Ogiri John Ogiri

         By   Emmanuel Gandu  SETTING THE TONE Political and religious upheavals have characterised the life of Nation States over the centuries. Nations and nationalities have found the use of both politics and religion not only as a stepping stone but also as veritable weapons for the attainment of power for the purposes of achieving the means  to governance, for control of resources, socio economic, territorial conquest and boundaries. They go to war internally and externally because of this urge for dominance and control. A few of the instances for mention include the following : (1) The 30 year war between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland over the British Protestant settlers domination of the indigenous Irish Catholics. This conflict lasted from 1968 until the Good Friday agreement of 1998. (2) The unending Arab - Israeli war that have continued to take the lives of thousands including then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat killed by his own people for signin

Photocredit: One Politician. By Ogiri John Ogiri. Every time in each election year that a new political party or a new administration comes into power, a phenomenon, which many observers find both disturbing and disappointing, is set in motion. That phenomenon is the gale of defection. It hits every political party from all sides. No political party is immune to defection. Politicians indulge in it in order not to lose their closeness to the corridors of power. They engage in defection to the party in power for the purpose of interest alignment in order to continue to participate in the sharing of the largesse of power. " We are the ones in power" is a powerful self-assurance tool that every politician proudly brandishes before their contemporaries. However, when they do this, most supporters who are emotionally attached to those politicians feel disappointed and betrayed. Others simply move with their leaders and life returns to normal. The second group has no em

By Ogiri John Ogiri.  How often do you tell your trusted someone your secrets and how often does he or she betray you? Yes, oftentimes, we trust people too soon after being with them for a while. We tell our friends and relatives many things about us that ordinarily ought to have been kept inside us. We do this because we feel they may be able to understand us and support us in order to heal or recover our lost self. After all, the desire to be honest with our significant others is alive in us. So we feel honesty-bound to be true and open with every thing about us.  But, instead of gaining their kind understanding and empathy when we share our secret fears, concerns and deeds with them,  what do we get in return?  Betrayal, mockery and unkind judgements. In the end, we become painfully disappointed with them. The truth is, nobody deserves access to your most treasured secrets unless you want publicity. The only way a secret will remain a secret between two persons is if one

By Ogiri John Ogiri. It appears that the most important purpose for which many ladies exist today and to which they aspire is to get married and have children. They don't even realize that getting married and having kids is not enough and that life's purposes extend beyond this end. If you have no ambition beyond getting married and having children, you soon discover that even in marriage, life is a boring adventure without ambitions. Having an ambition provides some kind of emotional lubricant needed to oil the wheel of marital bliss, for without an ambition, life in marriage tends to become vulnerable to frictions that eventually lead to wear and tear of the fractional parts that make up the marriage structure. As a young lady, when you were in the university, polytechnic or college, you had many dreams of learning a skill, starting a business and growing it, getting a job and rising through the ranks to the top, furthering your studies, participating in active po

Anyone teaching or praying back-to-sender does not understand Christianity. Evil/satanic forces exist. Human beings employ the services of satanic powers to do harm to other humans. These are absolute facts. Believe it or leave it.  Consequently, a Christian should pray against evil forces. Jesus teaches us that in the "Our Father" which is a deliverance prayer because it says, "deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:9-13 & Luke 11:2-4). Paul also gives us a clear teaching on praying against evil powers (Ephesians 6:10-18). A very wrong but ironically famous way of praying against evil is what has become known as "back to sender (BTS)." It simply means the evil another person sends to harm others should go back and harm the sender (the person who sends it). BTS is famous among Christians and even some clergy pray it and teach and lead others to pray it. All of that is the result of ignorance. Back-to-sender is against the will of God and a contradiction of J

By Ogiri John Ogiri  It's weird how our mothers who didn't eat sharwama ( that bread-grass stuffed delicacy) and pizza in an eatery, stayed longer in their marriages than their daughters who eat sharwama and pizza in eateries. They didn't have the luxury of being taken out to eat fresh fish pepper soup, Isi-ewu and odeku yet they gave everything to the marriage without complaining. Now their daughters who enjoy these luxuries are hurrying out of marriage. Our mothers who knew nothing about being publicly proposed to or engaged had a lasting marital life than their daughters who got proposed to with a ring in a Jeep parked in a park. Our mothers who didn't go to school had a longer marital lifespan than their daughters who are proudly graduates in various fields of studies. Our mothers, even in their illiteracy, intelligently respected, worshipped and honoured their husbands without reservations. They were happy for it because they understood that being married to a man