Izuu's Turn

I have not seen his tweet and I do not expect to follow him anytime soon. But I have heard severally about what he said about President Jonathan, Jesus and Mary! There's no gainsaying the fact that if such a devilish insinuation was made by even an atheist in far away Europe, some people would have and may still be losing their lives in parts of Nigeria. But I want to believe that Mallam Nasiru El-Rufai was not speaking for a large portion of Nigerians who keep their thoughts about the religious inclinations of others private in the interest of peace. I have wondered why El-Rufai should make such an insensitive comment; a blasphemous one at that. And I arrived at an answer that at least sates my angst at his unwarranted provocation. The answer is that he is a disgruntled politician who has lost out in the scheme of things and is now throwing spanners in the works in order to infuriate, incite and fan the embers of discord. Would he have said this when he was Minister of t...

Few days ago, I was forced once gain to behold a bizarre sight that left me wondering whether we are a nation of human beings or that of lower animals. I was teaching in class between 8 and 9 in the morning and we had two slight explosions inside the class room. The students promptly switched off all the lights in the class room. We were not aware of what was going on. The class continued because I insisted on moving on with it. When the first explosion came, one of the students, a girl was already outside the classroom before I could know it. We jokingly dwelt on her "cowardice" for a while and before long the second explosion came. So we promptly switched off all electrical appliances in the room off. Little did we know that something more sinister was lurking in the wings. About ten minutes later, some students looked out of the window and saw one of the buildings adjacent to ours on fire. It was a little one at first, but before we could say "Atilogwu...

It is the nature of our life that when "we" tells a story, it is always right. In a conflict, when one listens to one side, s/he will feels like exterminating the other. But it so happens that when the other speaks finally, one begins to wonder why s/he believed the first group initially. It is interesting to note that either side would have told the truth about what transpired. Both sides could be very honest people who must have genuine reasons for taking the actions that prompted the conflict and as such could both be right.  Let us take this example :  A child wants to play with a knife and an adult who is nearby takes the knife from the child. Examination:   The child is justified in seeing a plaything that s/he needs and the adult is just being difficult in stopping him/her from acquiring the toy. On the other side, the adult is aware that the child will be injured by the knife and as such s/he takes it upon him/herself to save the child who is obviously obli...

I have been away from here for a long while due to a very tight schedule. Work has not yet reduced for me, but something deserving of mention here came up and I could not resist the temptation to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard as the case may be). I have a class that I've been with for a couple of years now. It is a peculiar class. I am not in the habit of writing about my students but they are a special case. In their first semester here, I was not around. I was away for three months. When I returned, they have already created a furore which led to the sack of a colleague of mine. By the end of their first year, they have created an unenviable record for themselves as the class with the highest rate off gossip, character assassination and the lowest of grades. It is a class where only one student is a four-pointer (according to their lore: because her husband bribes lecturers to give her good grades); no other above 3.5 CGPA; about three or four dilly-dallying above...

Posted: January 21, 2013 - 22:37 Okey Ndibe Columnist:    Okey Ndibe As I approached an immigration officer at the Murtala Muhammed Airport on January 12, I had this sense that a now familiar routine – a brief detention by officials of the State Security Service (SSS) – was going to play out. It had happened during my last four passages through the Lagos airport. Yet, a part of me hoped that it would be different this time. I had had little sleep the two nights preceding my trip. To worsen matters, flying in on Delta Airlines from Atlanta, other passengers and I had endured a rather stressful flight. Our flight was scheduled to depart Atlanta at 11:50 p.m. and arrive in Lagos about 5 p.m. the next day. However, after the plane had taxied close to the runway, ready for take-off, the pilot announced that he’d caught some cockpit light that indicated there was an issue with the plane’s engine. He was going to return the plane to the hangar to enable mec...