Ogiri John Ogiri

   By Ogiri John Ogiri  A man who is unwise complains about an innocent hole in his pocket but a wise man is always happy that God could be kind enough to bless him with such a hole in his pocket. At least, he is able to conveniently scratch his itchy private part through the hole that the foolish man fails to appreciate. Instead of thinking about what he can achieve with that hole, the foolish man focuses on the problem, that is, the hole. Where the foolish man sees an inconvenience, the wise man sees comfort; where the foolish man sees a problem, the wise man sees a golden opportunity to solve his problem.  There is something good in every challenge. If you're wise, you'll stop complaining and use the challenge to solve your problem. This is what makes the difference between success and failure. 2023 is another year to look out for opportunities in our challenges. -Ogiri John Ogiri.

By Ogiri John Ogiri.  Let me shock you with a controvesy: the hour you first believe something is not as crucial as the hour you spend doubting such a belief. The reason is, to become a refined believer in a phenomenon, one must first go through the challenging furnace of doubt. I am of the belief that true convictions happen after you have doubted. It is only when a claim is subjected to a scientific interrogation in our minds' abstract laboratory that it can be situated in a broader context for better understanding towards eventual acceptance or rejection of the claim. Note this; when the socio-cultural environment you live in forces you to accept a belief without conviction, you have not been truly converted; you have been coerced, and a coerced person never makes a convinced convert.  Personally, I do not trust people who accept a line of belief without scrutiny for in the end, they easily fall into unbelief so that they become diametrically opposed to the pers...

By Ogiri John Ogiri  Sometimes ago, when we used to attend weddings in churches and other social events, we didn't have to worry about wearing body-fitted boxers and pants as boys because we knew everyone, particularly the ladies in the bridal train, would be decently dressed in their attires so that no accidental erection due to the sight of indecent exposure would put us in a position where we would have to ask God not to let us fall into temptations.  Today however, things have changed with the dawn of a permissive kind of modernism with its own weird fashion culture and a funny dress sense. Now, as men, we have to attend weddings in churches and other social events with strong underwears tied to our loins; one strong enough to hold our manhoods in check in case of any accidental erection in the house of God. Yes, the male Penis is a very shameless organ which doesn't care whether its owner is in a holy place or not. That is how irresponsible it can be. To the l...

Christmas 2022 Message from Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah 1: Christmas is here. Let us all rejoice and be glad. Christmas is not just a date on our calendar. Christmas defies a calendar or dates. Christmas is our life. Christmas is ever present with us. After all, the one whom we celebrate is called, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Christmas is a celebration. In our daily lives, despite the hardships and disappointments, the threats and the insecurity, the failure of our government and the ongoing corruption, we celebrate in faith and joy because we know that God is with us.  2: We pause and think about Mary, our blessed Mother. We consider the circumstances around her at that time. With no notification, an Angel appeared before her, and gave her the kind of news that really did not make sense. She was understandably deeply troubled by this message and in response, when she recovers her composure, she said: How can this be since I have known no man? The Angel tells her that the H...

By Ogiri John Ogiri  To some of our step brothers and sisters of the Abrahamic religious tradition, whose innocent minds have been programmed by some self-seeking sheiks and Imams with the toxic indoctrination that it is a religious sacrilege to wish Christians Merry Christmas, may you find a flowing water of peace sufficient to extinguish the flame of hateful wars raging in your hearts. We sympathise with your predicament and so we keep praying that you one day realise yourselves and break free from such a destructive religious mindset and rise to embrace opportunities of inclusiveness offered by the various Ecumenical interventions and inter-faith dialogues championed by genuine leaders of the Church and the Mosque. To our friends in the same religion who, in the face of obvious dangers of unsolicited assassinations, have found the magnanimous courage through a constructive and beneficial exposure to good education and shared social understanding and interactions, whi...

