Pele: Genius ‘Who Built The World Cup’

 By Banji Ojewale

When boxer Muhammed Ali passed on in 2016, George Foreman, one of the sport’s fiercest demolition experts, was approached by CBS This Morning crew in the United States of America to speak on his old ring foe. Knocked out by Ali in their unforgettable Rumble in the Jungle duel in Kinshasa, Zaïre, in 1974, Foreman said what the sport had experienced of Ali defied all known approbatory allusions.

*Pele 

It wasn’t enough to describe the man born as Cassius Marcellus Clay as the “best fighter’’, he said. According to Foreman: “…To say he (Ali) was the greatest boxer is a put-down…He was bigger than boxing. He was bigger than anything…I got into the ring with him…He didn’t have the best power…the best anything…But his presence…His greatest power was his presence…Nothing like him…’’

Since the death in December of another sports colossus, Pele of Brazil, the world is experiencing the same dilemma: a dearth of expressions to convey Pele into history. Is it adequate to see him as a legend? These days even flash-in-the-plan celebrities get the tag. How about merely dubbing him the greatest in the field?

Chidi Chike Achebe (MED ’96) To Be 2023 Geisel School Of Medicine Class Day Speaker

 By Susan Green

Geisel School of Medicine is pleased to announce ChidiChike Achebe MED ’96, MBA, MPH as the featured guest speaker for the 2023 Class Day Ceremony. 

*Achebe 

Achebe is founder, CEO, and chairman of Boston, MA-based, Delaware registered, African Integrated Development Enterprise (AIDE PBC)—a Public Benefit Corporation focused on health, education, agriculture, energy, and telecommunication that provides integrated, patient-centered, cost-effective, and sustainable healthcare services dedicated to the development of African communities. 

“I am thrilled, honored, and deeply grateful for the invitation from Duane Compton, PhD, dean, Geisel School of Medicine, to serve as keynote speaker for the 2023 Class Day Ceremony,” Achebe says. “I look forward to returning to the beautiful Dartmouth campus and engaging with the graduating students, my former teachers, current faculty, and the larger Dartmouth community.” 

On The Agreement Between Gbajabiamila And ASUU

 By Femi Falana 

It is public knowledge that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila intervened in the last strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.  Several meetings were held with the relevant stakeholders by the leadership of the House. While briefing the Nigerian people of the resolution of the crisis on October 10, 2022, the Speaker did categorically state as follows:

*House Speaker, Gbajabiamila meets with ASUU executives 

“We agreed with ASUU and the government on certain things which we took to Mr. President. I have visited the President twice. First time we made our recommendations with the government shifting some and ASUU shifting some. We spoke with Mr. President. There was one sticking issue which was the issue of no work no pay. And the President did ask that he would suggest the recommendations and would have one more meeting which we did on Friday after the budget. 

‘‘That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him, and Mr. President had agreed to settle things. I am not going to talk about that now and that he would disclose whatever it is tomorrow, Tuesday which is tomorrow.” (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/10/deal-sealed-asuu-strike-over-in-matter-of-days-gbajabiamila/) .

Nigeria And The Politics Of Hunger

By Sunny Awhefeada

My generation’s first experience and its attendant crisis was in the mid-1980s. My generation here refers to Nigerians born after the civil war and attained teenagehood from 1983 onwards. We have read in history books of how starvation was one of the major tools that was deployed to fight the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970. 

Pictures abound of children, youths and older people who suffered from the affliction of hunger. Not even the efforts of humanitarian agencies that tried to alleviate the hunger in the refugee camps that littered the secessionist enclave of Biafra alleviated the crisis. Hunger engendered diseases which in turn yielded deaths. Many still believe that starvation more than bullets and bombs was what made Biafra to capitulate when it did. 

