The Sick Continent

 By Dan Agbese

Africa is a baffling continent sitting on mounds of paradoxes. The paradox of rich but poor continent is a familiar theme. It is rich in human and natural resources; yet its 54 independent nation-states are dependent on other less divine-favoured countries to even feed their own people.

Africa is a sick but lucky continent. Its paradoxes attract economic and other experts who periodically diagnose its ailments and go on to offer sane expert prescriptions on how to heal it. The problem, and this is one of the many paradoxes, is that the continent continues to get sicker. It is either the failure of the diagnoses or the ineffectiveness of the prescriptions or both. The question is why?

Killing Nigerian Economy And Killing Nigerians!

 By Kenneth Okonkwo

John Locke was a renowned human rights activist of the natural law school of thought. He wrote that certain rights, self-evidently, pertain to individuals by virtue of their being human beings. In his words, man entered into a social contract by which he surrendered to the sovereign, not his rights, but only the power to preserve order and enforce the human rights of man. The individual retained the natural rights to life, liberty, and property for these were the natural and inalienable rights of man.

According to him, the purpose of government is the preservation of the lives, liberties and possessions of members of society. He warned that as long as government fulfills this purpose, its law should be binding. When it ceases to protect or begins to encroach on these natural rights, laws lose their validity and the government loses its legitimacy.

All The Noise About The Niger Coup

By Sunny Ikhioya

No empire lasts forever. With what is happening now all over the world, it is clear that man has not learned his lessons. Russia is trying to reclaim its former stake in Ukraine, but is finding it very difficult to do so. This has now caused a bitter rivalry between Russia and the rest of Europe, backed by the United States of America.

The rivalry amongst European powers led to the Berlin Conference in 1885, which approved the partitioning of Africa with arbitrary borders that have existed until today. We are not teaching history in our schools today so that corollary assumptions cannot be linked with what is happening in West Africa; but that is the real issue. It is a race for control and dominance over Africa and its resources all over again. 

May Our Road Be Rough In 2019!

By Banji Ojewale

Tai Solarin, Nigeria’s under-celebrated educationist, social critic and visionary reformer, wrote a newspaper article 55 years ago to usher in 1964. He simply titled the essay, May Your Road Be Rough. It was the great man’s prayer that the going should be tough and rough for his compatriots during the year.

Hardly a wish to say Amen to by millions who were in churches across Nigeria and worldwide to usher in the year 2019. In his days, as it still is in our age, Solarin realized the controversy his position would generate. So, early in the write-up he allayed his readers’ fears. He wasn’t wishing them evil, he averred.

“I am not cursing you;” he said. “I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year, may there be plenty of troubles for you this year!” If fellow citizens didn’t know how to respond to this strange salutation on New Year’s Day, the Ikenne-born writer offered this counsel: ‘’ If you are not so sure what you should say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no more.’’

Nigeria: National Assembly And The Retrogressive Media Bill

By Adewale Kupoluyi

Democracy requires an active media to thrive. This is because the parameters that constitute good governance, which is a common feature of a vibrant civil rule, can be measured by the level of accountability, transparency and rule of law that exist in a country. Ordinarily, it is a difficult task for many governments to appraise itself whether it is doing well or not. Hence, the importance of the media in serving as the prism to review the performance of democratic rule parameters is ever relevant. 

*President Buhari 

An attempt to stifle the media in carrying out these functions would bring about dire consequences for good governance. A case under contention is the Nigerian Press Council Amendment Bill, which has already been debated at the public hearing stage. The bill seeks to regulate journalism practice by creating a statutory body to arbitrate between the media and the public. It is on this premise that the media can be compromised that Nigerians were angered with the new media bill before the National Assembly has been described as retrogressive, unconstitutional and anti-people.

Nigeria: Independence Without Culture Or Identity?

