, pre-industrial societies like Africa disagree. In Africa’s cosmologies, philosophies, mythologies, spiritual and ritual life, we give out clear messages that death cannot be the absolute and irrevocable end of life. Attached to this is our belief that life or existence continues in some other forms even after biological demise. We believe that death is an integral part of life. In death, the soul of a deceased travels, undergoing complex adventures and the dead is conscious of this posthumous journey of the soul. So, for us, death is not the ultimate defeat of the body nor is it an end of existence but an important transition.

This is perhaps why in Africa, our lives are woven round cultures of spending time around dying people and venerating their corpses. In First world countries, the dying are given impersonal treatments that do not reflect belief that they are merely transiting into a higher life. I recently engaged a friend in a conversation on why the Igbo lay so much emphasis on the dead, so much that, if a relative dies even in a far-flung place like Australia, their corpses would be brought home at huge financial expense and intricate cultural rites of passage and elaborate rituals conducted for their transitions. So, while biological death is seen as representing the final end and cessation of existence, as well as an end to any conscious activity of any kind, we believe that death is a natural transition from the visible to the invisible.

Africans have their own indigenous ways of dealing with death and a unique way they conceive and understand the world. To them, life is in three discrete stages which begins at conception and ends with death. For the first stage of this tripod, death is a marker of the end of that stage of life. At this stage, Africans believe that the dead literally cease to exist but its flipside is that death is perceived as an integrated and continuous developmental life process that cannot be separated from life. When people die, with the extinguishing of their physicality, Africans believe that they transcend to the spiritual world. There, in the words of philosophers like Kenyan John Mbiti, such living dead live in an unseen community that is reserved mainly for a people called the living dead. Such dead persons merely transcend mortality for immortality, the latter being a state of collective existence where the living dead mingle in company with other spirit beings.

This probably is why Africans revere their dead. The advent of religions seems to erode and abridge such relationship between the living and the dead. Before these religions, Africans believed that their living dead, with whom they still communicate through rituals by their graves, constitute an inseparable and influential part of their existence. There is a consistent and potent communication between the living and the living dead. I have a highly educated friend who believes that no one can hurt him because his late mother always intervenes for him. This has remained a potent corpus of his belief in spiritual shield from evil doers. Some other people commune with their living dead who they claim to see in dreams and who instruct them on what to do. They also claim to be in constant touch with the spirit of their dead father or mother as a clear illustration of the amity between them.

For the Ndebele people of Matabo in Zimbabwe who are part of the Nguni people of Southern Africa, with their strong Zulu cultural links, like many other parts of Africa, death marks a transition from the world of the living to the world of the living dead. The Ndebele concept of life and death also looms large in the way they ritualize and medicalize the two concepts of death and dying, as well as life after death. The Ndebele believe that death is not a medical phenomenon. They see it as a response to a home call by their ancestors who need company in the spiritual world.  This is especially so when the dead fellow is perceived to have fulfilled their time on earth as determined by the abaphansi or amadlozi, the ancestor.

This is responsible for why ancestor worship is very potent among the Zulu. They believe that those ancestors, who were once like us, live in the spirit world with Unkulunkulu – the highest god – and there is a connection between them and the living. There are many ways in which the Zulu ancestors are believed to appear to their people. These are by dreams, sicknesses or even as animals like snakes. Diviners such as the sangomas invoke the spirits of the dead ancestors to come to the aid of the living.

Another school of thought says that our lives and existence are just dreams. The idea that life is like a dream is a philosophical concept that has been explored by thinkers and writers throughout history. Some people use this metaphor to describe the fleeting and impermanent nature of life, while others use it to emphasize the mysterious and sometimes unreal quality of existence. Even the Psalmist in the 90th chapter amplified same thought. Now, if life is just a dream as it is assumed, then, all mortals who still draw the breath of life must take time to peruse their lives to determine if they are a nightmare or a sweet dream. What exactly is our lives worth? Is it in the number of mansions and exotic cars that we flaunt?

Some other African societies, through their cultures, believe that after death, the departed individual begins to live in a spirit world and receives a new body that has identical features with the earthly body they hitherto donned. There, however, they have transited into an ancestor with the power to look after the living. There is a qualification nevertheless for this: the dead individual must have lived a meaningful life while on earth and must not have had their lives cut short in unnatural ways like accident.

