Except for the calendar which says this is Easter and the Federal Government which declared Friday 7th and Monday 10th April as Easter holidays, there are no celebrations in the air in the real sense of the word. Not many people are celebrating not because they do not want to but because they cannot. As they say, money has decreed …

Tens of thousands of Catholics will gather in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday to hear Pope Francis give the Easter mass and the traditional blessing. Francis, 86, has returned to his papal duties after a recent stay in hospital following a bout of bronchitis. On Saturday evening, he presided over the Vigil mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, …

If you watch events carefully as they unfold in the country, you would agree with historians that history has a way of repeating itself. One of the teachers I admired most in my undergraduate days, Prof. Innocent (IFA) Uzoechi, usually had this compulsory question for freshers: “The lesson men learn from history is that they do not learn from history …

As you might have heard, and/or perhaps read, the committee set up by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State for the creation of more autonomous communities in the state recently submitted its report. As expected, it has, according to reports, recommended the creation of additional 353 autonomous communities, in addition to the existing 402 autonomous communities. What this means is …

The National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has pegged the Hajj fare of each intending pilgrim for 2023 at N2.89 million. NAHCON Chairman , Zikrullah Hassan attributed the increment to inflation in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. He said on Friday that the price is of eight categories, with Borno and Yobe States having the lowest, while the highest is Lagos …

The last elections have demonstrated a new destructive loser’s variant in the Nigerian isle. It is a stubborn unwillingness to accept defeat, to twist an obvious failed candidacy into an ethnic circus by an extremist rump , unfortunately now widening their sphere by coupling into their midst an otherwise civil, enlightened camp. The thronging of a particular section of the …

The world is in a struggle with plastic. It can’t seem to do without it and definitely can’t live with it. It litters the landscape, cloaks the drains and gutters and fills the canals, rivers and oceans. The United Nations says ‘the world is choking on plastic’ and National Geographic says ‘the world is drowning in plastic’. Plastic is in …

When King Charles, the head of the Church of England, is crowned on 6th May, there would be two very unusual non-Protestant special guests at the ceremony, among others: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who is Hindu; and the Leader of the Scottish National Party and next First Minister of Scotland, Humza Haroon Yousaf, a Muslim. Not two unusual guests. …

A few days ago, the Enugu State House of Assembly was in the news, after years of unflatteringly idle and comatose legislative existence for all the wrong reasons. One of its principal officers, Chinedu Nwamba, who chairs the House Committee on, wait for it, “Public Accounts and Anti-corruption”, rose on the floor of the Assembly with a motion that was …

Ever since I trained my mind to follow the unravelling of Nigeria’s sociopolitics through martial and civilian governance, I’ve found no deputy who has been as harried and harangued as Atiku Abubakar. I have highlighted the word civilian in the preceding sentence because much of what we have witnessed particularly in Nigeria’s last two general elections have merely parodied genuine expression …