Buhari’s Best Not Good Enough

 By Charles Okoh

The most pathetic people to listen to on the situation in Nigeria are the ardent supporters and sympathisers of President Muhammadu Buhari. They unabashedly regularly stand truth on its head, all in the name of trying to rewrite history just to suit their principal.

*Buhari

Truth is that Buhari remains the worst President ever to occupy that office. They speak of construction of roads, railways and building other infrastructure, as though there has ever been a president who did not do all of that. Is there any president or military head of state that did not build roads and bridges or other infrastructure? Buhari’s eight years, by the time he leaves, thank God, on May 29, would be the greatest disservice any leader has visited on this nation.

The World Ahead 2023: Whither Nigeria?

 By Marcel Okeke

The World Ahead 2023” is the 2022 end-of-year special publication of The Economist (of London) in which the journal reviewed the global economy in the outgoing year and made detailed projections about 2023, including what issues are most likely to dictate the trends in the coming year. It says: “After two years when the (COVID-19) pandemic shaped the immediate future, it is now the Ukraine war.”

The journal gave four things to think about for 2023, namely: (1) the impact of the conflict; (2) the struggle to control inflation; (3) chaos in energy markets; and (4) China’s uncertain post-pandemic path. Going granular in its analysis, the publication gave ten themes and trends for 2023—thus: all eyes are on Ukraine; recessions loom; climate silver lining; peak China; divided America; flashpoints to watch (India-China, Turkey-Greece); shifting alliances; revenge tourism; metaverse reality check; and New year, new jargon.

'Anya-Ndi-Igbo' Condemns Worsening Insecurity In Igboland

---------------

Anya-Ndi-Igbo

2 Felix Chucks Okoye Close. Independence Layout, Enugu. Enugu State. 

e-mail info.anyandigbo@gmail.com 

STATEMENT NUMBER 3                     December 27, 2022

 

A STATEMENT ISSUED BY ANYA-NDI-IGBO ON THE PERSISTING SECURITY CHALLENGES IN THE SOUTH EAST REGION ON NIGERIA: 

Compelling Need to Stop the Destruction of Lives and Livelihoods

1.   Generally, Nigerians from all works of life are facing the biggest threat to their lives and livelihoods. The framers of our Nigerian Constitution starting from the 1999 constitution to the last amendment, foresaw today. This explains their provision of the primary duty of government as protection of lives and property. It is therefore, the inalienable right and entitlement of every Nigerian to benefit from the primary duty of government to protect lives and property. 

2.  In recent years and particularly in the past three years, the scale and depth of insecurity in the South East has become unbearable. Terrorist-type invasions accompanied with massacre and sacking of entire communities, which are hardly countered by Federal and States Governments have become a common feature of the region. Other types of merchants of crime, violence and torture have joined the rampage, thereby creating hell on earth for residents and travelers in the region. 

Nigeria Police And Extrajudicial Killings: The Bolanle Raheem Murder

 By Muiz Banire

By the law setting up the Nigeria Police Force, the officers and men are meant to primarily maintain law and order in the country. Specifically, they are to provide security and protection for the civilian population. At a point in history, they discharged this responsibility so well that the country was substantially safe for all and Nigerians were proud of their police force. In fact, on the international plain, they earned accolades and laurels from time to time in peacekeeping operations and other assignments.

*Late Bolanle Raheem

However, with the incursion of the military into the country’s governance, the Nigeria Police Force gradually started losing its potency and relevance. Part of the reasons accountable for the ugly trend was the deliberate act of the military rulers to amputate the police in order to forestall any threat to its rulership.

Achieving Zero Hunger And Ending Malnutrition

 By Emmanuel Osadebay

To gain the nutritional substances that provide energy for activities, growth and other functions of the body in keeping the immune system healthy, food is essential for a human being. The United Nations global facts show that in 2020, between 720 million and 811 million persons worldwide were suffering from hunger, roughly 161 million more than in 2019.

