Ogiri John Ogiri

By  Ogiri John Ogiri According to the Mobile version of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (2019), apartheid is a former social system in South Africa in which black people and people from other racial groups did not have the same political and economic rights as white people and was forced to live separately from the white. The first time the word “apartheid” was used was in the 19 th century precisely around 1947.   It became more popular from then onward in the Southern African area when the occupying Dutch settlers introduced the policy in South Africa. The policy, among other things, established and encouraged deliberate segregation between the Dutch White settlers and indigenous black South Africans. For instance, some areas were solely reserved for white with other areas designated black areas. According to Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson in their Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy published in 2006 by the Cambridge University Press in New Yo...

Who are my true generals? My real generals are not those who become generals through quota system and political connections. No, it is not those who sit comfortably in the lavishness of luxury Defence offices in Abuja as well as in the comfort of their homes with their families far detached from the theatre of war. No it does not include the pot-belied military aristocrats in defence offices in the nation's capital of Abuj Photo credit: Fhipi On the other hand, my real generals are the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for the safety of our dear nation, denying themselves the comforts and conveniences of life. Under the sun and in the rain, they trudge on without trepidation. They are willing and able to obey the last order even if it implies payment of the supreme price- death. While we enjoy the luxury of sleeping in the warm embrace of our comfortable rooms; they lay out there in the dark only wrapped in the cold embrace of dunes and dew...

What an intelligent and unprejudiced rejoinder to a historical rubbish dressed in a garment of fact! That a person has his name prefixed with "pastor" does not automatically confer on such a person the prerogative of biblical knowledge. Find out where he got such knowledge on the Bible from. I was not disappointed at all by Mr Reno's so-called exposition of the truth about Catholicism and the Catholic Church titled "Some Facts About The First State Sponsored Church." On the  other hand, I was curiously impressed when I read his vitriolic assault on the Catholic Church few days ago. But, I had to rest in the conviction that whoever criticizes a religious practice of another religious body offers himself or herself as a convert waiting to be won if such a person can be lectured without sentiment about the truth. I think Mr Reno is trying to come back home but he just does not want to come without some hard convictions. Catholic Priests and Religious are always...

Polygamy in Africa Polygamy Several times,I have regurgitated over and over again on two diametrically-opposed anomalies in the church of today -Polygamy and gay union, particularly in the Western world. I have wondered why the one,polygamy, predominantly practised by Africans before the advent of the white colonialists and their Christian missionaries, should be denounced and passed as evil by the whites who brought us Christianity and the churches while its twin,Gay Union, is tolerated, elevated and applauded by the same whites in the church. In the US and Europe, Polygamy is discouraged while gay union is vigorously encouraged, pursued and promoted. In fact,it belongs in the public policy of many Western Nations today as a powerful determinant of how much aids the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) can get from them. The question is why? Which between the two can be more morally reprehensible and disgusting -Polygamy or gay union? Even the churches whose missionaries told ...

Becoming a good Christian,Muslim,Jew,Buddhist, Hinduist or traditionalist is simple: love God, love your neighbour and then do what you please knowing fully well that doing what you please will take cognizance of your love for God and your neighbour. This is my religion, outside which I have no other religion. I'm less concerned about all the hullabaloos about religious supremacy or the unnecessary fights for religious dominance by adherents of the various world's religions, which is at the heart of why we are so divided that we forget to love one another as God's children. Those who fight and kill for religious supremacy have no love for God; they only love power and influence. A true child of God will have so much love for God that he works to protect his or her neighbour from harm's ways.  The day we decide to abandon supremacism and enlist in the altruistic defence of humanity is the day we will find absolute internal peace. But as long as we still staunchly fight o...

The wind of change that swept across Europe in the 19th century was a consequence of the dawn of an age of enlightenment. Scientific discoveries by various scientists had ushered in new technological inventions that made the people of that era to begin to subject to serious intellectual scrutiny traditional beliefs and crude methods of doing things in a bid to understand why such beliefs and methods remained sustained. A need for change was therefore felt, ushering in a new e ra. Eventually, the great industrial revolution of the latter part of the 19th century (c.1760-1840) became the last thing that altered traditional thinking in the most fundamentally profound ways. For instance, the controversial theory of evolution and Darwinism was let loose by Charles Darwin in 1859, the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen in 1712, telegraph communications by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone (1837), Dynamite invented by Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist, in the 1860s, William Guten...

We are all speaking up against the infamous court invasion and the controversial re-arrest of Sowore in court, not because we love Sowore (considering his role in bringing this government to power) but because we love our country. We are simply speaking up for the survival of the soul of our nation. If we do not speak up now that they have come for Sowore, there may be no one left to speak for us by the time they come for all of us.  Today,if we let this government get away with their deliberate affront on the rule of law, the backbone of any constitutional democracy, one day all of us will become the victims of the same abuse we may be allowing to fester and gather momentum by our conspired silence. This has little or nothing to do with APC or PDP. This is beyond party politics; it is about our nation.  In a constitutional democracy, the biggest threat to national security is not a call for revolution, but the deliberate disobedience to court verdicts and order. The most dang...

Mediocrity and stupidity are never a part of our directive principles of state's Policy as encapsulated in our constitution, (though imperfect it is). Yet, on a daily basis, Nigerians are inundated with tragic cases of shameful dramatizations of these stunting traits by some of those who are supposed to be giving us quality representations in government. And the fact that this government seems to be highly comfortable in elevating to higher offices individuals with these embarrassing traits leaves greater rooms for disappointment. Is Nigeria actually deficient in terms of knowledge? Have we so exhausted the finest pool of our highly educated individuals that we now have to fall back on drinking from the stream of daft, half-baked individuals masquerading as professionals in the current administration? Ours is an obvious case of a people blessed with an ocean but who still thirsts for water in winter. How did we stoop so low to mediocrity? How did we slip, very fast, into this nadir...

Several times,I have regurgitated over and over again on two diametrically-opposed anomalies in the church of today -Polygamy and gay union, particularly in the Western world. I have wondered why the one,polygamy, predominantly practised by Africans before the advent of the white colonialists and their Christian missionaries, should be denounced and passed as evil by the whites who brought us Christianity and the churches while its twin,Gay Union, is tolerated, elevated and applauded by the same whites in the church. In the US and Europe, Polygamy is discouraged while gay union is vigorously encouraged, pursued and promoted. In fact,it belongs in the public policy of many Western Nations today as a powerful determinant of how much aids the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) can get from them. The question is why? Which between the two can be more morally reprehensible and disgusting -Polygamy or gay union? Even the churches whose missionaries told Africans during their arrival between 184...