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The Unholy Alliance! (My New Year message) As the great poet Odia Ofeimun opined in his poem, "we must learn again to fly," 'some wounds cut so deep/we forget where the pains come from. We itch from congealed blood to brimless seas/we forget how to flow.' Such is the reality of the state of affairs in Nigeria,depending of course, how you choose to interpret the lines. We wake up every morning seeing the state of the nation continually worsening, not knowing (or rather choosing not to admit knowledge) of what is happening. Foolish as we are, we know quite well those who are messing around with our collective destinies, but what do we do? We keep applauding and backing their devilish acts, albeit blindly. We receive bags of rice from them during yuletide and we keep "thanking God for their lives" and asking God to replenish their pockets a thousand fold, however the money came. That, He has been doing anyway. The fact that our religious leaders are, ...

Abstinence from sex has been a recurring slogan in our pretentious society for ages. In schools it is preached (little wonder the introduction of sex education was vehemently opposed by a lot of 'policy makers '), in religious circles, attempts are made to drive it down the throats of adherents, while at home parents never cease to remind their wards how they 'kept themselves' till they got married. Our religious leaders keep on reeling out the rhetorics "your body is the temple of the holy spirit."  People are lectured on all they stand to gain by staying away from sex outside marriage; you will make heaven,you will not contract veneral diseases, you will not get unwanted pregnancy,bla bla bla. Wow! Despite all these, has promiscuity reduced? Abortions have hit an all time high. Contraceptives are being taken as food. Lots of adolescents go about with unwanted pregnancies, especially in the rural areas. All because of the religious card we play.  If you...

Martin Reyto writes... Jesus’s real name was Yeshua, a short form of Yehoshua, which ordinarily translates to Joshua in English. It was a name commonly given to Jewish boys during the time of the Second Temple. So why don’t we call him Joshua? Because when the Gospel was translated to Greek, the translators changed his name to make it sound more natural to the Greek ear. They came up with Iesous. When the Romans took the Greek text and translated it to Latin, they changed it to Iesus. That was how it spread across Europe via the Roman Empire and the missionaries of the early Church. At some point the letter J was introduced into the Latin alphabet and replaced the initial I, but phonetically it stayed the same. It remains the same in a number of languages today. English and French gave it their similar pronunciations of the letter J, while Spanish gave it yet another one which resembles the Latin more closely. The “Christ” portion of his...

Mbaka's Alter! Prologue : Brandishing ill-gotten wealth and splashing it in a house of worship does not make it clean! Gathering political hawks and societal moral misfits simply because of insatiable materialism is sheer religious promiscuity. Coaxing politicians to surrender siphoned funds to you while playing a demi-God is to say the least, religious opportunism and abracadabra! With the reference of the alter of God as "Mbaka's Alter", It is clear now to the blind adherents of the so called Adoration Ministry that all these years, they have been worshiping the man, Ejike Mbaka, not the Almighty God. I hardly comment on the religious thievery going on in Nigeria and the utter stupidity of the followers of the so called "men of God" (money). This is because the gullible followers who are in the majority are still neck deep in religious bondage,and it would be a waste of time trying to dehypnotize them. Nigeria is currently occupying the unenviable...

By Chukwudi Anagbogu N:B  The names, location, etc used in this story are mere fictitious and do not refer to any real life person. Dr Ubadike was known throughout the campus as a womanizer.Every girl he fancied, he wooed by all means.He either used coercion or entreaties.In his department for instance, any girl who came to him for one problem or another would first meet up with his demands before he even listened to the  problem. Being a comfortable lecturer with an unsuspecting wife and two children who were already graduates and gainfully employed, the fifty year-old was never comfortable with with girls paying for 'services' in cash, rather he always opted for payment in kind.But what was certain was that as long as you fulfilled your own part of the bargain, your problems were  solved instantly. So as the staff adviser of his department, he always entertained numerous problems ranging from missing results, late registration of courses and so on. Also, those...

