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By   Paul Onomuakpokpo Aside from the occasional death of soldiers in their battle against Boko Haram, the nation is now confronted in Metele with a seeming culmination of the military’s losses to the insurgents in the north-east.  The government has often fumed at the obduracy of its traducers who instead of trumpeting the wonders of its military in Sambisa Forest have rather warned that more still needed to be done to defeat the insurgents in the light of the occasional suicide attacks on civilians and losses of two or four soldiers to the insurgents. But the recent killing of about 100 soldiers in Metele, Borno State, so shattered the charade of triumph over the insurgents that President Muhammadu Buhari had to dispatch his defence minister to Chad for more collaboration in defeating them.  Clearly, the dead soldiers deserve all the garlands for their bravery and patriotism for which they have paid the supreme price. Yet, we should not ignore the important fact that th...

By Femi Fani-Kayode ”A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping. Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more”- Jeremiah 31:15. O lifeless one, you have lost all sense of decency and you are drunk with power. As the children are murdered in cold blood and cut short in the streets of Abuja by your soldiers you watch silently from a distance: smug, smiling, detached, indifferent and secretly egging the killers on. Simply put, the butchery and bloodfest excites you and stirs your passion. You love the brutality and finality of murder: it makes you feel like a powerful man and it makes your Adrenalin  flow. As the mothers of the slain weep and as their fathers cry to God for justice your impish Vice smiles the smile of the wicked and boastfully proclaims how the two of you are preparing to dance "shaku shaku" for the 2019 election. Your sheer depravity and insensitivity is certified and confirmed. You have proved me right: in ...

By Obi Nwakanma Since the movers of Boko Haram think of books as “haram,” it is most unlikely that they, being illiterate, can comprehend, and therefore are likely to read this tribute to the young woman whom they have killed, Hauwa Liman. And so, this is not directed at them.  *Hauwa Liman They cannot read. In any case, one must address a community of humans, those who share human traits; who have the natural human, and healthy instinct for empathy. It takes a subhuman freak, and a deadly form of misanthropy, to take another life. Members of the Boko Haram movement are not human.  They do not feel like humans. They are beasts with bilateral capacities. That is where it all ends. They are incapable of comprehending the basic instinct for shame or regret or that basic requirement for intellect – introspection. What is clear is that Boko Haram responds to just one instinct – to kill, and inspire fear. In both instances they have failed. Nigerians are not afraid of them. Nigeria...

By  Paul Onomuakpokpo No matter how much President Muhammadu Buhari strives at every critical juncture to portray his so-called anti-corruption fight as incontestable reality, it often unravels as an unrelieved charade before the citizens. This irrevocable futility has once again gained expression through the case of Usman Yusuf as a foil for the acclaimed Buhari’s lack of tolerance for corruption at a time there is a list of 50 corrupt persons, albeit disavowed by the government. Those on the list have been embargoed from travelling abroad while the nation’s law courts have not found them guilty of the allegation of ruthlessly heisting the national treasury or their state patrimony. *Usman Yusuf  Yusuf is the Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). He has been suspended from office by the agency’s governing council led by Dr. Ifene Enyantu. There are allegations of corruption against him. He has been accused of illegally executing N30 billion inves...