HOW we can liberate the 82 million Nigerians trapped under the poverty line, was the task I was given by the Wilson Badejo Foundation, WBF. So on August 13, at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, NIIA, Lagos, I stood before a packed audience. This included Dr Wilson Adebogun Badejo, the immediate past general overseer of the Four Square Church, his successor, Reverend Felix Meduoye, the church’s in-coming general overseer, Reverend Sam Aboyeji and many men and women of God.

NIGERIANS, and indeed Africans may not be jubilating as Syria, Tuesday, moved towards ending its civil war. It took a firm grip of the Idlib Province eliminating terrorists, including those of the al Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIS and forcing the remnants to flee. We are not ecstatic because we do not readily make the link between the terrorists being eliminated in Syria and those terrorising African countries like Mali and Somalia.

INDIAN films from Bollywood were the mainstay of the movie industry in Nigeria far outstripping American Hollywood. That was long before the Nigeria Nollywood made its entrance. Those were the days of famous Indian actors like Dharmendra, Prem Chopra, Feroz Khan, Hema Malini, Helen, Shashi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna who produced mega-hits like  Sholay, Love in Tokyo and Jugnu.

YEMEN was the most developed part of the Arab region about 630 AD when Prophet Mohammed (SAW) sent his cousin Ali to its capital Sana’a. Today, it is not only the poorest in the region but perhaps the most devastated and certainly, the deadliest place on earth.

PUBLIC protest,  like police bail, is ‘free.’ In fact, the police are obliged to provide security for peaceful protesters. However, the line between being provided such security and being charged with terrorism or treason for the same public protest depends on nomenclature.