Ns-Opinion

Opinion

Friday, 21 April 2017 02:35

Are you considering a career as whistleblower? - Jideofor Adibe

There is a very funny cartoon trending in the social media. It is about a teacher who asked some pupils what they would like to be when they grow up. The pupils all replied they would want to become whistleblowers. The federal government launched its whistle-blowing policy in December 2016 to help expose financial crimes and concomitantly strengthen its fight against corruption and impunity. Domiciled at the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF), it is hoped that through the policy, more looted funds will be recovered. The policy has three key components- the channels for reporting information and the type of…

Friday, 21 April 2017 02:34

Plato’s allegory of the cave - Pius Adesanmi

I was fourteen years-old and in Form Four when I first encountered the Greek philosopher, Plato. No, I did not encounter him in the classrooms of Titcombe College, Egbe. I encountered him through Baba Adesanmi’s disciplinary regime: a hybrid of Roman Catholic, African-traditional, and Spartan colonial disciplinary methods. Depending on the gravity of your offence, if he spared the rod in favour of a long-winding sermon (pure torture for us at the time), then you were in for two hours of philosophies, wisdom nuggets, and anecdotes drawn from a vast arsenal of Yagba, Yoruba, Christian, and Greco-Roman resources. Your rebuke…

Thursday, 20 April 2017 03:16

This empty life - Tola Adeniyi

I am not going to talk about heroic figures whose names have continued to resonate in public discourse and in spaces far beyond their places of birth. This piece is not about the lives of legendary names like the great Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Sage Obafemi Awolowo, the titan Sir Ahmadu Bello, the immortal Nelson Mandela, the enigma Michael Jackson or the most recognizable face on the planet, the unstoppable Mohammed Alli. These were individuals, and a lot more whose deeds on earth impacted greatly on their communities and perhaps the world at large. These were individuals who are probably being…

Thursday, 20 April 2017 03:14

Dear Kim Jong Un: Watch out for Trump. He’s even crazier than you - Dana Milbank

Supreme Leader Marshal of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Ryongsong Residence Pyongyang, North Korea Dear Mr. Kim, I write to congratulate you on the occasion of your late grandfather’s 105th birthday. I heard about the difficulties you had with the missile this weekend, but be assured that the launch was cheered by thousands of Muslims in Jersey City. Please forgive the impersonal nature of this correspondence, but a matter of this urgency cannot be left to the North Korean postal system. The world is the closest it has been to nuclear war in 55 years, and I wanted to…

Wednesday, 19 April 2017 16:51

Lord Lugard and his dirty shoes - Dare Babarinsa

Long before the railway lines were built and the Emir of Kano bought a motorcar, Frederick Lugard travelled from Lagos to Sokoto on foot. Before coming to the area around the River Niger and Benue, he had heard so much about this area of the Sudan as Central Africa was called in the 19th Century. Born in India in Madras (now called Chennai), but brought up in England, Lugard was a diehard imperialist for the Empire which Winston Churchill called the Empire on which the Sun never sets. The aim of imperialists like Lugard was originally to create market for…

Tuesday, 18 April 2017 02:52

The Abuja-Kaduna airports: A testimony - Reuben Abati

I have just returned from Abuja travelling through the Kaduna airport. As we disembarked from the aircraft and moved towards the arrival section, I could hear an announcement being made. The diction of the announcer was clear. She didn’t sound like those On-Air-Personalities (OAP, they are called) who speak as if they have hot water on their tongues. Airport continuity announcers in Nigeria tend to imitate these OAPs. This has been for me a great source of irritation. The last time I travelled from Lagos to Abuja, for example, I missed my flight because I just could not figure out…

Tuesday, 18 April 2017 02:50

The world's most beautiful mathematical equation - Ruohong Wu

I was doing KenKen, a math puzzle, on a plane recently when a fellow passenger asked why I bothered. I said I did it for the beauty. O.K., I’ll admit it’s a silly game: You have to make the numbers within the grid obey certain mathematical constraints, and when they do, all the pieces fit nicely together and you get this rush of harmony and order. Still, it makes me wonder what it is about mathematical thinking that is so elegant and aesthetically appealing. Is it the internal logic? The unique mix of simplicity and explanatory power? Or perhaps just…

