Ns-Opinion

Warning

JUser: :_load: Unable to load user with ID: 4922

Opinion

Wednesday, 02 November 2016 01:51

When things fall apart - Anatole Kaletsky

All over the world today, there is a sense of the end of an era, a deep foreboding about the disintegration of previously stable societies. In the immortal lines of W.B. Yeats’s great poem, “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” Yeats’ wrote those lines in January 1919, two months after World War I ended. He instinctively felt that peace would…

Tuesday, 01 November 2016 01:21

Drummers and dancers - Doreen Uloma Nwoke

There are many emerging groups of drummers and dancers who have learnt to blend their melodies to suit whatever terrible musicals the detectors of anti-sense in this frail nation discover. Their faith has failed them, their hopes have been damned, the promises their deified master made to them are beaten down everyday, and their best defense is to seek new methods and strategies with which to counter-attack whatever disenchantment there is left to hide in their hearts. These groups have no definite binding force; the only thing that keeps them together is the knowledge that there is a guilt they…

Monday, 31 October 2016 14:36

Creating scapegoats, spreading misery - Lasisi Olagunju

Oil companies are running out, throwing their workers overboard. Governments can’t pay salaries. Lucky doctors and other well trained professionals are on the queue to receive half pay. Their less fortunate colleagues are on the street looking for what to eat. Sitting in every verandah in every village, town and city, is an army of well trained jobless young men and women. In the idleness of their chatter, you could taste the bile of their anger at a system that is rigged against them. The depths of misery and joblessness are filled up, bursting at the seams. Up there, the…

Monday, 31 October 2016 01:56

Sex will outlive Nigeria - Pius Adesanmi

There are very few places on earth and in the 21st century where an administration could announce casually, via a letter to the legislature, that she has decided to borrow $30 billion in foreign loans - from the IMF, the World Bank, China, etc - and not cause a record-breaking earthquake. Where I live, a Federal Minister caused a Category 5 hurricane by spending $3,700 on transportation for twenty trips. Imagine if the government of such a country were to announce a borrowing agenda of $30 billion? A decision that could mortgage the future of the next three generations deserves…

Sunday, 30 October 2016 01:11

Does economic pain really explain populism? - Project Syndicate

If Donald Trump had heeded the simple injunction – “It's the economy, stupid” – that guided his opponent’s husband to victory in 1992, he might have had a shot at beating her. But, for today’s populist leaders, cultural battles come first – which is why they are losing ground so quickly. With the menacing prospect of a Donald Trump presidency in the United States fading fast, other problems – both economic and political – are reclaiming the world’s attention. This is no surprise for Project Syndicate’s commentators. Their analysis of populism has rarely been confined to particular examples like Trump,…

Saturday, 29 October 2016 18:27

The conservative intellectual crisis - David Brooks

I feel very lucky to have entered the conservative movement when I did, back in the 1980s and 1990s. I was working at National Review, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. The role models in front of us were people like Bill Buckley, Irving Kristol, James Q. Wilson, Russell Kirk and Midge Decter. These people wrote about politics, but they also wrote about a lot of other things: history, literature, sociology, theology and life in general. There was a sharp distinction then between being conservative, which was admired, and being a Republican, which was considered sort of…

Saturday, 29 October 2016 02:13

Re-evaluating the Boko Haram conflict - Jideofor Adibe

Many political analysts had projected that if Muhammadu Buhari won the March 2015 Nigerian presidential election, it could lead to the deceleration of the Boko Haram conflict because many of the local grievances into which those terrorists tapped would be removed. Unfortunately, despite President Buhari’s victory at the polls, the Boko Haram conflict has persisted. In September 2015 Buhari gave the army a three-month deadline to defeat Boko Haram. That deadline came and went but Boko Haram remains with us though the government continues to argue that it has “technically” defeated the sect. Beyond rhetoric, what are the lessons to…

