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Opinion

Friday, 11 February 2022 06:22

Mountain facing Yahaya Bello - Azu Ishiekwene

Even though the All Progressives Congress (APC) has repeatedly denied zoning the position of chairman to the Northcentral, there’s hardly any credible analysis which does not feature candidates from the zone in the first three spots. Days to the party’s first national convention in four years, there is growing public interest in the outcome of the convention, because how it ends may not only indicate if the party is over, it might also provide an indication of who the party’s flag bearer would be for next year’s presidential election. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been a bit more…

Friday, 11 February 2022 06:20

“Warn Yahoo boys, ‘bad girls' are coming!” - Michael West

Danger is looming! We are still praying and strategizing how to peacefully navigate the cloudy political atmosphere between now and next year but the onslaughts of Yahoo ritualists is swelling the rank of predators like Boko Haram, killer herdsmen, kidnappers, bandits and armed robbers. Yahoo ritualists are more dangerous because they live among us. They are well known. They are encouraged by the corrupt and socially disoriented society. They're role models to some indigent, jobless and misdirected youths who crave for nothing but riches by any means humanly possible or forcefully attainable. The dimension that Yahoo scammers and ritualists are…

Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:31

Nigeria needs a new kind of politics - Financial Times Editorial

There is more than a year to go until Nigeria’s presidential and legislative elections, not that you would know it by the election frenzy already gripping the west African nation of 200 million people. Potential candidates from the two main parties are jostling to succeed Muhammadu Buhari as president of Africa’s biggest economy. For those disenchanted with the past seven uninspiring years, a transition cannot come soon enough. Who wins is a matter for Nigerians only. The outcome, however, should be of interest to everyone. Nigeria’s population is set to double over the next 30 years to 400mn, by which…

Thursday, 10 February 2022 06:17

ASUU: Time to think out of the box - Bola Bolawole

Writing here last week on the report that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) chapter was mooting the idea of another strike action over its disagreement with the OAU Management on the sharing formula adopted in respect of the earned academic allowance released by the Federal Government, I expressed my worry and disappointment this way: Another strike at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)? No matter how justified, this is one strike too many”. I had then promised to say more on the matter today. Again, writing in…

Tuesday, 08 February 2022 05:58

CNN's collapse is now complete - Joe Concha

It all began 42 years ago — Ted Turner's creation of a 24/7 news network that would exist on something called cable TV. Few believed it could succeed. And, for its first decade, CNN largely chugged along but wasn't seen as a game-changer or a true competitor to big broadcast news entities based in New York in the form of CBS, NBC and ABC. That all changed when war broke out between the United States and Iraq in 1991. On the night war exploded over Baghdad, CNN was the only news organization that was able to broadcast from the city…

Monday, 07 February 2022 06:00

Cowardly Nnamdi Kanu and the rise of Yahooism - Hassan Gimba

I once had cause to quote Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s 1980 hit song, “Authority Stealing”, where the Afrobeat maestro sang “You be thief” while the chorus chanted “I no be thief”, “You be rogue”, “I no be rogue”, etc, The song readily comes to mind because Nnamdi Kanu denied being an Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) member. Like Judas Iscariot, who gave Jesus Christ “the kiss of death” and betrayed him, two weeks ago in the court, Nnamdi Kanu, who Igbo separatists see as their infallible and courageous leader, denied them vehemently. The “lion” of Isiama Afara, who calls on his…

Sunday, 06 February 2022 06:12

Ekiti: APC, PDP primaries of controversies (1) - Bola Bolawole

The All progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship party primaries have come and gone but the reverberations may not abate any time soon. Call them primaries of controversies and you will be right. Neither of the two leading political parties can lay claim to the bragging rights over the conduct and outcome of their primaries. And this is a shame! Credible elections are not just about casting and counting of votes and declaring the results on Election Day, the process actually begins with the delineation of constituencies, where the election umpire can apply what is called…

Sunday, 06 February 2022 06:11

Atiku Abubakar and the sexual history of the Nigerian presidency - Festus Adedayo

In early 2014, the Zimbabwean public sphere literally caught fire. Rumours that the country’s former Prime Minister and the presidential candidate of the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai, had suffered “a nasty blow from below,” euphemism for zero virility, spread like bushfire. At about the same time, the virility-restoring prowess of Emmanuel Makandiwa, a ‘miracle-working’ Pentecostal prophet, froze the stratosphere like snowflakes in winter. Estranged wife of Tsvangirai, Elizabeth Macheka, had lit the fire. In an interview she granted The Herald, which was entitled, Why I ditched Tsvangirai: WifeMacheka had been quoted to have said that she had…

Sunday, 06 February 2022 06:07

Divine guidance In the manifestation of glorious destinies - Taiwo Akinola

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye ~ Deuteronomy 32:10. Introduction: The plans of God for the new creation man is awesome and quite amazing. It is actually beyond the scope of the understanding of the natural mind. However, we live in a world that is glaringly hostile in many ways against the people of God (Ephesians 6:10-13). Hence, the reason for so many forms of spiritual warfare and struggles we see in the believers’ world today. The…

Sunday, 06 February 2022 06:05

Article of faith: Confessing Christ before men - Femi Aribisala

Jesus says: “Everyone who confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33). How exactly do we confess Christ? Confessing and denying Many Christians take this to mean answering an altar call and declaring that Jesus is your Lord and Saviour. This is based on Paul’s assertion that: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be…

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Friday, 04 February 2022 06:29

Police recruitment: Behind the figures - Azu Ishiekwene

A small news item from a police statement tucked inside the print edition of PUNCH on Wednesday stirred more interest than usual. In the statement, the police had asked those who applied for the position of constables to resume at the state commands between February 1 and 20. But that’s not the story. While the police needed only 10,000 constables, about 130,000 candidates applied; that is, for every single successful applicant, 12 will not be considered, all things being equal. It evoked sad memories of the 2014 tragedy, when six million applied for 4,000 vacancies at the Nigeria Immigration Service,…

Friday, 04 February 2022 06:28

Parental failure: Impetus for crimes, societal problems - Michael West

Our society is in moral and spiritual quagmire largely due to the negligence and compromised disposition of parents towards the training of their children. From the cradle, parents are the moral compass, role models and counsellors-in-chief of their children. The abdication of these noble responsibilities is the reason we are contending with festering criminal issues. Parents, to a large extent, are guilty as charged on the waywardness of their children. Parents or guardians that fail to provide proper upbringing based on discipline, integrity, cultural mores and societal values are complicit in the moral decadence plaguing our land these days. The…

Thursday, 03 February 2022 06:07

JAMB: Oloyede’s unending tango with exams crooks - Bola Bolawole

When Ishaq Oloyede ended his first five-year tenure as the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) on July 30, 2021, many were apprehensive he might not receive the nod of the appointing authorities for a second term in office. And the reason is not far to fetch. Oloyede is not your mill-of-the-run Nigerian public officer who will lobby and fight to sit-tight in office. He finished his first term and returned home, allowing the authorities to decide one way or another. But the general public, especially the mass media that have worked closely with Oloyede, scrutinising and…

Thursday, 03 February 2022 06:04

Back to the Victorian future - Iwan Rhys Morus

Tech titans like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos present themselves as men who could single-handedly shape the future. For their supporters, their ruthless drive toward success is their key virtue. And their showmanship — Musk sending a Tesla Roadster into space on a Falcon Heavy rocket, or Bezos sending Captain Kirk into orbit with Blue Origin — is a way of demonstrating that virtue and asserting they are in control. We owe to the Victorians the idea that there is a firm link between virtue and technological agency. They established a powerful paradigm that continues to haunt us: that the…

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