A staggering 2.4 billion people, reflecting above 30 per cent of the world’s population, were moderately or severely food-insecure, lacking regular access to adequate food; and globally, 149.2 million children under the age of five (22%), were suffering from stunting (low height for their age) in 2020.

133m ‘Multidimensionally’ Poor: Buhari’s ‘Gift’ To Nigeria In 2022

 By Olu Fasan

President Muhammadu Buhari has a victim mentality. He takes absolutely no responsibility for anything that goes wrong under his watch. Instead, he treats legitimate and fair criticisms of his leadership failure as harassment.

*Buhari 

More likely, he’ll see this piece on the shocking levels of multidimensional poverty in Nigeria, fostered under his government, as harassment. To mimic Shakespeare: He does protest too much, methinks!  Last week, in a documentary shown at a private event to mark his 80th birthday, President Buhari was asked whether he would miss anything about the presidency.

Buhari: Nigerians Owe Bishop Kukah A Debt Of Gratitude

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

As you read this, it will be exactly three days to the end of the year and 152 days to the end of Muhammadu Buhari’s second and final term in office as president. And Nigerians are hurting badly. In the last seven and half years of his baleful presidency, all the indices of human development – I mean all – have gone south, literally and metaphorically.

*Kukah and Buhari 

Today, Nigerians are neither guaranteed a healthy life, access to knowledge nor a decent standard of living. Paradoxically, the so-called leaders are overreaching themselves in their toadying jaunts that Buhari is the best thing to happen to Nigeria since October 1, 1960. Those who climbed on the rooftops just yesterday to shout themselves hoarse over perceived poor governance have suddenly gone mute.

Children’s Sacred Souls And Toxic Music

 By Oshiomhole Inuma

Being a natural part of the environment of all early-human and pre-human species, it is a piece of creative art of leisure that possesses invincible powers capable of taking captive of our emotions and thoughts. Its ability to directly or indirectly convey unsolicited messages soul-to-soul to us is unimaginable. It is an embodiment of the good, the bad and the ugly, whose cunning influence on us unconsciously becomes social life and value. 

Its influence on humans and nature is powerful and charming enough to heal the most painful memory, soften the hardest heart and bring tears to our eyes. 

Dangerous Times In The Dear Country

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

The demons of death are on the loose, arranging mayhem and spreading annihilation all over Nigeria. We walk an ungodly but very familiar Nigerian road littered with shattered bones and broken dreams.

The struggle for political power is all the rage with the ruling party presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a multi-faith country while the main opposition party presents a Northern Fulani Muslim candidate to succeed a Northern Fulani Muslim incumbent after eight years of incumbency. There is the third force rousing the youths into fervid activity such that if the elections are tampered with the EndSARS riots may pale into a child’s play. The dangerous times of Nigeria today cannot but force one to look back in anger at the country’s history on how the land came to this pass.

Bishop Kukah’s Final Scorecard On Pres. Buhari

 By Rotimi Fasan 

As was the case this time last year, the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese, the Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, has again issued a damning score card on the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Kukah has become a consistent critic of President Buhari and of the All Progressives Congress, APC, party-led government.

*Buhari and Kukah

Aside what has become an annual December ritual of assessing Buhari’s performance in office, the bishop has also taken other available, “out-of-season” opportunities to ask searching and inconvenient questions of the ruling APC government.  That he is at it again, just two months to the next presidential election and less than five months before Buhari’s second term in office expires, should be enough measure of his conviction that President Buhari has failed as a president. This on account of his inability to live up to his electoral promises in 2015 through 2019. 

Why Then Did Buhari Weep?

 By Ifeanyi Maduako

Unlike women, it’s natural that men rarely weep or shed tears. Whatever makes a man weep must have overwhelmed him emotionally in such a manner that he cannot hold back tears. Therefore, when a man weeps in public, it’s possible that he may have wept several times over in his closet. Whatever makes a general to weep on camera before the whole world must be on something that touches on his nerves beyond emotional control.

