Ns-Opinion

Opinion

Monday, 03 April 2023 03:33

Nigeria’s 2023 elections and voices lost in chaos - Osmund Agbo

Chaos and noise,Voices lost poise,Violence unrestrained,Change obstructed. Rigging and fraud,Will of people ignored,Leadership hijacked,Future brutally sacked. Weeping people,Torn dreams, hopeless and feeble,Nonviolent change obstructed,To our shame, corrupted. INEC’s promises were once high,BVAS and IReV, systems to try,Voter fraud to stop and deny,Nigeria’s future to fortify. But alas, the political class,Had different plans to amass,Voters intimidation with no class,INEC, their ally, a conspiring farce. BVAS and IReV, just words,INEC and politicians, blurred,Truth and justice incurred,Hope of free and fair elections, absurd. Charade persists, for how long?INEC and politicians cheat,Democracy’s hopes in chaos meet,Political class corrupt and steadfast. Exploiting ethnic and religious…

Monday, 03 April 2023 03:32

Yobe, the state of party chairmen - Hassan Gimba

This is not what I had intended to discuss this week, but circumstances have given it priority. Yobe is a state that is blessed. Here, I am not talking about how blessed it is with peaceful and peace-loving people. No. Nor am I talking about the natural resources the Maker buried there. No, not at all. I am not even going to talk about the abundance of human resources in Yobe State. I want to look at it from just one aspect – the political angle. Politics, from Greek (politiká - ‘affairs of the cities’) can be defined as the…

Sunday, 02 April 2023 03:00

The fiction of an interim government - Festus Adedayo

Some huge, evil men surround a big, black pot. It is apparent that a food is being cooked. The men strung round their waists black cloths like priests of a dreadful god. Their torsos are naked like the day of creation. Their countenances are scary, with eyes dilating like pebbles immersed in crimson syrup. The sweats that glide down their barrows are crimson-red too. Underneath the black pot are logs of firewood with billowing charcoal-black fumes and red flame. As one of the men heaves the lead off the black pot, the broth on fire catches the attention. It is…

Sunday, 02 April 2023 02:53

Opening the prison doors! - Taiwo Akinola

For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth; To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death ~ Psalms 102:19-20. Introduction The realities which surround living in this world make the ministry of deliverance a very major feature of the messianic assignment and an essential element in the gospel program (Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:18). That is a truth we all must allow to settle down pretty well in our belief systems. For the avoidance of any ambiguity, bondage depicts a state of slavery…

Saturday, 01 April 2023 13:00

There was a movement: A preliminary, counterintuitive Marxist analysis of Peter Obi and the Obidients - Biodun Jeyifo

It was the strongly counterintuitive nature of my initial interest in Peter Obi and the Obidients that made me almost instantly a dedicated observer of the man and the movement. As the term implies, to be counterintuitive is to go against intuition and normal expectations and yet be correct in so doing. In a typical counterintuitive act, all the usual expectations and calculations prompt you to move ahead but you move back. Or you are prompted to ignore or pay little attention to an event but something tells you that it would be better to pay careful attention to it.…

Saturday, 01 April 2023 03:35

My lord, tell me where to keep your bribe - Niyi Osundare

Do I drop it in your venerable chambers Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank In your well laundered backyard Or will it breathe better in the septic tank Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime Shall I haul it up the attic Between the ceiling and your lofty roof Or shall I conjure the walls to open up And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow They will surely know how…

Friday, 31 March 2023 01:56

Diya played the power-game, then almost lost - Dare Babarinsa

Oladipo Diya was a substantial personage in contemporary Nigerian history. When he died at 78 on Sunday, March 26, 2023, what most people remember was his last act of defiance before the military tribunal that sentenced him to death in 1998. “This is a setup,” he shouted with handcuff on his hands and chains on his feet. “Where is Bamaiyi? He is the master-minder!” Ishaya Bamaiyi, the former Chief of Army Staff, wrote a book to refute those few sentences. Diya lived long enough to maintain his innocence. He knew he fell into temptations and believed he got a reprieve…