Friday, 28 October 2016 14:33

Truth, other casualties of war on judicial corruption - Okey Ndibe

Okey Ndibe Nigeria - or the Department of State Security (DSS), to be precise - starts an ostensible war against corruption in the judicial and said war quickly degenerates into an absurd exercise. First, Nigerians woke up two weeks ago to the startling news that DSS agents had carried out overnight raids on the homes of “corrupt” judges, including two justices of the Supreme Court. For the first day or two, there were insinuations and murmurings, but little concrete information, about the operation. Pundits and partisans seized the vacuum, offering deodorized or damning interpretations of what had transpired. Some praised…

Thursday, 27 October 2016 01:53

Liberty University students: Trump is the antithesis of Christian values

Dustin Wahl, Paige Cutler and Alexander Forbes In January, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald Trump for president of the United States. As Liberty students, we watched as the leader of our school loudly and proudly advocated for a man many of us felt compelled to oppose. Trump’s flagrant dishonesty, consistent misogyny and boastful unrepentance made many of us feel the need to publicly express disagreement with President Falwell’s endorsement. Mark DeMoss, the chair of Liberty’s executive committee, spoke to The Post in March to tactfully do just that. Criticizing Trump’s “politics of personal insult,” DeMoss said: “It’s…

Wednesday, 26 October 2016 15:25

On Mamman Daura’s alleged rulership of Nigeria

Jibrin Ibrahim In the media, texts, WhatsApp, Facebook and at every twist and turn, the conversation is about the excessive power allegedly wielded by one man, Mamman Daura, said to be the man exercising power in the country. On a daily basis, I read stories about how Mamman Daura is ruling the country and how he must be removed from exercising power if confidence in operating our democracy is to be restored. When I talk to my friends in the ruling party, the APC, they complain that they fought for power; won power and Mamman Daura stole it from them.…

More...

Wednesday, 26 October 2016 02:00

Still on the spiritual side of Aso Villa

'Sina Kawonise Since the publication of Reuben Abati's testimonial piece on the "spiritual side of Aso Villa" on October 14, I have taken time to follow the reactions of key personalities to Reuben's article. Quite significantly, a former Minister of the Federal Republic and presidential spokesman, Femi Fani-Kayode, a predecessor of his in the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity (Segun Adeniyi), and his successor (Femi Adesina) have taken different positions on the very crucial matter articulated by Reuben. Besides these insiders in the Aso Villa matter, a brilliant and compelling columnist of the…

Monday, 24 October 2016 14:55

Aisha Buhari is the icon of the moment

Edel-Quinn Agbaegbu For over one week, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, Nigeria's reigning First Lady has been dominating the media space in Nigeria. Given the weight of what she said recently, which went viral on the internet, Mrs Buhari words are now a quotable quote in many public statements, articles and commentaries in the country. She must have also made wide impact globally, as the world is now a global village, thanks to online media and innovations in communication technology. By a mere expression of her view, against the modus operandi in the administration of a democratic government where her husband is…

Monday, 24 October 2016 01:27

Is ‘Project Buhari’ falling off?

Simon Kolawole There is a confession I’ve been longing to make: I never expected Candidate Muhammadu Buhari to win the 2015 presidential election. Although I have never hidden my soft spot for him for decades, I somehow expected President Goodluck Jonathan to be returned by any means. I had my reason: I thought no sitting president could be defeated in Nigeria. He has CBN, NNPC, INEC, police, military and even FRSC at his beck and call. How would he lose? We all saw the ridiculous results that returned President Olusegun Obasanjo to office in 2003. That made me conclude that…

Sunday, 23 October 2016 03:19

The unspiritual side of Aso Villa

Femi Adesina Let me begin with two clarifications. Aso Villa is not my home, I am just passing through. Even this world is nobody’s home, we are just birds of passage. So, let nobody turn up his nose in derision, and say; “he’s writing like the landlord of Aso Villa, defending a place where’s he’s just a tenant.” Yes, nobody is landlord in the Villa, not even rational presidents. They can only live there for maximum of eight years, if Nigerians so decide. And for me, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels only need to…

Page 257 of 263

Warning

Opinion

More...

Search

Most Read

News

Business

Politics

Opinion

Features

Strangely

Crime

Wars

SCIENCE & TECH

SPECIAL REPORTS

Sports

VIDEOS