RiverNaija

I went from my mentor’s place straight to the bookshop to pick the two books he recommended and I ensured that I read the relevant chapters before my next appointment with him. I was with my mentor the following Saturday. He had left instructions that I join him in his study. Once he sighted me, his first statement was if I had read the books he recommended. When I answered in the affirmative, he then adjusted his seat and started the lesson without wasting any time. I noticed that he had written another scripture on the board which I later confirmed was picked from Mathew 9:17 in the Christian Bible. The scripture reads: “No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on a old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskin, or else the wineskin breaks, the wine is spilled and the wineskin is ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskin, and both are preserved.” “Since you have digested the relevant portion of the...

For many years I worked in palliative care, and my patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared and I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them. When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five: 1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfi...

The Nigerian praying system enthrones a prosperous church while the nation is in a state of backwardness. Some prayer warriors of Nigerian extraction have effectively prayed self out of poverty, lack, sickness, madness, infertility etc while the nation is still backwards, sliding deep into, poverty, insecurity, inequality, injustice and despair. This is the mystery of Nigeria prayer system- some individuals are prosperous while the nation is backward. The earlier article ‘’Hypocrites as prayer warriors: How can God heal Nigeria?1 & 2’’ laid the foundation for the discussion and attempts to distinguish between personal prayers and corporate prayers . The principles of corporate prayers, prayers for nations, cities, villages emphasizes that the prayer warrior must stand on the path of equity. Any prayer against corrupt public officials cannot work if those praying have the same corrupt tendencies exhibited by those they want to replace. A lot of prayer warriors have been given divi...

If you thought the age of a gloomy UK economy was coming to an end, think again. A slow and subdued economic recovery was the key message delivered by Bank of England governor Mervyn King when he presented the latest Inflation Report on Wednesday . As King embarks on his last year as governor (he retires next year ) he has dropped the niceties and is willing to face the facts straight on. At this press conference he virtually admitted that the UK’s economy is dismal , he doesn’t know when it will get better and the tools the Bank has been using since the financial crisis began four years ago have not been working. The BoE’s growth forecasts for the next two years have been cut dramatically: The original estimate that growth could be as high as 4% next year has been scrapped; it is more likely that growth will expand at a fairly dismal 1% a year for the next two years. However, even that low rate of growth could be optimistic. So why does our economy keep failing to recover? King ...

Hosea 4:7-9 New King James Version (NKJV) 7 “The more they increased, The more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame. 8 They eat up the sin of My people; They set their heart on their iniquity. 9 And it shall be: like people, like priest. So I will punish them for their ways, And reward them for their deeds. There has been a lot of tittle-tattle lately as well as so many discordant tunes on the propriety or otherwise of jets and gifts to pastors and men of God. The debates have been loud and raucous with so many people speaking from a position of little or no information. A lot of emotive vibes and outrage, for or against the perceived or real manipulations by men who supposedly have been given charge over the souls of millions, has become public fodder. Everyone appears to be venting their spleen wherever you turn. But what exactly should we do or say? Supporters of ostentatious and obviously manipulative men of the cloak are quick to put the critics in ch...

EDDIE IROH, Email: eddie.iroh@thisdaylive.com Before I say another word in this article, let me quickly state that I have already put my neck on the chopping block for the guillotine, slipped a hangman’s noose round my neck, and tied myself to the stake ready for the firing squad. I say this in acknowledgement of the fact that when you dare to raise issues with a Nigerian’s religion, ethnic group or political allegiance, however valid your facts or the argument, you might as well be ready for all of the above. For when issues pertaining to these arise, you quickly realise that the Nigerian person is probably the most emotive of all of God’s creations. As even the celebrated Chinua Achebe has recently found to his probable chagrin with the publication of his new book, even the “well educated” and “learned” Nigerian throws intellect out of the window, opens the door wide for primordial sentiments and, quite pitifully, he or she will not provide a superior argument to thump yours. V...

By Femi Aribisala The riches and glories of this world are counterfeit. If we were to ask Christians what Jesus saves us from, many would say we are saved from the torments of hell. However, the hell Jesus spoke about is a real place called Gehenna; a valley outside Jerusalem where apostate Israelites sacrificed their children to idol gods, which later became a rubbish dump where criminals were burnt alive. Thus, while the hell Jesus spoke about was well-known to the Jews, it is entirely imaginary to us. The hell we know today is in this world. Hell is Nigeria; where armed-robbery and kidnapping is rampant; and the Boko Haram increasingly blows up the innocent. Hell is Norway; where Anders Breivik massacred nearly one hundred people in cold-blood. Hell is Germany; where millions of Jews were gassed to death. Hell is the United States; which routinely rains down “shock-and-awe” bombs on non-Americans; including Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans. Hell is in every home; every neigbour...

