By Bolanle Bolawole

Celebrated and accomplished journalists and writers, lawyers of immense stature, and professionals of all hues are stripping themselves and dancing naked on the altar of political partisanship; even those who pretend at calling them to order are no less guilty of similar offences! In writing this, may I also not fall into the same miry clay! The stakes are high; the presidency of Nigeria is touted as the most powerful in the whole world and, perhaps, the least accountable both to the people in whose name it holds power and to reason and commonsense. “L’Etat, c’est moi” (“I am the State”) the apocryphal saying of France’s King Louis XIV, said on 13 April 1655 before the Parliament of Paris, is typical of whoever is the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Hence, the competition for power here is cut-throat. Just as Lawino, the character of Prof. Okot p’Bitek, graphically painted the picture in her “Songs of Lawino” in response to her husband, Ochol’s “Songs of Ochol”, only the barrel-chested, the brave, bold and audacious dare go to the political battle field where power is contested with all sorts of weapons brought to bear. Is that not why they say politics is a dirty game and that decent men and women should steer clear? The opportunity cost of such action is, however, grievous for, like Edmund Burke posits, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.

By Festus Adedayo

If you read God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican, you would have a whiff of understanding of the battle that assails and the nature of the assailants of Godwin Emefiele, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor. God’s Bankers, written by Gerald Posner, is an expose on the Papacy and the Holy See, known to be the world’s biggest and the most impregnable religious institution ever. Posner, reputed to be a “master chronicler of legal and financial misconduct,” conducted a deep-seated investigation which lasted nine years, into how financial octopuses of the Vatican, known as God’s Bankers, waddled through the ocean of wealth, intrigues, corruption and plotted the graph of political intrigues that these bankers face in the Catholic Church.

By Hassan Gimba

For the past two weeks, the gregarious Muhammed Gudaji Kazaure, a lawmaker representing Kazaure, Roni, Gwiwa and Yankwashi Constituency of Jigawa State in the House of Representatives and one of the most vibrant members of the House, has been trending. He came out with some papers and a story that sounded like a tale by moonlight.

By Emeka Obasi

Life after tennis remains sports for Sadiq Abdullahi, the King of Nigerian courts between 1985 and 1988. With eyes on the Qatar 2022 World Cup, he feels sad that while other nations are moving up, his country continues to miss in action.

By Bola Bolawole

Every trip I make to my home town of Owo brings bitter-sweet memories. Time heals wounds but some broken hearts never mend, like Don Williams crooned. "Some broken hearts never mend/Some memories never end/Some tears will never dry..". Time may heal wounds – or temper its pains but it never completely erases them; memories may fade but they never completely go away; outward tears may cease but what of the ones that keep gushing out in the inner recesses which ordinary eyes cannot see? In the life of every man or woman, there is one love that never dies. How many married couples share this love amongst themselves? Check it out! The person you see as your best friend most likely has another person – and not you! - as his own best friend and vice versa! Life is a mystery! May it not also be a misery! Many persons’ Hell begins right here on earth as a result of the choices they make; as a result of the life partner or "help meet" they end up with.

By Jude Ogechi Eze

“When God revealed Himself to this poor world of ours, men cried in astonishment: ‘Why, it is a child?’ And so it is that the closer we get to God the more we become children, and the closer God gets to us the more He becomes a child. No one in the world ever suspected that the Ancient of Days Who presided at creation would take His throne in that creation as a babe in a crib, just as no one ever thought He would tell the old men of forty, like Nicodemus, that they must be born again. Christmas, then, is the coronation of childhood, the glorification of the young whose hearts are simple, the proclamation to aging hearts that the world need not despair and die, because the Fountain of Youth has come to it to turn time backward, make old things young again.” – Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

By Azu Ishiekwene

The shenanigans were always there, but until FIFA president, Infantino Giovanni, called them out in his down-to-earth press conference in Qatar, they remained the elephant in the room.

By Festus Adedayo

To many, the recent virulent attacks and counter attacks by top Nigerian journalists, served a la carte to the world in the last two weeks, are indications of an autumn for journalism practice in Nigeria. Nigerians have thus been treated to a disgraceful brew of damaging and ignoble exchanges from these media warlords. The public spat has made Nigerians to call to question the integrity of their media practitioners. To them, the media space, in the name of politics, has become a hostile jungle, revealing the patent biases of its practitioners in the coverage of society.

By Jude Ogechi Eze

All critical minders of Nigeria's preparation for the upcoming general elections will see in the ruling All Progressives Congress' (APC's) quest to retain power in 2023, a retrogressive match to 2015. A harrowing eight-year déjà vu.

By Azu Ishiekwene

If he could, he might have built a highway to Sharm el-Sheikh where the world’s great and mighty gathered between November 6 and 18 at COP27 to discuss climate change. But who knows, he might yet do so. Thirteen-year-old Musa Sani, who has already taken infant steps in civil engineering, might live a bigger dream someday.

By Leonard Nzenwa

We should not work ourselves up that Bola Ahmed Tinubu embarrassed himself irredeemably during his recent engagement at Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, commonly known as ChatHam House. He had never been the best that Nigeria has offered, neither will he ever be the near-best that Nigeria will propose, politically. The imperialist professionals that packaged the meet are aware of this, but only needed a high-level inter-state conversational touchpoint to broaden stealth effort that would create a rooted enabler to access Nigeria’s’ next president easily. And that Jagaban choreographed mutated imbecility and absolute benightedness during the occasion measures perfectly to this, and to their benefit. The agbado-for-all, cassava-for-the-masses proponent outclassed himself as a clodpole. Certainly, asininity arrived the meet in likeness of a man, and men clapped in unison praising a naked dance of dernier cri.

By Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba

How time flies. In our time you knew your peer, even if by reputation, not only in your school but in other schools. Secondary schools were few as were students. We had inter school sports, debates and quiz competitions and these attracted huge audiences and spectators from the public as these events were the major sources of entertainment.