9ja's Oracle

In a perfect world, political discourse will be issue-driven. Unfortunately, we are not in such a world as even the western countries still have signs of racial, gender and religious-based sentiments when it comes to political squabbles. However, these countries have significantly based their politics around prevalent issues than anything else.One sign of this is how politicians and the electorate align themselves with the political party that best reflects their views on how a given problem should be solved in the Country. You cannot find a progressive-minded politician or citizen in a right-wing political party and vice-versa. Even though a politicians may have some ideas minutely different from those widely held by the party, the core ideology remains the same, and when it does change, the politician moves to a party that more reflects his new ideology. In Nigeria and as it concerns politics, gender, tribe,religious affiliations are the deciding factors even as early as d...

This is a story of a multi-talented man from a small town called Yoribohau...his name was Oluwasola Gozie Balewa or OGB as he was fondly called. OGB was a maven...he could dance, he could sing, he was good at acting, he was good at archery, he could swim, he was a very good hunter and a farmer...name it and OGB could do it exceptionally well. As a boy, OGB used all his talents...not one was neglected. He became the toast of the town and everyone could see that OGB was a blessing to his family and community and it was generally felt that his family would be prosperous in no distant time. As time went by, thing were getting better for OGB and his family and he continued making use of all his talents. However, at one point there was news that a certain talent could fetch OGB more money and fame faster than his other talent could…this talent was wrestling. This talent became in demand as communities far and wide paid and invested so much in wrestlers and wrestling. Prior to this, OGB...

I have always believed that only two tools are viable if a country is to be free from chaos, these are: The absolute tyranny tool which allows no room for dissent from the entire citizenry or a segment of it e.g. North Korea, Brunei and to some extent China and Russia. The absolute security and rule of law tool where every single citizen (both ruler and ruled) is held accountable for his or her actions no matter how long it takes e.g. the United kingdom and United States. There are no in-betweeners here, a country that has none of these is a breeding ground for chaos; Nigeria is a perfect example and Boko Haram is one of the consequences. Sometimes I wonder whom Goodluck Jonathan receives security advice from. He has kept changing the Military leadership in order to beef up the fight against Boko Haram yet to no avail; he declared emergency rule in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa- three of the most affected states- to no avail; according to a sitting Senator, 1.5 billion dollars was...

Boko Haram in black and white: What we know about them One man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom fighter, so they say. Someone who isn't well informed about the Boko Haram insurgency may believe that Nigeria's Muslim community, especially those in the Northern part of the country, stand to benefit from the quests of this terrorist group. Truth be told, this feeling is more widespread than many would readily own up to; it becomes obvious when you consider the fact that many Nigerians from the Southern region believe that it is best to let the Northerners go for the sake of peace. However, this - like many assertions and decisions by Nigerians and the Nigerian government - is false. Boko Haram as a terrorist group does not represent the interest of any significant group of Nigerians. By "significant" I mean in terms of ethnicity and religion which unfortunately are the two major divides that exist in Nigeria. Yes, it stems from Islam, but it is just a...

It would be prosaic to start listing all the woes Nigeria and Nigerians face. It is common knowledge that our condition today as a Nation is not much different from what it used to be under Military Rule and I am not trying to water down the benefits of having adopted democracy... at least, with their rights to freedom of speech, Nigerians can now "talk" and "write" about their predicaments unlike before. Be rather particular about the words "talk" and "write" because that is all we do...loads of free verbal and written words with absolutely no action. Most painfully, these verbal and written words have only repeated what we already know but in varying extents without offering solutions. In her poorly state, Nigeria has become an object of ridicule and cheap self-publicity as citizens and foreigners alike narrate to all who care to listen how bad the country has become and often with "facts" that border on the ridiculous. For inst...

An article by Chikezie Nwaoha from Bangkok (chikezie.n@student.chula.ac.th) Alone with my thoughts about my country, I became poised to put down a few lines and issues bothering over 160 million people with diversity in culture, religion etc, but enveloped under same struggle and challenges. I don’t know where to actually start, but a word begins a sentence, and a sentence begins a paragraph. Let me start from here: My humble question to most of those people abusing ASUU for extending their executive meeting,  please 'if Prof. Iyayi was your father and bread winner of your family', what do you suggest should happen?. Secondly, we should learn to tackle issues using 'root cause analysis'. As a reference, if you have headache please don’t just take paracetamol alone, but go and find out what actually caused the headache and treat it accordingly. It’s time for the students to rise against this insanity and impunity from our so called governors, elected officers ...

In the Nigerian Constitution, Chapter 3 is about citizenship. This chapter contains Sections 25 through 32 but the Oracle is interested in section 29 and particularly sub-section  4(b). To ensure that I drive my point home, here is the entire Section 29 of the Nigerian Constitution: (29) Any citizen of Nigeria of full age who wishes to renounce his Nigerian citizenship shall make a declaration in the prescribed manner for the renunciation. The President shall cause the declaration made under subsection (1) of this section to be registered and upon such registration, the person who made the declaration shall cease to be a citizen of Nigeria. The President may withhold the registration of any declaration made under subsection (1) of this section if: a.   the declaration is made during any war in which Nigeria is physically involved; or b.       In his opinion, it is otherwise contrary to public policy.          ...