*Buhari 

Against the foregoing background, when the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), wept before the cameras sometime in 2012 after losing the 2011 presidential election which was his third attempt at the presidential seat, the world was taken aback seeing a retired general shedding tears publicly ostensibly over the state of the nation.

Lagos-Ibadan Expressway: Image Of The Nigerian In The Mirror

 By Adekunle Adekoya

Three years ago, on December 20, 2019, to be exact, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State for Health, had reason to leave Lagos on January 20, 2019, to deliver a lecture at an event in Abeokuta. According to him, he got trapped in a traffic jam on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, and ended up spending five hours on the journey, normally a breezy trip of about one hour. When Mamora arrived at the event, it was almost over, as most of the other guests, including former President General Olusegun Obasanjo, had arrived, played their roles, and left. 

The minister, apologising to his hosts, said: “I want to apologise for my lateness. I left Lagos early enough. I ended up spending five hours for a one-hour journey. We got ‘hooked up’ with Magodo. The journey that should have taken us one hour, took us five hours. That is the unpalatable state of our roads, even my pilot car could not pilot me through the ordeal.”

Muslim-Muslim Ticket: Christians, Stand Up For Your Faith In 2023!

 By Olu Fasan

This weekend, on December 25, Christians worldwide will celebrate Christmas to mark the birth of Jesus Christ. In every country with a predominant or substantial Christian population, the president or vice-president, the head of state or prime minister, will be a Christian.

However, in Nigeria, where Christians account for nearly half of the population, this year’s Christmas may be the last, for probably the next eight years, that Christianity would be represented politically at Nigeria’s seat of sovereign, the Presidency; that someone professing the Christian faith would be either president or vice-president!

Nigeria: Oil Theft Probe: A Test Case For Federal Government

 By Braeyi Ekiye

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI,  as well as the Pan Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, and other critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project recently called for the setting up of a Special Investigative Panel on oil theft and losses.

The call was necessitated by the humongous oil theft that has gone unchecked for as long as oil and gas exploration and exploitation began in Nigeria, some 66 years ago. But these thefts at various oil installation locations across the oil producing areas of the Niger Delta became increasingly unbearable in August 2022, the worst month in oil theft record this year, when a foreign vessel capable of lifting over two million barrels of crude oil escaped from Nigerian territorial waters but was arrested by Equatorial Guinean Maritime security forces.

Recrucifying Christ At Christmas

 By Banji Ojewale

Marching Jesus Christ boisterously to Golgotha for another experience of execution, excoriation and extirpation is exactly what we attempt to do every Yuletide. Although we gather ostensibly to celebrate His birth, what we really end up with is what we did that sent Him to the agony of Calvary. We shut out the Lord Who bore the death penalty we deserve as we drive ourselves into revelry not His will. We engage in epicurean feasts when we fail to reckon with what He commands: Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

As we ignore His word in the season’s ceremonies, we also look down on the friends of Jesus, the poor, the poached and the pricked. These pauperized of the society are our modern-day lepers, sentenced to a station of life away from enduring joy. But at Christmas, we lure them into our fold as objects of exhibitionist philanthropy. There’s hyped media blitz to record a one-off show of orgy where these hard-up citizens are sumptuously fed by the wealthy.

Is School Really A Scam?

 By Precious Fasipe 

‘School is a sham!' I’m sure you’ve heard this claim before, or probably even said it. It is a common slogan echoed by many frustrated Nigerian students due to one or many experiences they have had in school. But is school really a scam?

A school is simply an institution that provides instructions, and its main functions are to educate and socialise students.

However, a scam is a dishonest scheme. It can also be said to be a deceptive scheme or trick used to cheat someone out of something. This usually involves both the person who benefits from the scam (the scammer) and the victim (the scammed). “School na scam” in this context means school is a fraud, school is a lie, we do not need school, the school system is corrupt, and someone is benefiting from it.