By Dan Amor

Culture is the artistic and other activity of the mind and the works produced by this. It is also a state of high development in art and thought existing in a society and represented at various levels in its members. But culture as a thematic focus in this piece, concerns the particular system of art, thought, custom, beliefs and all the other products of human thought made by a people at a particular time; in short, the way of life and identity of a people. This essay is therefore informed by the urgent need for a new sense of national identity and character in Nigeria.

What special qualities would distinguish the citizens of this country considered to be the largest and most populated black nation in the world? For instance, under the influence of Montesquieu, Abbe du Bois, and others the eighteenth century placed great emphasis on delineating national character. The Spanish, for example, were said to be brave, mystical and cruel; the English practical, phlegmatic shopkeepers; and the French refined, artistic, and immoral. Each nation was thought to have a special significance, a character, evident in its history, the impression made on travelers, its climate, and in the features of its land. Most nations possessed a long, mysterious past from which its character had simply come into being. The United States of America, on the other hand, could see its origins clearly and explicitly. Moreover, its people were largely British with minorities of Germans, Dutch, French, and others in some of the provinces. Yet, in curious, unselfconscious ways, these transplanted Europeans, even in early colonial days, seemed somehow a different breed of men.

Wanted: A National Coalition Against Rape

By Adewale Kupoluyi

What has become a serious source of worry to many Nigerians is the dehumanising, wicked and heartless cases of rape of minors, girls, ladies and women in the country. Hardly any day passes by without cases of sexual molestation, violence and crime. Rape, the forceful canal knowledge usually of a female, is a serious calamity that can befall any female. Why is there an upsurge in rape cases in the nation?

A gory statistics, according to the Nigeria Police Force, shows that the nation recorded 1,827 rape cases in 2015; 1,959 cases in 2014; and 1,788 in 2013. Furthermore, NOIPolls, country-specific polling services in the West African region, done in partnership with Gallup, United States of America, revealed that four in 10; that is 36 per cent of adult Nigerians, claimed that most often, the alleged offenders involved in child rape were close family relatives and neighbours; amounting to 33 per cent, as almost half; amounting to 49 per cent of those that personally know a victim alleged that they were usually children between seven and 12 years old; while 78 per cent of the respondents alleged that rape cases were reported without any deliberate effort being made by the police to investigate and prosecute the culprits.

Who Exactly Is An Igbo?

By Ozodi Thomas Osuji
This morning I read at Facebook a girl from Agbor, Nkechi Bianze, saying that her tribe is Ika and not Igbo. She fumed from both sides of her mouth saying how angry she is at any Igbo who calls her an Igbo; indeed, she asked why Igbos have the audacity to call those who do not see themselves as Igbos as Igbos. On the issue of her having what seems an Igbo name, Nkechi, she presented an interesting logic that goes like this: you (I am assuming that she is referring to those not from England) have an English sounding name, you speak English so does that make you an Englishman, she asks?

*Onitsha, South East of Nigeria

(This particular logic is interesting; it assumes knowledge of who is an English person; is English a function of biological heritage or language or culture? There are black people born in England who are called English. By the same token, what makes one an American? People from all over the world come to the USA, which is about the size of West Africa, and call themselves Americans. I was born at Lagos, Nigeria and am an American. What makes me an American? Since the USA was begun by the English is it possession of English DNA that makes one an American? Is it the ability to speak the English language? Is it enculturation to American culture? What is American culture? Nkechi, apparently, did not take courses in logic so we shall overlook her illogical and incoherent statements on who is English.)

W.F Kumuyi: The Missing Link In National Development

By Banji Ojewale

There is a small but vocal circle of Nigerians who do not believe that their country needs more of the quickening touch of the Divine to help turn things around for the prostrate land. They look all over the place and spotting what they see as a sea of churches, they conclude that Nigeria would be better off without a ‘surfeit’ of ecclesiastical industry. They refer to patently disturbing reports of abominable conduct in the Church and return the verdict that the trouble with Nigeria isn’t its politics or economy; it is the Church which encourages a craving for materialist prosperity. They argue that the Church and its leaders no longer aim at addressing the soul as their Lord Jesus Christ taught. Today, they say, the Church is master at pandering to carnal needs.

