Author: Matthew Hassan Kukah

First, let me congratulate the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, all his staff and the Members of the National Assembly Committees on INEC for re-enkindling our hope in the building of our Democracy. The passage of the Bill to enable INEC transmit election results electronically both the House and the Senate is worthy of celebration. It seems a simple and straight forward activity. However, this is Nigeria where nothing is ever simple or straight forward. I am hopeful that President Muhammad Buhari will go ahead and sign the Bill into Law immediately. In doing…

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1: From its inception as an independent nation, Nigeria has remained a volatile country. Home to almost two hundred million people communicating in over five hundred tongues, Nigeria remains one of the most enigmatic pieces of God’s real estate on earth. Running, stumbling but never fatally falling except for a brief civil war, she is home to one out of five black people on earth. Highly resourced, but endemically corrupt, a combination of serious governance missteps, series of military coups, years of maladministration, a culture of violence have seriously slowed down what should have been one of the greatest nations on earth.…

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Homily at the Christian Wake of Late Rev. Fr. Alphonsus Bello Yashim at Our Lady of Apostles’ Catholic Church, Independent Way, Kaduna (31st May, 2021). 1: I guess most of us will be shocked to think that God can ask anything of us. Asking presupposes a level of helplessness, a need or a want, an inadequacy, a lack of adequate knowledge. You ask because you don’t have and the one asking negotiates from a position of relative weakness. You ask for road directions or how to fill a form because you are ignorant. It was the late Chief Abiola who…

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First, let me apologise to the reader over the length of this Essay but it is very necessary for our records. It is difficult to say how many poor, ignorant or even educated Christians, within and without the Christian community would have been fooled by the trash concocted by a man who claims to have a Ph.D by the name of Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe. It is unclear who may have encouraged, inspired or sponsored him to write such a despicable piece. However, for a man who claims to be in the History Department of a prestigious institute like the revered…

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Easter Message:  If a religious leader is afraid to say what is right, what else can his silence mean but that he has taken flight? Hiding behind a wall of silence is like taking flight at the approach of the wolf. Pope St. Gregory the Great (540–604 AD) 1: Easter Sunday is here again. But first, let us step back to Friday. Good Friday was a Kairos moment for the beleaguered followers of Jesus, a defining moment that separated truth from falsehood and light from darkness. At Golgotha, Jesusremained silent when the first thief taunted Him, and whenbystanders scornfully asked…

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Yes, you are right, the title for his article draws inspiration from Phil Collins’ song titled, “What Happened On the Way To Heaven?” The almajiri and his spiritual father, the mallam, are now the poster persons of all that is negative in the face of Islam in northern Nigeria. The life of the almajiri is supposed to be a spiritual journey of nurturing and knowledge acquisition, guided by a mallam, his spiritual foster father. Today, all of this is now besmirched. In his song, Phil Collins asked: ‘How can something so good go so bad? How can something so right…

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