Friday, 31 March 2023 01:54

Africa: Why does Burna Boy rock more than Nigeria’s elections? - Azu Ishiekwene

From Accra to Cape Town images of Nollywood, Nigeria’s popular movie footprint, are a common staple in homes across the continent as are the sights and sounds of its pop icons who are also amongst Africa’s biggest. When politics is on the menu, however, it does not appear that the rest of the continent has the same appetite for what Nigeria has to offer as it does for the country’s jollof rice, its captivating movies or perhaps the Afrobeat of superstar, Burna Boy. Between February and March 2023, Nigeria held its general elections; the seventh since 1999 when the country…

Thursday, 30 March 2023 02:49

The passing of Oladipupo Diya - Bola Bolawole

The death, on Sunday, 26th March, 2023, of Oladipupo Diya, brought memories, fond or otherwise, flooding our memory, chief of which must be the coup, real or concocted, that Diya and other Generals were alleged to have been implicated in, on 21 December, 1997, aimed at toppling the vile dictator, Sani Abacha. In all, 26 civilians and soldiers were accused of treason, the majority of them Yoruba; they faced the death penalty if found guilty. Dragged before a kangaroo military tribunal and deemed guilty even before the trial had begun, six of the accused, including Diya, were handed the death…

Thursday, 30 March 2023 02:44

What will Nigeria’s digital census find? - Abimbola Adelakun

Now that Nigeria’s next census date has been officially confirmed, I am curious if the exercise will provide a different picture of our population distribution or merely validate the status quo. Anyone who has been a Nigerian for long enough already knows that the national population is a continuation of the politics of power by another means. Virtually every census in modern Nigeria has been vigorously challenged for its statistical accuracy and, of course, its ideological agenda. Far more than serving the purposes of efficient national planning—the officially touted reasons for holding them—censuses in underdeveloped societies like ours use purported…

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Tuesday, 28 March 2023 03:58

The Big Tent odyssey and saving democracy in Nigeria - Pat Utomi

There are many still in shock about February 25th and March 18 elections. This is understandable. In the week before the 20th of February it appeared the Obidient movement had pulled off a miracle and already made good of the first part of the first promise of the Obi/Datti manifesto: To unite and secure Nigeria. From Sokoto to Sagbama, Lagos to the lungus of Borno the youth of Nigeria were gyrating to the same beat of the president we need. Were we finally close to the words of our first national anthem, “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood…

Monday, 27 March 2023 03:34

Rigged elections and the moral burden of illegitimacy - Hope Eghagha

Adamu: A man who rigs his way to power carries a moral burden!Orezime: A moral what?Adamu: You heard me, didn’t you?Orezime: I’m not sure I heard you right. Moral what you said?Adamu: A moral burden, I said!Orezime: Hahahahahahaha! You make me laugh! Are you from the moon?Gani: Or Mars? Emeka: In which country? In Nigeria? That principle does not apply in Nigeria! There is no moral burden on anybody in this country! The election which produced Bubu in 2015 was rigged. Where are the two million voters from Kano State who voted in 2015? Was an INEC official not burnt…

Monday, 27 March 2023 03:32

Artificial idiocy - Slavoj Žižek

There is nothing new about “chatbots” that are capable of maintaining a conversation in natural language, understanding a user’s basic intent, and offering responses based on preset rules and data. But the capacity of such chatbots has been dramatically augmented in recent months, leading to handwringing and panic in many circles. Much has been said about chatbots auguring the end of the traditional student essay. But an issue that warrants closer attention is how chatbots should respond when human interlocutors use aggressive, sexist, or racist remarks to prompt the bot to present its own foul-mouthed fantasies in return. Should AIs…

Sunday, 26 March 2023 04:11

The CJN on wheelchair - Festus Adedayo

“If you are unlucky not to have a representative in the judicial council, even if you are innocent, you can be found guilty – B’eyan o l’eni ni’gbimo, bo ro’jo are, ebi lo mi a je.” This very profound saying of the Yoruba, translated into a pithy musical line in one of the tracks of Ayinla Omowura, late Yoruba Apala musician, point unmistakably to the fact that corruption and favouritism predate colonialism in Africa. When you jointly read this line and D. O. Olagoke’s 1962-written play entitled The Incorruptible Judge, you will understand why it is almost an impossibility for…

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