Ogiri John Ogiri

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...

By Ogiri John Ogiri. There is a reason I love the public universities, Polytechnics and Colleges particularly the federal government-owned institutions. Honestly, it is difficult for any student to graduate with a first class degree or diploma without working hard and showing sufficient academic and intellectual justifications for such an award. I graduated from Kaduna Polytechnic with a distinction a few years ago. I knew how hard it was getting that grade. As a public institution, Kaduna Polytechnic ensured that every student provided sufficient proofs of intellectual cum academic capabilities to justify that he or she was worth every single mark one obtained. So I was made to work hard for whatever grade I eventually got.  I literally burned my midnight candles all through, read voraciously every academic material or literary work I ever came into contact with, held free tutorial classes with my course mates and other like-minded students and contemporaries just to s...

By Ogiri John Ogiri Good leadership, accountability, transparency and respect for the rule of law and due process have been identified by political scientists as fundamental indices for evaluating the existence or otherwise of good governance in any political system. Now let me explain. Leadership is the art/process of motivating and influencing group behaviour towards achieving some specific, well-defined, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely goals in line with the overall interest of the majority of the public. A good leader should be accountable, transparent as well as show genuine respect for the rule of law and due process. To be accountable is to be responsible. For me, accountability is responsibility. To be able to offer good governance, a good leader should be able to account for his or her actions and accept responsibility for both success and failure. A good leader should not engage or be seen to engage in blaming others or past administrations for his or her embarra...

By Ogiri John Ogiri One positive consequence of a profound, unbiasedly robust intellectual intercourse on controversial topics is that perspectives hitherto considered paradoxical or absurd are understood better within the boundaries of their own contexts in which they are situated.  In such academic fora, statements of paradox are espoused as theses so that participants, divorced from shackles of sentiments or stereotyped mindsets, can, in uninhibited academic freedom, make informed, logical submissions either to reject or accept the proposed thesis. Let us not shy away from having informed intercourses with our intellectual contemporaries as they help us to understand issues better from broader perspectives offered by a community of scholars in our chosen fields of study.  In doing this, we must avoid falling into the traps of ambiguities for nothing inhibits comprehension faster than ambiguities. Happy Sunday friends. © Ogiri John Ogiri.

Ogiri John Ogiri. If you have no heart to accommodate viewpoints that disagree with yours, you can't be my friend. If we must be friends, then allow me exercise my right to disagree with you just as I give you your right to disagree with me. If your perspectives are always shrouded and expressed in the cloak of uncontrolled emotional outbursts during a debate, then you're merely a demagogue, not a logical debater.  Arguments are necessary to help us situate issues away from what people often hold to be true to what is honestly the truth. So why dread an argumentative encounter with someone? Proving the existence of something usually begins with disproving its existence. To know anything deeply, question it, doubt it and you'll be led by reason to the knowledge of such thing existing. If you shy away from holding paradoxical perspectives, you miss the learning opportunities that come with it. If you're always concerned about what people will say, you'll never start a...