Point One

 Horror!!! That is the word to describe the recent kidnap incident in Oyo State and its fallouts. Terrorists stormed three schools in Oriire council area of the state penultimate Friday, 16th May, and abducted more than 30 pupils and some teachers. It was a coordinated assault by gun-wielding criminals on Community High School, Ahoro-Esiele; Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota and LA Primary School, all in Oriire local government  area near Ogbomoso. Efforts by security operatives were underway as at the weekend to rescue the abducted persons.  The incident marked morbid benchmarks in Nigeria’s security experience. It was the first mass school kidnap in the Southwest geopolitical zone, against the backdrop of such incidents in northern areas that government has been battling with. It happened in broad daylight, at about 9a.m., not in the solitary hours of night as was typical of school attacks in the North. (Students and teachers were jacked from classrooms, hence ...

Twelve weeks into the war against Iran by the United States and Israel, the end isn’t anywhere on the horizon. The world’s economy reels yet from its effects and, in Nigeria, the average citizen stews in existential pressures of runaway inflation. American President Donald Trump remains all bluster, but he is not near getting a handle on the crisis. Actually, his bluster isn’t holding up to reality any more. It gets clearer by the day that this is one mission miscarried, with an exit strategy elusive.  As at last week, both sides of the battle line dug their heels into conflicting stances on which convergence appeared remote. Early in the week, Trump dismissed Iran’s counter-proposals to U.S. terms for ending the war as “garbage” and unwelcome. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives.’ I don’t like it – TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE,” he said in a Truth Social post.  Same day, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian struck a defiant note against the backdrop o...

In 1994 upon taking office as South Africa’s pioneer president under black majority rule, the late Nelson Mandela espoused a vision of his country as a “people-centered society.” Speaking before a joint session of a multiracial legislature in Cape Town, the legendary freedom fighter said government would aim at “freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from deprivation, freedom from ignorance, freedom from suppression and freedom from fear.” Before that address, thousands of black South Africans lined Cape Town’s streets to cheer as scores of white-helmeted motorcycle outriders slowly led the new president’s car through downtown and up the cobblestoned path to the Parliament building. Standing atop a red carpet leading to the building that was once exclusively for whites, Mandela placed his right hand over his heart – no longer holding a clenched fist in the air as he did for many years of liberation struggle – while a military band played the national anthem. It was a new dawn ...