By Ogiri John Ogiri.  I am human I am fallible  I am not unmindful  Of my own human frailty  This I know too well So when I falter Judge me with kindness. I am a student,  A diligent student  In the university of life I do not feign ignorance  Of the limit of my knowledge  But knowing that I know little,  I seek more knowledge  So when I fall into errors And I do so often, Judge me with wisdom.  I am a traveller,  A pilgrim on a path to progress,  I barely know all the roads to my destination  But I make efforts not to miss my way However, when I do miss my way And suffer a fall into a terrain of jeopardy,  Judge me with genuine sympathy.  For I am human with a gourd  Of imperfections tied to my chest. I am human  I am vulnerable  I do not have the privileges  Of having everything  So I am susceptible  To asking for help And when I do ask for help Judge me with love ...

By Ogiri John Ogiri  The man who is married to a very beautiful maiden and the one who has a beautiful orchard of mangoes by the road have the same problem. Every passer-by must be attracted to take a bite of their succulent fruits. To eliminate this problem, two choices can be made by the men. The first can divorce his wife while the second can cut down his orchard. This may amount to sheer cowardice and lack of initiative to turn a threat into opportunities for creative growth. So, what both men can do is to convert the threat to creative opportunities for growth. If the woman was not beautiful, no one would look at her. If the orchard was not producing beautiful fruits, no body would want to throw stones at them either. That all these could happen means that two men were making progress. This is the dilemma of a man or woman who wants to make progress. Such a person should court criticisms and become her friend. The truth is that, criticisms are thrown at us when we are succeedi...

By Ogiri John Ogiri  In a world threatened by the treachery of evil and surrounded by men of doom and gloom; in a world ruled by sons and daughters of brutal perdition, doing good can be difficult and places a heavy burden on our conscience. Why is "doing good" being described as a burden here? It is for the simple reason that, it is more difficult to act right and do good acts than it is to do evil acts or act wrongly. Apart from those who live false lives,denying the existence of any trace of conscience in them, we all feel guilty when we go against the dictates of our moral consciences. On the other hand, we all experience joy unspeakable and some kinds of uplifting of the spirit when we perform good deeds.  To free the conscience, to relieve it of this burden and empty our minds of guilt feelings, therefore, we must strive, with unabated continuity, to do good. We will have no need to worry about any witches and wizards attacking us from our various villages as some so-ca...

The lowest a country can go is to no longer be used as a measure of success for other countries or a reference point for economic development for her neighbours that once held her in high esteem. With about 133 million people living in abject penury, one would think Nigeria was not once a giant of Africa in every ramification. That is how far bad, insincere leadership can affect a country. Do not underestimate the danger of bad leadership.  If the government was able to fulfil its own side of the Social Contract it signs with the people every four years; if those in positions of entrusted authority were able to solve the problems of power, health, education, insecurity and unemployment, most of the things we go to churches, mosques and shrines to ask for would naturally fizzle out. Unfortunately, however, bad leadership has become the bane and burden of our country.  We cannot have a Nigeria that belongs to a few and expects everyone to have peace. Peace has an interesting con...

A storm has been stirred, With a rage of a ragtag, And a torment of a terrorist,  It charges at me. With its brutal barrage, It enfeebles my resolve to resist  And revel in victory.  I face it with fright, As I daily wake and walk, arise and advance To stare at the picture of the future,  I aspire to acquire in majesty. Why should I drown in the sea of fright  At the sight and experience of the storm of this life? Why should I fret and falter in the furnace When I possess and brandish a faith  As impervious as the rock of Gibraltar? But this is the human in a being.  The human nature must threaten to quit But the spirit eventually conquers the frailty of the flesh. Only then can I dare to ascend victory  As a crown ascends a throne.  Lord, I do not ask you  To stop the advance of this dangerous storm; I want to sail to victory in it. I do beg however to grant me the grace to triumph So I can return gratitude for the victory.  So hel...

By Ogiri John Ogiri.  In my few years of sojourning on earth so far, I have come to observe that, women are like beavers or what we know as grass cutters. The more we hunt for them, the more we will catch. And the more we catch them today, the more we think they will be none as big and beautiful as the ones we already have caught today, until we go into the wild tomorrow and discover the folly of our insatiable hunting expedition because there are more beautiful and bigger ones out there in the jungle.  " Ihimihi" is like that. The truth is, the more you live, the more the number of Christmas you will witness. However, in all this, you will learn that there has never been and may never be anything called the best Christmas celebration so far. This is because your conception of which Christmas celebration is the best is only limited to the ones you have celebrated. Wait until the dawn of another December and you will feel like no Christmas has ever happened before that one. Mo...

