Forgeries, Taxations And The Reign Of Rehoboam

 By Ugo Onuoha

A little over three months into the presidency of Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on September 5, 2023, I wrote an opinion piece titled “100 days of Rehoboam” in this space and elsewhere. Rehoboam was a king of the divided kingdom of ancient Israel. He was the son of King Solomon and the grandson of King David, both of whom were also past rulers of a united Israel.

*Tinubu

Rehoboam caused Israel to be divided through policies that inflicted pains on his people. He was reckless. He was proud. He was unfeeling. He took counsel from his scatter head fellow young men. He told the Israelites that the privations they suffered under his father should be regarded as a child’s play. And that while his predecessors chastised them with a whip, he would chastise them with a scorpion. And he verily proceeded to do so. Rehoboam and Tinubu share similarities and dissimilarities.

Starving The Poor To Subsidize The Rich

 By Dan Onwukwe

The pay and perks of political office holders in the country are back on the spotlight. This time, more damning and sickening. It’s raising dark clouds as ever. Right now, the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, is behind the astonishing, wicked and mindless proposal. Behind the veil, lies a tangle web of conspiracy.

*Akpabio and Tinubu
It amounts to high level of insensitivity to the current economic crunch and the harrowing plight of poor Nigerians who are already pushed against the wall due to previous government’s flip-flop policies. If the pay raise proposed by RMAFC is not a conspiracy of sort between it and the rampaging political elite, nothing comes closer to the harsh truth.   

Donald Trump, Jerusalem And The United Nations

By Chris Akiri

On Tuesday, December 7, 2017, the U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, promising to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Following this declaration, there was mass hysteria in the Arab world, condemning the declaration as a dead set against the peace mediation process in the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio and against International Law. I dare say that a sizeable crop of the anti-declaration protesters inveighs against the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the angle of vision of religion and cheap, emotional sentiments. 

*US President Donald Trump and Israeli
PM Benjamin Netanyahu

From a remote period of antiquity, except on those excruciating periods when it was conquered and occupied by more powerful enemies, the City of Jerusalem, located in the Judean Hills of Israel and appears 719 times in Bible verses, has been the capital of the United Monarchy of Israel over which ruled countless Hebrew monarchs, including, but not limited to, David and Solomon (1 Kings 1:37, 2 Samuel 8:11-21 and 1Kings 8:21).