Colonel Muamar Ghadaffi, the leader of Libya, is a well-known figure in Africa and the world. He is one of the world’s longest reigning heads of state, having ruled his country for over three decades.

What further proof of incompetence against the former Co-ordinator of NAPEP does one need if he could not produce contract documents signed before he assumed office and did not alert the relevant law enforcement agencies, including the EFCC , when he searched in vain for them?

The title of our essay today appears contradictory or, at best, puzzling. How is it possible that something changes and still remains the same, when the very idea of change entails that that which has changed cannot be the same thing again? We know that reality, in all its diverse manifestations, is subject to flux.

In the unfolding charade relating to the appropriate power equation now that the President is incapacitated, the word ‘loyalty’ has become a victim of monstrous panel beating and misinterpretations. People talk as if loyalty is an end itself, not a means to a higher purpose that renders it meaningful.

The secrecy in conducting government’s business, the convenient option of hiding under the cloak of collective cabinet responsibility, are attempts by those who wish to alienate the people from the officials whose decisions affect their lives profoundly, those who want to bury their individuality in the anonymous crowd. It is a deadening aspect of intoxicating power of power which have wreaked untold havoc in different human societies throughout histiory.

The word ‘intoxicant’ means an intoxicating agent. It is derived from the verb ‘intoxicate,’ which stands for “ to make drunk: to excite to enthusiasm or madness; to elate excessively.”

The world with the greatest excess of good over evil is the best. God could have created a world in which evil is non-existent,but it would not have been as good as the actual world. The teleological aspect of Leibniz’s theory is that God has a purpose for creating the real world: to establish the best of all possible worlds.

How can finite and fallible creatures like us ever learn to see things sub specie aeternitatis? No human being, including Spinoza himself, can achieve that impossible feat. Gottfried Leibniz, a German thinker, says that there are three types of evil, viz, metaphysical evil, physical evil and moral evil. Metaphysical is integral to the finitude or imperfections of creatures.

In African traditional religion, evil in the form of calamities and misfortunes, is almost always traced to supernatural causes. It is considered as punishment from the spiritual realm for committing what the Igbo call nso ala or abomination.

While in the village, I interacted with my relations who I had not seen for sometime. We had meetings where vital issues relating to how to improve my kindred, Umuokwara,was discussed.

The Yuletide celebrations have just ended, with the usual aftermaths, trailing them. Whether one is a Christian or nonchristian, Christmas is a period of frenetic activity and high expectations, great hopes and disappointments, increase in all manner of vices and road accidents.

AFTER all, a day, including each of the “three special days,” is 24 hours, made up of morning, afternoon and night. As the ancient Greek philosopher, Protagoras of Abdera, aptly remarked, “man is the measure of all things, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.”

A LARGE percentage of the new churches are disguised business ventures. But because of material poverty, intellectual cowardice and inability to genuinely appreciate the existential implications of the cosmic insignificance of human life here on earth, most Christians believe that by giving to the pastor, by giving to the church, they are really acting in accordance with the divine will, forgetting that no one knows the divine will for sure.

In this essay, I argue that Christmas has become a useless social fad which should be allowed to die out because it has progressively degenerated into a period for indulging and celebrating the grossest attributes of the human species – greed, avarice, licentious living, debauchery and spiritual self-abnegation.

ASUU should focus more on emolument at the entry point into the profession, rather than concentrating too much attention on professorial salaries. In as much as there are good reasons for drawing attention to the inadequate wages of the highest academic rank in the system, I believe it is even more crucial to call attention to the paltry salaries paid to graduate assistants and assistant lecturers at the starting point of the academic career.