As the time slated for the upcoming elections draws inexorably closer, politicians and their supporters are doing all they can to ensure victory at the polls. Expectedly, the major focus is on the presidential elections, because whoever is elected President automatically becomes the highest political office holder in the country. That is not to say that other political offices, such as those of the governor and membership of the legislature, are unimportant.

The difference between the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran, therefore, is not that the former does not contain belligerent injunctions while the latter does. Generally, Christians seem more benign than Muslims now mainly because for centuries philosophers and intellectuals some of whom were devout Christians subjected Christianity to severe criticism from every possible angle, thereby exposing its weaknesses and irrationalities.

Largely, I am not the kind of person that sheds tears easily. Therefore, I cannot remember the last time I cried – really cried. But on the morning of penultimate Thursday, something quite unexpected happened to me.

Already, the year 2015 is up and running. All over the world, people are trying to get themselves together after the razzmatazz of Christmas and Near Year celebrations. Because of unnecessary extravagant spending associated with the festivities, many families find themselves deep in debt at the beginning of the year, just when the time for paying school fees, house rent etc was due.

In The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, Michael Biagent et al comment that it is on the strength of Mark’s account that the notion of Jesus’ humble family background originated. That said, it is clear that the two genealogies are so strikingly dissimilar that they might well be referring to two different individuals.

The purported birth of Jesus of Nazareth, commemorated every December 25 as Charismas, is the most popular religious celebration in the world. Even in non-Christian countries such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey and Iran, reverberations of Christmas are unmistakable.

Ever since the deceased iconic novelist, Chinua Achebe, wrote the little monograph entitled The Trouble with Nigeria, it has become fashionable to blame Nigerian leaders for all the hydra-headed manmade problems of the country. Indeed, he was unsparing in his acerbic criticisms of respected politicians, including Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo, for errors of judgment as political leaders.

Successful democratic practice requires wide diffusion of two seemingly conflicting qualities in the citizens, particularly among politicians. On the one hand, the citizens must cultivate an appreciable degree of intellectual self-reliance and willingness to back their own judgment with good reasons inspite of opposition. On the other, they must be prepared to submit to the decision of the majority even when it goes against them. These two dispositions, according to Bertrand Russell, may appear inconsistent at first glance. But they are important for the degree of commitment and tolerance needed for democracy to work.

In the last series of articles of this column, I tried, albeit briefly, to determine the electability of two major frontrunners in next year’s presidential elections, namely, President Goodluck E. Jonathan and former military head of state, Muhammadu Buhari. From the analysis, I concluded that despite the egregious failings of the incumbent President and the anti-corruption reputation of Buhari, Jonathan who has been chosen by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as its presidential candidate will defeat Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015 if the latter emerges as APC’s presidential flag bearer. That conclusion flows from two undeniable facts.

The people who drafted the constitution apparently did not envisage that a Vice-President who takes over after a President had died in office and who subsequently gets elected on his own merit might wish to contest for a second term.

By Douglas Anele In my estimation, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former military President, Ibrahim Babangida and President Goodluck Jonathan are three of the luckiest prominent Nigerians alive today. For one thing, they came from very humble backgrounds and rose to occupy the highest political office in the country, not because they really merited it but because […]

In otherwords, when people claim they have received a miracle in one form or another, a sufficient number of critical and well-educated people of trustworthy character and good sense to occlude the possibility of deliberate deception invariably dispute such claims – and for good reasons too, because appearances do not always reflect reality. Human beings, especially in underdeveloped communities where majority of the population are poor and undereducated cling dogmatically to the teachings of Holy Scriptures concerning miracles, even when the phenomena in question are amenable to scientific explanation.

Since human beings invented religion thousands of years ago, the belief in miracles, that is, in acts of God which contravene natural laws governing phenomena, has been a leitmotiv in the architectonic of religious consciousness.

Nevertheless, the key issue is that, as chairman of PTF, the buck stopped on his table, which means that (1) it was his duty to make sure that funds allocated to the trust fund were used judiciously, and (2) he must ensure that any of his staff and contractors guilty of financial malfeasance faced justice. On both counts, Buhari was unsuccessful, which implies that he may not be able to fight high-octane corruption effectively if he becomes President in 2015.

The emergence of All Progressives Congress (APC) after the 2011 presidential elections was considered by many Nigerians fed up with the mediocre performance of the federal government as a great opportunity for credible opposition to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP.