Ogiri John Ogiri

Photo Credit:Primeonlineblog News.Rutgers.edu By Ogiri John Ogiri As I pen down this write up, I am sadly reminded of a story of a young lady who committed murder through abortion in a particular city in this country because she did not want to be denied the chance of being wedded in the church by her pastor. Based on what she told me,it is a standard practice in her church to deny marital blessings to a couple expecting a child before the white wedding. It happened that after her traditional marriage, she moved in with her husband and,to God be the glory,she took in. News like this should ordinarily have attracted wild, ecstatic jubilations from anyone but not for this lady. Instead, she became gloomy and uncomfortable for the sole reason that her church, one of the new generation protestant churches, would no longer allow her to be wedded in the same manner she should have been wedded as a fresh couple. They see it as a sin. Oh my God! To buttress her points further, she qu...

Photo Credit: vanguardngr.com By Ogiri John Ogiri The unprecedentedly incremental purging of certain targets one by one by a particular group of people in this country is gradually becoming an established reality.In Nigeria of today, water is cheap but life is cheaper. The premium placed on life in my country is very low. Life is wasted more often than water is wasted. Before now,we owed our existence to God. Whether we would live or die was solely determined by God. However, that has changed. The decision as to whether we will live or die is gradually coming to depend on what the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists and other bandits perceive to be acceptable in their own version of Islamic Ideology. I am worried. I am scared. Every Nigerian is scared. We are gradually approaching the precipice. The need for urgent actions thus cannot be over-estimated. We lost the sincere fight against insurgency from the day the APC-led federal government decided to entrust the entire security ...

Photo Credit: Queendoosh.co BY Ogiri John Ogiri Earlier, I took on the Idoma ladies who see nothing good in getting married to Idoma men. I chastised them for believing so wrongly, accusing them of the logical fallacy of hasty generalization.However, this is not to say that I will spare the men of my constructive vituperations.  You're an Idoma man, you're ready to get married but you don't think that you should take a wife from your tribe because you believe that all the girls from a particular area flirt with other men when they get married. But my brother, are you better than your father who chose to marry your mother who gave birth to you? You know this is not true. Honestly, we,the men of Idoma extraction, have our own problems too. When we set out to look for a wife,that is when we realize that Otukpo is a no-go area. We have been conditioned to believe,and we do so wrongly, that Otukpo girls flirt even when they get married. As a result of this, we are re...

Photo Credit: Legit.ng By Ogiri John Ogiri You're an Idoma lady, your parents are both Idoma or at least your father is an Idoma man. Then suddenly you form a negative opinion about men from Idoma perhaps because you had an unpleasant experience with just one of them, may be your father or your boyfriend. Then you hastily jump into the conclusion that all Idoma men are bad; therefore you can't marry an Idoma man. The question is, are you better than your mother who chose to marry your father who gave birth to you? Note this, if your father failed in his responsibility as a man, it doesn't mean that our fathers failed too.So young lady,tackle your father. Don't use him as a yardstick to measure how good or bad other Idoma men will be. My own father did his best. As his son, I'll equally do my best.  Marriage is a choice. You can go as far as Tibet to chose your spouse but stop denigrating Idoma men. Stop making unsubstantiated, unverifiable generalization...

Photo Credit: The Guardian. By Ogiri John Ogiri Growing up in my community in those days, I discovered that there were certain unwritten rules that seemed to be somehow unconsciously ingrained in the heart of every member of the communities in my generation. A breach of some of those rules or moral codes came with consequences. For instance, it was almost a taboo for a younger person to expect or even allow an older man to greet him (younger person) first. In the morning, afternoon, at night, in the market square, on the road, a younger person was expected to greet an elderly person with a head slightly propped forward to show respect to one he greeted. A younger person was not expected to extend a handshake to an elderly person first. It must be initiated by the elderly person. And where this was the case,a younger person receiving such a salutary handshake was expected to support,with his left hand, his right hand. The boys were expected to bow while the girls went briefl...

