Babatee my car painter and the Automedics crew, especially Sly, Gbola Oba, Manager, Kunle (the Big Boss) – you ensured that my vehicle remained in top condition throughout last year, thank you very much. Fateye Asodun and Rotimi Omosulu (up and coming scholar), Jude Nwankwo, Dennis Otto, Lugard, Matthew, Igwe, Ojo, Mrs Taiwo and the non-academic staff in Philosophy – I really appreciate your assistance.

Man (in the sense in which it includes woman of course) has been characterised in different ways by philosophers since antiquity. For example, man is said to be a homo faber, homo economicus, homo politicus, and homo sapiens.

It is well-known to New Testament scholars that questions concerning the historical existence of the person named Jesus of Nazareth are far from settled. Still Christian religious apologists, from the Pope to pastors of Pentecostal churches, behave as if the gospels’ are true beyond reasonable doubt. A few Christian denominations do not celebrate the supposed birthday of Jesus on 25th of December.

When Obama was elected in 2008, his scalp was covered with black hair and there were few lines on his forehead. Now, four years later, Obama has aged somewhat. Although the American President still retains his lean boyish handsomeness, his scalp is greyer and there are more lines on his face.

If any set of three words captures the basic tenor or characteristic of Nigeria’s ruling elite and the generality of Nigerians, the ones that constitute the title of our discourse today are “spot on,” as the Americans would say.

Philosophers,from antiquity to the present, have attempted to elucidate abstractly the notion of time.However, advancement in the specialised sciences such as physics and mathematics has vastly improved our understanding and measurement of time as an empirical concept.

Hence, if members of any other ethnic nationality living in defunct Eastern region were murdered with reckless abandon by Ndigbo, as the latter were killed in 1966, the murderers deserve punishment and the victims have a right to defend themselves.

These include the problem of constructing a viable Nigerian nation based on justice, equity and fairness for all ethnic nationalities, post-war deliberate depredation and exclusion of the Igbo and Igbo heartland from the commanding heights of national politics, the economy and infrastructural development by successive administrations at the centre, and the question of proper restitution for atrocities committed during the war against Biafrans by the Nigerian army.

From the foregoing, it can be inferred that acts of extreme sadism, especially the type manifested by those who actually brutalized and killed the four undergraduates and the mob that cheered them on, are the result of deep-seated alienation and psychic malfunctioning which stem from skewed individual character and sadistic social environment.

That Nigeria is in deep crisis right now is a big understatement: the country is actually drifting into a black hole of existential abyss from which she might never escape. In fact, abnormality is becoming the “new normal” to the extent that universal standards of civilised behaviour are almost passé.