Migration is not backward; it’s nature’s survival manual EVERY year, Nigeria becomes a busy airport for feathered travellers. Our international bird migration pathways include the West African flyway, where birds from Europe migrate south to winter in the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. Key sites like the Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands are their favourite rest stops—nature’s version of […]
BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE WE must teach our history. I cannot find any reason why Nigeria history is not being taught in Nigerian schools. This is a terrible mistake. What are we afraid of? Whose idea is it, that teaching Nigerian history will be unhealthy to our nation? This must be one of the mediocre […]
AWAY from a repertoire of depressing stories, Nigeria recently recorded some uplifting news. Before the euphoria of the Super Falcons’ 2024 WAFCON triumph could fade, the country had yet another reason to celebrate. The national basketball team, D’Tigress, claimed their fifth consecutive FIBA Women’s AfroBasket title, decisively defeating Mali 78–64 in Rabat, Morocco. Around the […]
BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE THE person who cries loudest when a stone is thrown into the market is the one who has been hit. To him, everything is about tribal affiliation. For someone to grow, he or she must at some point learn whether his interaction is positive or negative with the people around him […]
By PAMELA OLSON EARLIER this month Ezra Klein interviewed an internationally respected expert in war crimes and genocide, Phillippe Sands. It’s a good discussion but was hard for me to listen through. It’s painful to contemplate all the people I know who are ‘Gaza denialists.’ One of them, a rabbi, is an acquaintance […]
BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE IT takes time to form a country. It takes patience and dedication to change attitudes. When people from disparate places and cultures are brought together to form a Nation, it is never easy. In the long run, the tears and toil are worth it because the interactions lead to expansion of […]
ALARM bells have been ringing from environmental authorities, over the likelihood of flooding from this year’s heavy rainfalls. They are urging citizens to evacuate from flood plains and for public agencies to redouble their efforts in forestalling the disaster before it occurs. In this context, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has put a lot of states […]
Nigeria has raised passport fees again — barely a year after the last hike — deepening concerns about access, mobility, and Nigerians’ place in global citizenship. THE Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) announced that starting 1 September 2025, a standard 32-page Nigerian passport valid for five years will cost ₦100,000, and a 64-page passport with 10-year validity would cost […]
THE considered vote of confidence passed on the economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, two notable finance and economy persons, no doubt is a big morale booster to the government. Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), recently said Nigeria’s two-year-old reforms are restoring […]
BY DR AUSTIN ORETTE THE more things look different, the higher the chances of finding similarities if we look closely. Those at the opposite end of the spectrum are mirror images. If we move too quickly, we are subjected to the parallax effect where everything is moving except us. In this scenario, we are not […]