Sunday, 16 April 2017 03:04

The Presidency as a foster parent of crimes - Pius Adesanmi

Those who are confounded or surprised that the stash of cash found in Ikoyi – we have at least, hopefully, gone beyond the point of denying that cash was found – is now gradually snaking its way from the realms of crime and corruption to the less seedy atmosphere of a legitimate stash owned by the National Intelligence Agency have not been paying attention to the history of the Nigerian presidency. Once that cover of legitimacy and purpose is given to the stash, a certain mission is accomplished and I will return to that mission presently. All that is left…

Saturday, 15 April 2017 16:00

I predicted the current EFCC dollar "discovery" charade months ago - Farooq Kperogi

People have sent me private messages asking why I haven't commented on EFCC's latest "discovery" of millions of dollars in Lagos recently. Well, I refuse to be drawn to the charade because I predicted it more than two months ago (see link to the interview I granted the Premium Times on February 11, 2017 predicting what is happening now after the EFCC said it found $9,772,800 and £74,000 in cash in ex-NNPC boss Andrew Yakubu's Kaduna house). Here are excerpts from the interview. Read to the end: "Most people who have deep emotional investment in Nigeria know that unbelievably enormous…

Saturday, 15 April 2017 15:59

The el-Rufai/Dogara and Osborne dollars jokes - Ayinla Mukaiba

Anyone who has ever been to the verandah of any Government House in Nigeria needn’t stay too long to know that Nigeria is one big circus and governments (federal, state and local) are the comedians who supply the ribaldry. Sometimes, like the joke that this nation is, try as they attempt to put the lid on the pot of joke of Nigeria, the recalcitrant joke slides out like a rat, to reveal its embarrassing configuration. And like the circus that the whole nation is, we all come together to enjoy this joke of our nationhood and when satisfied, we go…

More...

Saturday, 15 April 2017 02:42

Watching the latest episode of 'EFCC money discovery show' - Wole Olanipekun

(The More You See, the Less You are Convinced) "We seem to be fixated on the naming and shaming of people who have already been identified by successive governments for one reason or the other, whether genuinely or otherwise, rather than confronting headlong and holistically, the toxicity of corruption in the nation. We have held people without charge, whilst others with similar allegations of corruption hanging on their necks, continue to walk free and even occupying sensitive positions in government." I have been saying this for ages but those who could die for this government keep saying 'corruption is fighting…

Saturday, 15 April 2017 02:40

Letter to Magu, EFCC acting chairman - Charles Ogbu

Sir, This letter is necessitated by issues of urgent national importance, so permit me to jump protocols and get straight to the point. And I assume your permission to pay you the courtesy of being blunt. You, Mr Ibrahim Mustafa Magu, are a national disaster as EFCC chairman. The anti-graft agency under your leadership has turned to one hell of an entertainment industry. You are now like a mad king who is dancing naked in the market square and being cheered by a large horde of idiots masquerading as his subjects. The tragedy of the situation of this mad king…

Friday, 14 April 2017 17:19

The hope of pardon and peace - Micheal Gerson

The story of Good Friday — the garden, the bloody sweat, the sleeping friends, the torch-carrying crowd, the kiss, the slash of a sword, the questioning, the scourging, the mocking, the beam, the nails, the despair of a good man — is an invitation to cynicism. Nearly every human institution is revealed at its worst. Government certainly comes off poorly, giving Jesus the bureaucratic shuffle, with no one wanting to take responsibility, until a weak leader gives in to the crowd in the name of keeping the peace. “What is truth?” asks Pontius Pilate, with a sneer typical of politics…

Friday, 14 April 2017 02:55

Obasanjo’s corruption narratives - Jideofor Adibe

Obasanjo’s recent treatise on corruption in Nigeria is a must-read for policymakers because it essentially bought into what several academics and public intellectuals have been saying over the years about the endemic ‘war against corruption’ in the country. In a lecture in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on “The Role of the Church in the Fight Against Corruption in Nigeria”, the former President and former Head of State was quoted as saying that despite all the efforts in the fight against corruption in Nigeria, including enacting anti-graft laws, the scourge seemed to beworse now than it was in 1999. Obasanjo created the…

Page 258 of 280

Opinion

More...

Search

Most Read

Editorial

News

Business

Politics

Opinion

Features

Strangely

Crime

Wars

SCIENCE & TECH

SPECIAL REPORTS

Sports

VIDEOS