By Chukwudi Anagbogu •Whenever one talks about money ritual, our biased minds always go towards the use of human heads and 'other vital parts of the body ' in exchange for wealth. But, money ritual goes beyond that.  It is a general belief that the private sector should help ameliorate the problem of unemployment in Nigeria, putting into cognizance the increase in the number of graduates being churned out of our higher institutions yearly. The expectation is in order, considering the fact that government alone cannot provide employment for everyone, both skilled and unskilled, at least for the foreseeable future. This is where the private sector comes in. They are supposed to absorb those who are not 'privileged ' to secure government jobs either in the civil service or public service. Because of the comatose state of our power sector and complete reliance on importation and 'oil money', there are virtually no industries to employ the unemployed. The c...

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When I started working here, the very first thing most of the 'old' staff took turns to bring my notice to, was the existence of a particular member of staff who according to them, was a perpetual debtor. According to them, this particular man was indebted to nearly every worker in the establishment, not forgetting the huge loans he had secured from the Staff welfare Association, which had not been able to offset till date. Furthermore, this man was also alleged to have secured a six-month salary advance from the establishment! When I asked what problems this particular man may possibly be solving with such money, one of the women hissed and posited that the whole cash was spent on irrelevances and ostentatious lifestyle. It didn't take long before the said man approached me for a thousand naira loan, which according to him would be repaid the next day. I had wanted to turn him back when I reflected on what I have heard about him,but on second thought I decided to lend hi...

Chukwudi Anagbogu writes... The much awaited and anticipated burial of the late Nigeria's former Vice-president Dr.Alex Ekwueme has finally come and gone,and everything has returned to status quo. It was an event that served as a major distraction to the quagmire our nation has been plunged into by this government, no wonder the dexterity with which the Federal Government handled the entire ceremony. The news that The Federal Government had expended as much as one billion naira on the funeral of Ekwueme days before the internment,broken to us by our own Dr.Chris Ngige (who had usurped the duties of Alhaji Lai Mohammed), was obviously intended to massage the ego of ndigbo and make them believe the government meant well for them. Eventually, it ended up being a fall into a ditch as people snorted disapprovingly at the report. We all kept quiet while waiting to see what actually gulped the huge sum,that is,excluding the ones spent by the "jamboree-led" government of...

In the past week, the polity has been awashed with Obasanjo's open aversion to President Muhammadu Buhari's second term aspiration. Not that it was the first time or he was the first person to have openly decimated this administration, but it was his personality that made his vituperations gain so much public relevance. More so, it was this same Obasanjo that had openly supported the enthronment of this same administration. A lot people and groups have come out to endorse Obasanjo's assertion that Buhari does not deserve, and should not contemplate running for a second term due to his alleged gross incompetence and fledgling health. What Obasanjo has failed to tell is this : is he of the opinion that we should not vote in APC, or is it just the person of Muhammadu Buhari? To Nigeria who believe in his guidance, who or which party does he advocate for? That Obasanjo is a schemer of repute is not under contention. From his antecedents, it is important to realize that Obas...

This topic is one that generates understandable controversy among people. As with several other topical issues, people's opinions are diverse. When is the right time for a male or a female to get married? Everyone frowns at 'early marriage'.  In fact, many 'reasonable' parents would chase you out of their homes if you ever attempt to come for their 'under-aged' daughters' hand in marriage. Legally, a female less than sixteen is considered not ready for marriage while a boy should be at least eighteen before mooting marriage. Even at that, many still are not at home with the 'sixteen' and 'eighteen' years maturity age for females and males respectively. A lot females marry early for various reasons. Some marry because of poverty. Such people see marriage as financial breakthrough or a means of making ends meet. Most often, the reverse is the case. While others may marry out of peer /parental pressure or unwanted pregnancy, a negligible ...

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Some time ago, a lady came to me in tears, confiding in me her marital nightmares. She had absconded from her husband's home many times to her parents' home with their only child and was contemplating calling it quits with her husband. When I asked her what her problem was, she narrated a 'gory' story of how her husband 'never allows her a minute rest.' According to her, she was fed up with the marriage. The lady did not know that a lot women pray for such 'disturbance.' I needed not also remind her that there are men with similar complaints, men whose wives want to "kill" with insatiable lovemaking. Conservatives opine that there is more promiscuity today than in the old days. While this may be partly true, they tend to forget that polygamy held sway in the olden days as opposed to the much touted monogamy this is today 's society. A man who has five wives for instance, and still goes ahead 'dangling his balls' before  ...