People&Politics

By OREVA GODWIN I know, the first instinct of most of my dearest readers, in reaction to the question of whether women are weaker vessels may be in the affirmative. After all, the Bible calls women the "weaker vessel." But today, I want to challenge that idea and to postulate that women are not inherently weak. Rather, they’ve been programmed to be seen as weak, so they don't rise to compete with men. When did God call women weaker vessels? Never. The Creator has never called them weak. Why? Because we were all made in His image and likeness, and…

FESTUS ADEDAYO At the risk of being labeled thanatophobic - a preoccupation with death or its anxiety - the grim reality is that, last Tuesday, Nigeria’s music world would have lost veteran Yoruba Fuji musician, Wasiu Ayinde. Being Muslim, it is in order to say the man popularly known as KWAM 1 would have been buried same Tuesday or early Wednesday. He would have been killed over a mere tiff with an airline official over allegation of carrying liquour on board an aircraft. There is no grimmer way of putting the potential calamity than this. It is a signpost of…

NEWS ANALYSIS By TONY ONYIMA, Ph.D. The recent closure of Badeggi Radio in Niger State by Governor Mohammed Umar Bago has reignited a fundamental national conversation around press freedom and the limits of executive power in a democratic state. The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) has condemned the governor’s action in unequivocal terms, describing it as “a blatant attack on press freedom and democracy.” Beyond the headlines, however, the incident reveals a more profound unease with how public office holders relate to independent media, and it raises urgent questions about the protection of constitutional rights under Nigeria’s democratic dispensation. At…