Life may not have meaning but man will forever seek to conquer it, even with inanities. Take for instance a video that is trending in virtual virality. It is that of the Nigerian president, the local boy made good, who had arrived his home city for the yuletide. On Friday, 29th December, 2023, the president drove through a very dirty street of famished Lagosians in Lagos Island. The serpentine, long-winding convoy of exotic cars was like an elephant in a marketplace – it got a sea of spectators. Don’t mind me; I am quite aware that the socially unhealthy optics of a huge number of cars is a presidential pestilence that predates this presidency. It didn’t start with the incumbent; it was a security necessity that created that culture of obscenity post-February 1976 when an unarmed, lone-car-driven Murtala Muhammed was assassinated. But, must mortal man continue that veneration of Camus’ life absurdity in such needless form? At some point in time, both Na’Abba and Akeredolu also helped in deifying this absurdity. As the president’s convoy snaked to wherever it was headed, snide comments followed it. “Ebi npa wa o!” We are hungry; the people hollered. This same people who Frantz Fanon called wretched of the earth had, days earlier, gathered in an embarrassing queue at the president’s Bourdillon Road to demand food to put on the table for Christmas. The unspoken words were that, while perishable man was gloating in his behemoth of affluence, his people were roasting in abject poverty. It is an oxymoron to think that the cost of fuelling that interminable queue of SUVs slithering through the dirt of the Island could wean some of these wretched Nigerians of their poverty. 

The homily not to venerate the flesh that will someday become food for maggots as ours is however never heeded by man. The reason why it will always fall on deaf ears is that many believe that, against Camus, life is a highly addictive drug. The longer one lives, the more dependent on this drug of living one is.

As I commiserate with the families of our recent ancestors – Na’Abba and Akeredolu – who have suddenly become our seniors in this dying existential affliction, let me also congratulate us all for the new year we are about to enter. One sure thing is that the new year will mark a year less in our engagement with this ceaseless and absurd rock-pushing called life. When we transit eventually, perhaps we may find out that death might not be a bad thing after all?

And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it ~ Habakkuk 2:2.

Introduction

This old year is fast winding to a close, and we are now in its dying hours. Naturally, every ending provokes opportunities for new beginnings. Thus, the time is now for us to set our paths straight for new doings from God (Isaiah 43:19).

Particularly, it behoves us to be adequately prepared and fully determined, so that the new year will meet us well-positioned to enjoy the bountiful harvests of God’s supernatural goodness.

Over the ages, it has been the normal practice at this time of the year for many people to set new year resolutions in the hopes of better achievements in the new year. Certainly, this is a good elementary precursor for goal-setting.

The sober fact, however, is that many people who make resolutions tend to relent in pursuing them very early in the year. Albeit, those who tenaciously stick to their resolutions tend to charge ahead better than those who don't.

More importantly, if you want to succeed in life, you need to set goals. Where you are now is not as important as the goals you set for your future.

Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life's direction, it also provides you with focus and a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding or not.

Unfortunately, there are many people who just drift through life without any goals at all. Perhaps, they don't know what they want out of life. Year-in-year-out, they just go with the flow and tide of life, and they eventually settle with whatever life hands out to them.

Such people are like the bud of a flower that never blossoms. They live in a state of constant stress and struggle because they lack the requisite wisdom to set goals and go for them with dedication and determination.

Some of them are, in fact, very intelligent with university degrees, and are superbly endowed with rare qualities that ought to help them stand out in life, but they don't. Why? Just like the old English adage says: “lf you aim at nothing, you'll be dead on target”.

Sad still, among them are even born again Christians, who, in spite of their lofty spiritual status, are pushed about by the prevailing circumstances, with no particular focus. They can’t be the best they could be, until they change.

Meanwhile, there is a relatively small group of people who are goal-getters! These are world-changers who are very clearly convinced about what they want in life, and will stop at nothing until they get it.

Any fool can set goals: “if wishes were horses, even beggars would ride”. Contrariwise, it takes a dedicated mind, full of God’s wisdom, to achieve the desired goals set.

