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...