By C. K. Ekeke, M. Div., Ph.D.        Nigeria’s wealthiest pastor, Bishop David Oyedepo is in the news again – this time in the United Kingdom. Sadly for him, Britain is not Nigeria, where the corrupt courts absolved him of all wrong doings, his abuses and violence against a young worshiper of his church at Winner Chapel – aka “Cananland” It was the video of his satanic slap of a young girl, probably an uneducated parishioner, who didn’t know how best to express her love and witness for Jesus, that exposed the abuse and muddled message that is being promulgated by the bishop to his gullible and biblical ignorant followers. Since then, I have penned a couple of articles calling on the federal government intervention to enact laws and policies to checkmate abuses - physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and moral abuses in places of worship in the nation in order to protect the vulnerable. I’m not too concerned about the learned and intelligent parishi...

By Dr Lade Adunbi Nigeria is in a state of rot. A rot caused by being held hostage by a cabal that is bent on destroying the country. A lens through which to see Nigeria is that of a sick person who suddenly found himself in a hospital. At the hospital, he was given wrong diagnoses and of course wrong prescription. Each time the patient takes his medication, his condition keeps getting worse and the physician keeps conducting tests upon tests without the patient realizing that the physician is actually not a trained physician but a fraudster parading himself as one. This is the situation in which Nigeria, a country rich in human and natural resources has found herself today. In spite of the abundance of those with the right expertise to tackle Nigeria’s problems, the cabal that has held the country hostage will not allow Nigeria, the sick patient, to be treated by a trained physician. Until the patient frees himself from this fraudster, he will continue to fall sick while his peer...

Sometime in the late 1980s, I found myself studying inside Ahmadu Bello University Library. I love libraries. I particularly liked this one because it was well stocked compared to most libraries of universities in the Southern parts of Nigeria. At Ahmadu Bello University library, William Shakespeare, for instance, had three rows of book shelves dedicated to his works and works on his works. In the course of my peeping into books, I came across this book of poetry called, The Hallowed Men by T. S. Eliot. As I flipped through this book, I found few lines that have stayed with me ever since. I have quoted them to virtually anyone who had the misfortune of speaking to me for an hour or more. The lines go thus: Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow… I know that the shadow is important but I did not know how important it is until I saw the book called The Shadow Effect by Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and Marianne Williamson. This book writte...

What Lord Lugard thought about Nigerians "In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewellery. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of...

Written by Olufemi Adefolaju August 24, 2007 The man Harold Smith is not new in Nigerian history. He is one of the architects of colonial foundation that midwived Nigerian independence in 1960. I met him in a meeting three weeks ago where he opened up a bit about the lingering problem in Africa especially; Nigeria unbalanced protracted social political situations. We asked if he could make this known to the media. His response was “I am in my 80s now; I have agreed but in the past ‘they’ did not want me to say anything, but now I don’t want to go to my grave without telling the truth about the atrocities perpetrated in Africa by the colonialists. Brothers and sisters; on Ben TV last Thursday, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene before the independence. The Oxford University graduate had this to say about his role in Nigeria pre and after independence era. ‘Our agenda was to completely exploit Africa. Nigeria was my duty post. When we asses...

Society where you exist influences your character. Your personal circumstances, the people around you and the prevailing ideology within your environment informs the way you do things , the way you see things and in summary classifies your principle and the opinions you form about life. It is a known fact that Nigeria has produced so many negative characters due to the Nigerian misery molding machine; put in place by the people and their leaders. A lot has formed principles that are self destructive without knowing it. Pitifully these principles were formed in order to beat the agonies associated with living in Nigeria . Unfortunately every newly devised way of beating the grief riddled nation brings us very close to another undesired melancholy

The great minds of Africa have always been overwhelmed by the majority of the people whose minds run on low capacity. Regrettably, that minority cannot effect the needed change required to move Africa forward, because the       I Q handicapped majority will always hack down any idea of change, which of course their brains couldn’t assimilate; more so coming from just a handful of the African society. The majority will always carry the day. That is why Africa remains a dark continent. Please read up the travails of Patrice Lumumba.