Pastor W.F Kumuyi

So they want less of sacerdotal activity and more of agnostic enterprise.

Well, this contrasts with the position of a famous French historian and writer as he also studied the role of the Church in the United States of America when that country was struggling with the challenges that came after a war.

The famous French writer Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States of America in the first half of the 19th century and returned with reports of how great America had become not too long after it had emerged from its war of Independence and passed through the teething problems of nation-building. His extensive tour led him to probe the source of this eminence.

When Tocqueville had undertaken an arduous search, he wrote: “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich higher learning and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went to the Churches of America did I understand the secret of her genius and power”.

Tocqueville attributed the prosperity of the nascent American State to the fact that its leaders instituted a national policy that encouraged the Churches of the day to pray to God on behalf of “kings and… all that are in authority” as enjoined in the Holy Bible (1 Timothy 2:2). As far as he was concerned it was obedience to that Divine order coupled with diligent work that brought down God’s blessings both on the American people and on the land. Indeed the concluding part of the text we quoted says such intercessions will lead to “a quiet and peaceable life” adding that “this is good and acceptable in the sight of God” (verse 3).

Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi, founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM) is in the same class as Tocqueville. He believes that the absence of Jesus Christ in the citizen’s life in Nigeria is responsible for the problems assaulting us, the same way that lack is the source of all of the world’s problems at the moment. The point, he argues, is not to have less of Jesus’ message of tolerance, righteousness, Biblical holiness, love for fellow man (even if he is your enemy), abstemious lifestyle, focus on Heaven etc. Outlawing Jesus amounts to outlawing peace and order. Man’s duty is to admit Him and allow Him full reign.

Kumuyi has maintained a diligent outworking of this faith in the power of the Gospel to change the fortunes of society if sincerely embraced. He has embarked on a back-breaking crusade nationwide. It has taken the Deeper Life Bible Church leader to far-flung areas including such so called no-go states as Plateau, Bauchi, Adamawa and Gombe. He was in those places only last week even in the midst of deadly outbursts of violence.

Praying For Nigeria

Banji Ojewale

Owing to the prevalent situation in Nigeria, I am being asked to repeat the following article with slight additions to reflect the political and socio-economic circumstances on the ground. We certainly need the intervention of a Higher Force to guide us as we pass through this period.

                                                       

(pix: goddiscussions)

The famous French writer Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States of America in the first half of the 19^th century and returned with reports of how great America had become not too long after it had emerged from its War of Independence and passed through the teething problems of nation-building. His extensive tour led him to probe the source of this eminence. 

When Tocqueville had undertaken an arduous search, he wrote: “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich higher learning and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic congress and her matchless constitution and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America did I understand the secret of her genius and power”.

Gettysburg Address: Abraham Lincoln Rebukes Us From The Grave

By Banji Ojewale

Wednesday November 19, 2014 marked the 151^st  anniversary of the delivery of the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, the President of the US at the time of the American Civil War in the 19^th Century. Lincoln delivered the speech to commemorate the gruesome Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania and to dedicate a national cemetery for slain soldiers.

*Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of 

the United States  (pix:planetfigure) 

It was a brief oration that lasted only a few minutes. The Lincoln presentation 272 words – appeared to pale next to that of a well known national orator Professor Edward Everett whose speech, running into nearly two hours, came ahead of the president’s.

The crowd gave Lincoln what an observer described as a “perfunctory applause”. It was a euphemism for unstated rejection of the speech! But the professional Everett instantly noticed the landing of a new benchmark for oratorical discipline and ingenuity. “My speech will soon be forgotten,”  he told Lincoln. “Yours will never be. How gladly would I exchange my hundred pages for your twenty lines”.