By Ogiri John Ogiri Festive periods came with a plethora of nostalgic expectations in our minds towards them but with great responsibilities on our parents. We looked forward to having new clothes from our parents or any of our loved ones who cared about us. Although we had "Ej'alekwu" festival and the New Yam festival which were celebrated at different times of the year, one festival we cherished and looked forward to was the Christmas. At least, it was the period during which we ate rice with meat in abundance unencumbered,since we rarely ate some of those Christmas meals on ordinary days. Different animals ranging from cocks (Ob'ugu), sheep (Ala, omlede), goats (éwu, opi) to pigs(ehi, okome), grass cutters (obije) including many other wild animals, usually suffered genocide during this season. A few days to the D-day, as children,we usually kept our eyes on the village footpaths or the (Ikplogwu) sometimes mounting unsolicited sentry along the roads read...

By Ogiri John Ogiri Photo Credit: Orthodox mission.org Our consciousness of the necessity of Western Education co-existed alongside our frantic quest for its acquisition in the community or society I lived and grew up. How we pursued knowledge and learnt what we could in my society was an attestation to the simple fact that education was viewed as a necessity by my generation. In my generation, we strove hard to acquire western education despite the limited infrastructural facilities available to us. In my immediate communities of Oladegbo, Alaglanu Obotu-Ekeh and Ingle all in Edumoga where I grew up and had my elementary educational training,available infrastructure in the primary schools left much to be desired. In our various classes, logs of wood or "Igbochi" procured through a joint effort of the community members provided the seats on which we sat and took lessons everyday. The dusty floors, which yearned for the affectionate touch of cements all t...

By Ogiri John Ogiri Photo credit: Svelte Magazine My society,my generation, was known for decency in dressing. I grew up in a generation and a time when clothes were worn to cover nakedness and for aesthetics in order to command respect. In my generation, women were not ashamed of wearing wrappers. They wore a locally-made fabric called "opatali". In fact, they wore it with pride.They did not bother themselves or fret about hand bags or purse as each had what was called " Inyonko" a hand-made local purse in which they kept their money and some other portable valuables. It was usually tied around their waists as they went about their daily farming and trading activities. Many of them equally had local boxes made of metal or aluminum materials. In those boxes they kept their clothes bought for special occasions like burials, marriage ceremonies, visits to family members, festivals (Ej'alekwu festival and the New yam festival also known in my local parl...

  By Ogiri John Ogiri I count it as a privilege to have been born in, and to have belonged to a generation and time when life was in its simplest,non-competitive state. I was born on one of my maternal grandmother's farms located just immediately after "Akpali Ol'Olobo" along 'Oladegbo-Alaglanu' footpath in a village called "Oladegbo Edumoga" in Okpokwu Local Government area of Benue State in the early eighties. It shares boundaries with Alaglanu-Obotu to the east,Obotu-Adum, Ipoya and Olaidu to the west,and Ogomotu, Opialu,Akpuneje,to the South. Oladegbo was known for her riches in bush mangoes (Upi), palm trees(och'ali), kolanut trees(Och'énmé), bamboo trees (Och'acho),local snails ( igbi mla aklihé) local grinding stones (Égo) hewn from a huge igneous rock deposit called "Okplégo". The village soils was equally known for its high yields of such crops as rice (ochikapa),cassava(oyila),yams (ihi,Obuna,Ikpalo,ulayi, ...

By Ogiri John Ogiri I have read, with a feeling of disappointment in my government's educational policy makers,on the Nation's Newspaper of Sunday January 12,2020 (online edition) about a recent protest by the National Association of Polytechnic Students against the continued existence and practice of the retrogressive dichotomy between HND and Bachelor's degree holders in Nigeria. Indeed,from all intents and purposes, the students' body did what is expected of their responsibility as it relates to the protection of the interests of all polytechnics and monotechnic students in Nigeria. This practice is not only embarrassing and backward, it is equally a threat to the progressive future of the polytechnic education in Nigeria, particularly at a time when the world is being driven, no longer by grammar or sheer power of rhetorics but by science and technology. However, we must accept and face the reality- a ruthless, unfriendly reality. I am very sorry but ...

