Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like putting yeast in a large portion of dough. (Matthew 13:33).  While pastors with limited understanding of kingdom dynamics see this yeast as beneficial on the grounds that it is designed to promote the rapid numerical growth of the church; those with better insight see it as spiritually counter-productive precisely because it leads to the exponential growth of the church

When in April 19, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was crowned Pope Benedict XVI after the death of much-beloved Pope John Paul II, observant followers of events in Vatican City knew that the new pontiff had a lot on his plate. To start with, the Pope himself was well aware that he had to work extra hard to match, and if possible surpass, the achievements of his predecessor who was selected despite criticism from some disgruntled highly-placed Italian Catholics opposed to the election of a non-Italian Pope.

The last time I spoke with my brother, Joe on phone, he wondered how my weekly column is always able to follow with ease, the ‘goings-on’ in Nigeria when I am hardly in the country these days. What my brother did not immediately appreciate is that people abroad do not need to spend too much time searching for Nigerian events or indeed what the details are. A few minutes of “browsing” will expose the typical issues and because Nigerian matters take the same pattern all the time, any analyst can easily fill in whatever gaps there are.

Housing is very vital to the human life; for without it, we are no better than the animals whose roof is the sky. Sadly, the sky has become a roof for many city-dwellers in our country, so to say, as homeless people of all ages sleep under the bridges, in market places, in uncompleted buildings, on pavements, and slabs on the roadside. How did Nigerians, particularly those from areas noted for their pride of their ethnic group, family and roots, get to this deplorable situation? Population explosion, mass migration to the urban areas, loss of jobs and consequently of rented premises, all contribute to this.

I have been long troubled at the level of violence and casualties in the senseless waste of human lives in the last couple of years. There is a big elephant in the room and it seems the elephant in the room is getting so large and yet no one seems to want to talk about it! This big elephant that no one dare speaks its name is Boko Haram.

At a time when many young people are frustrated over their inability to find jobs, 25 year old Mrs. Omotola Aderonke Teriba Abdul, a graduate of Mass Communication, created her dream job for herself. She’s the CEO of Hardey’s Make-Over and Bridal Aso-Oke in Lagos. In a recent encounter with Vista Woman, she shared her passion for creativity and love for business, while also revealing meeting her heartthrob, another embodiment of creativity, with whom she finally tied the knot late last year. Excerpts:

Language is the best tool of communication and it comes in many diverse tongues. In the world we now live in, English is the language most widely spoken and if all the manuals and language set ups of most gadgets are to be believed, there are quite a few versions; some a lot more different than that spoken by the Queen of England who is the confirmed custodian of the english language. I love the inflections and accents of the other latin languages in English.

The room tensed up; breathing momentarily seized and not a few hands flew to cover gaping mouths.

The forthcoming Police Games recalls the role of the police force in our sports development.

MY 17-year-old son, Oliver, warned me to never, ever write about him again nearly two years ago.

One of the questions I was asked when I came back to Nigeria was, “who was your favourite Eagle?”

If we accept the simplistic description of democracy as a government of the people by the people for the people, then, there should be room for a multi-party arrangement. We should accept Thomas Hodgkin’s definition of political parties as, “all organizations which regard themselves as parties and which are so generally regarded.”

EVERY beginning, no matter how small, is difficult. That explains why our generation has aptly been described as the era of cruel and unusual punishment; and the age of torture. Everything we had came the hard way.

FIRST, they lied to us. Then, they owned up. We waited for their apologies but got none

LAST Sunday evening, Nigeria’s nomenclatura gathered inside the Banquet Hall of the Aso Villa, to celebrate one of the wonders of modern Nigeria; the return from death of First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. It was a solemn spiritual event; a power show; a fashion statement extraordinaire and a political gathering, all rolled into one.