By Femi Fani Kayode Let me make this clear from the outset. I am a member of the APC and a supporter of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.  This contribution does not in any way derogate from that and my analysis is more of an academic and intellectual exercise than anything else.  I am NOT a supporter of Peter Obi and I have NO intention of becoming one. I am however interested on what his supporters represent and stand for and that is the subject of this essay.  They are worthy of my attention only because their rise and relevance in the political configuration of our nation, just in a matter of weeks, is meteoric and phenomenal.  In order to counter and defeat them or to keep them in their place we must at least attempt to understand them and figure out how their minds work.  The following are my findings.    Those that are the supporters of Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate, are known as 'Obidients' and they are EVERYWHERE.  Tho...

Dear brother, Thaddeus Oche Ogiri,  January, 1988, you came into the world as a promising, very handsome boy. Mum and dad loved you. We, your eldest siblings, loved you too. We watched you grow up quickly. However, 11years later, mama died and everything changed. You became a man from age 11. You were not deterred.  From that very tender age, you had your dreams. You nursed your dreams. You wanted to be a medical doctor. I encouraged you to go for the pure sciences since I did not offer the pure sciences. You agreed. Yes, we needed to make mama proud wherever she was by not giving up. Going hard against the tides towards success would be the noblest way to honour the memory of our late mum, the young woman who bore so much pains and sacrificed so much of her comfort that she died in her prime. I did not have the wherewithal to finance both of us. You said I should not worry about you. Immediately after your primary education, you enrolled yourself in a private school to stud...

By Ogiri John Ogiri. Today, the Church universally celebrates Christ the King. It is interesting that this celebration ushers us into the new calendar year of the Church as we hopefully look forward to the season of advent.  The implication of this feast is heavy on us. Even though, we tend to be carried away by the angelic processions that characterize the celebration as many of us hardly ever think beyond this ephemeral display of piety, yet, we should understand that the feast of Christ the King goes deeper than the fanfare we witness and celebrate. It places on us heavy burdens of responsibilities in a world in need like ours. We have the needy to feed, clothe and shelter. When we do this, they realize that Christ too is their King. Can we live out our faith in Christ's Kingship in a way that people should see and want to have a reason to go to Jesus Christ as one who holds the message of eternal life? This is a moral burden we have all been called to bear by virtue of our bapt...

By Ogiri John Ogiri.  I wish my mother was alive.  Honestly, some things wouldn't have been like this.  I was just a child, a fragile, vulnerable SS1 student at St Joseph's College Ichakwu, near Ugbokolo, Benue State. She had taken me to the private school by herself in January 1999. I was the only one in a Secondary School. None of my younger siblings were in a secondary school yet. Some were too tender to be in school while others were in a primary school. The challenges were enormous. The survival odds were legion. But we had high hopes. We looked forward to a better future with her motherly presence and supports and sacrifices. Then by April, she took ill and died in December.  Before she died on that fateful day in December, she had said to me, " my son, when I'm gone, please don't cry for me. Just take care of your siblings." Then she called her mother, my grandma, who was in the kitchen preparing meals for the day being Christmas boxing day....

By Ogiri John Ogiri  If Barack Obama could win and become the president of America at a time when many people doubted his audacity of hope against all obvious odds, then Peter Obi can become the next president of Nigeria.   Never underestimate the power of a people who have become fed up with an unproductive and a retrogressive status quo ante. They can become the most formidable volunteer structure upon which a rejected stone can ride to become a cornerstone in the end.  As it stands currently, except for a misguided few, many of us Nigerian youths see the aspiration of Mr Obi as a golden opportunity to take back our country from a drowning ship. I share in this belief. There have been a shipwreck and it is unfortunate to admit that Nigeria has been involved in this self-inflicted shipwreck. It therefore becomes a duty for every Nigerian of good will to work towards raising a rescue team. This rescue team is headed by Obi assisted by Datti. It is going to be a long ...