From God’s ways and antecedents, we can posit that He’s a God of firm purpose and order (Isaiah 46:9-10). He calculates and makes plans (Jeremiah 29:10-11). He even sets definite times for specific operations (Genesis 18:10; 2Kings 7:2).

Similarly, His children are not called or elected for mere busy-ness, but for a resourceful and an impactful life. Goal-getting is a blessing from God, and it is our wisdom to aspire for grace to become celebrated goal-getters in our generation.

Wisdom for Determined Goal-Getters

A goal is a purpose towards which an endeavor is directed. It calls for a focused pursuit, not a shadow-boxing exercise. Your goal is the consummate end of your particular expectations (Proverbs 23:18).

Basically, to accomplish your goals, you need to set them right. You can't simply say, "I want so and so" and expect it just to happen. Good goal setting starts with careful considerations of what you want to achieve within the stipulated time.

Nevertheless, in-between goal-setting and goal-getting are some essential steps that will lead you to a systemic success, and thereafter pull you to the platform of the celebrated goal-getters.

Firstly, you must set goals that motivate you. Your goals should be geared towards things that are important to your destiny. They must be well crafted and properly arranged, derivative of your mission on earth.

If you have no interest in the outcome of your set goal, or it’s irrelevant to the larger picture of your life, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim.

For instance, normal Christians generally set goals along the line of things that have eternal value. Souls matter to them more than any earthly acquisition. Hence, they’re the people with the biggest relevance index in God's kingdom.

Yes indeed, pleasing God and soul-winning should strike our top priorities (Mark 8:36-37). Whenever you're setting your goals, you must get these priorities right, under the banner of the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, to be acclaimed as a celebrated goal-getter, you need to be “SMART” with your goals. For the avoidance of doubt, as it’s taught in many business schools globally, the word, “SMART”, is an acronym for: specific — measurable — achievable/attainable — relevant — timebound.

For your goal to be “specific”, it must be very clear and definite, not general or bland. Vague goals are not always achievable because they don't provide sufficient direction, neither do they draw the required passion.

“Measurable” goals are well spelt out in such ways that one can easily know when they are achieved. They entail precise quantities and qualities, so you can also measure your degree of success.

Your goals must be “achievable/attainable”. If you set goals that you have no hope of achieving, you will only become demoralized in the long run.

Meanwhile, achievable goals must equally be “relevant” to your life's priorities and directions. This will give you the focus needed to get ahead. lf your goals aren’t relevant to your life's priorities, they’re simply worthless.

Your goals must also be “time-bound”, with deadlines. “By-and-by” doesn't cut it. When you are working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases, and achievement will certainly come much quicker.

Thirdly, you need to put your goals into writing if you hope to accomplish them (Habakkuk 2:2). Writing makes an exact man, and the art of writing down your goals makes them real and tangible.

However, as you write, use the word "will or shall" instead of "would like to or "might". There's a huge difference between "l hope to be", and "I shall be". The first statement is passive, and lacks passion; the second comes with passion and power.

Furthermore, write your goals with a clear action-plan. Don’t get so focused on the outcome that you forget to plan all of the steps that are needed along the way. And, very importantly, stick to your goals without wavering (James 1:6).

Friends and brethren, set great goals for your future, right now. Procrastination is the name of the road that leads to the city called “Never”. Until you change, nothing changes for the better!

It’s great and highly enthusing to be a goal-getter under God. No matter how learned or spiritual, whoever is not a goal-getter will not like what he will get sooner or later. Nullify every form of excuses for failure and derailment.

Learn quickly. Take necessary steps, create momentum and then improve as you go. Constantly remind yourself that the key to total success is consistency. That’s how excellence is provoked!

Achieving your goals requires well-defined commitment! To maximize the likelihood of success, feel a sense of urgency, and have an "I must do this"attitude. Be determined, focused and creative.

Above all, strive to emulate Jesus Christ in His earthly walk (Luke 9:51). He steadfastly set His face like a flint towards His goal, and He squarely finished His assignment (Isaiah 50:7).

Be fully persuaded that this new year will be better than the preceding ones, with heavy harvests of supernatural goodness. Choose to make progress by covenant. You won’t miss it! Happy Sunday & Happy New Year in advance, in Jesus name!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

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