By Ogiri John Ogiri Photo Credit: News365.co.za All those visions and prophecies that have never solved any of our problems in this country must stop this year 2020. Dear self-acclaimed prophets and fake visionaries, in this year 2020, please we want you to: 1-tell us where Leah Sharibu and the remaining Dapchi and Chibok girls are being held so that our hard-working security personnel can rescue them. In addition, tell us where the Boko Haram leaders are and what they're planning. 2-tell us what we can do as a nation to develop and build our own economic and military power. 3-tell us who we can appoint as president to provide the right kind of national direction and an unbiased leadership like the late Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, Indian Mahatma Ghandi and other great leaders did for their countries. There must be no conflicting prophecies, for God is not a God of confusion. But,if your prophecies won't offer any tangible solutions to our national chall...

Love, not Religion, is the Answer. By Ogiri John Ogiri A hungry Muslim is an angry Muslim, and an angry Muslim does not always shout "Allahu Akbar" for the right reason. He just cannot love. In the same way, a hungry Christian is an angry Christian, and an angry Christian does not always shout "Hallelujah" for he must be filled with food and water,clothed with garments and housed in a shelter for him to have the strength to do so and for the right reason. Else, he just cannot love. This is why we,in Nigeria, should de-emphasize, if not abandon, the pursuit of religious supremacism that has,over the years, divided us more, in favour of the provision of the basic necessities of food,water,shelter, clothing and recently, education. You can trust a happy and an enlightened man to see religion in the light of what it truly is: teaching, propagation and practice of unconditional love of neighbours who are the reflections of God's love in the world and for ...

The Catholic Bishop of Lafia Diocese, His Lordship Revd Dr Mathew Ishaya Audu, has been appointed by the Holy Pontiff of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, His Holiness, Pope Francis I, as the new Catholic Archbishop of Jos and Metropolitan of Jos Ecclesiastical Province. Revd Dr Mathew Ishaya Audu, who was ordained a Catholic priest on June 23, 1984 and a Catholic Bishop on March 31, 2001 will succeed Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama who has since been appointed to lead the Archdiocese of Abuja. Bishop Mathew Audu was appointed on January 6, 2020 and will be installed on March 31, 2020. Congratulation to him!

I am not so much interested in advancing the age-long divisive debate about the superiority or otherwise of one religion over another as I am with how love can triumph over evils in an environment as endangered as ours. It has become conspicuously obvious that Religious Supremacism has failed the human race as a unifying ideology. On the other hand, what it has successfully achieved is a relegation of love to a level of emotional inactivity in a world frozen with hate and needing so much love. I have so far observed that love is the most endangered emotional phenomenon in our society today. Love is fast becoming an orphan and a loner in my society. If only our love for one another as humans could surpass our love for religion, the world would be a better place. I am convincingly certain that love is wider than religion. Love has no religion:humanity is its God and human happiness its end. Only true love can achieve the kind of cohesion that religion has failed to achieve over the las...

Photo showing the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja . Islam made inroads into northern Nigeria through the Kanen-Borno empire located on the southern fringe of the sahara desert as early as eleven century. On the other hand, Christianity came to Nigeria through the northern bank of the Atlantic ocean between eighteen and nineteen centuries. The Arab invaders,who brought Islam, told the Hausas and the Kanuris that the religion they had brought to them was the best in the same way that the European missionaries,the harbingers of Christianity, told the Ijaws,Itshekiris,Urhobos and others in the south that the religion they had brought to them was the best in terms of salvation and assurance of heaven. While the Arabs built mosques with imposing crescent-bearing minarets, the European missionaries built churches with imposing crucifixes. The Hausas and the Kanuris were told that those who were not Muslims would not go to paradise in the same manner the Southerners were told that those...