 By Ogiri John Ogiri. Enough of everything good but not enough for everyone in the hood. Enough to loot but not enough to solve our national problems. Enough to service the greed of our leaders but not enough to meet the needs of the masses. Enough to spend on medical tourism and other traveling jamboree abroad but not enough to fix our ailing health system Enough to squander on foreign education but not enough to fix the deteriorating health of our university system. Enough to cater for everyone around but not enough to go round. Enough to squander on Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) but not enough to fix our unproductive refineries Enough abounds in Nigeria but not enough to help us.

By Dr Sam Amadi The obi-dient movement is not much about Mr. Peter Obi, an inspirational character in his own right. It is about a social truth that Nigerian elite politicians have missed for too long. It is about the symbolisms of a government of the people by the people that Peter obi has embraced. It is about the public ethics (not necessarily the personal morality) of public leadership in a society that is extremely poor, not just in terms of very low household income, but also in terms of miseries and incapacities.  Mr. Peter Obi does not have a towering political profile. His developmental footprint is not out of this world. As a matter of fact, out of the three main presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar may have the best profile in terms of economic development as Vice President to President Obasanjo and the head of his economic team, whose administrative posted the most solid and enduring economic and social development (I disagree with the overly neoliberal bent of their...

BY OGIRI JOHN OGIRI  I am an Idoma man. I am loyal to the wisdom, stool and authority of the Och'Idoma. But I do not support his proposed plan to tamper with the beautiful colours of the Idoma traditional attire. Red and black gives me pride as an Idoma man. Whatever reason may have prompted this decision by our father, His Royal Majesty the Och'Idoma IV, Pastor Odogbo, I think he should tread with a cautious wisdom here. This should not be his preoccupation for now.  Idoma land needs to be purged from invading marauders and land grabbers; he should prioritize the unification of all Idoma sons and daughters home and abroad, influence those in government to develop the Idoma land, create and expand more opportunities for the engagement and empowerment of our Youths so as to kill all social vices to which they are attracted among many other laudable reforms. These should be his concerns.  May our Father, the Och'Idoma succeed.  Long live Agaba-Iduh Long live the Idoma ...

By Ogiri John Ogiri. Real jobs are not created by consumption; they are created by sustained production. We need a leader who understands the economic dynamics of how to inspire and boost our national productive capacity and move the nation towards economic self-reliance through a sustainable job creation initiative. We do not even need a religious man to be our president. We need a man who is secular enough to understand our common diversity and manage it for national progress. This why we cannot afford to see the 2023 election as just another normal election. It is a contestation between the youth and the aged; it is a struggle between the working population and the dependent population; it is a struggle between the "soro soke" generation and the old generation; it is a clash of change and the status quo ante. It is a contest between economic prudence and wastefulness; wealth creation and skewed enrichment by a few. It is the people-inspired revolution against the few privi...

By Ogiri John Ogiri. Obi is a phenomenon. Ignore him at your peril. "Obism" is an ideology of a pristine political era whose time has come. He is seen by the youths as a fire-brand, revolutionary alternative among other contenders. He personifies the visions and hope of the Nigerian youths for a different but better Nigeria than we have now. For me, Obi is the Nigerian version of Barack Obama, who, with a gourd of revolutionary dreams from his fathers tied to his chest, dared to hope in a country where a high level of fixations and outlandish obsessions with the status quo ante dominated popular political thinkings and postulations. Nigeria is a country where the kind of Obi's audacity to hope for revolutionary change through the presidency is easily wished away and perceived as a rebellion against the Nigeria's kind of conservative politics which invariably favours the perpetuation of the status quo ante. Obi is a phenomenal wind of a representative change. His sweep...

By Ogiri John Ogiri. Over the years, I have pondered over this question with serious worries. I have been worried because despite showing love, gunning for peace and demonstrating charity, Christians in Nigeria have not been seen as equal in humanity with our half brothers from the other side of the foreign religious divide. It has degenerated so bad that Nigeria has now come to be seen by many as the most dangerous place for Christians in the 21st century. Attacks on Christians' places of worship have continued unabated with disturbing casualties. More worrisome is the disturbing but suspicious silence from the government on the whole killings. This seems to be a nod of tacit approval of the daily killings. From the Northwestern to the Northeastern Nigeria; from Owo in Ondo State to Igama, Edumoga Ehaje in Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State among many others too numerous to highlight, the story follows the same pattern. It is the same story of pain, anguish a...