Anambra’s guber race is on

IT is no secret that the political terrain in Edo State has taken the shape of a messy pile of cards with each passing day. With less than eight weeks to the governorship election, the ruling party and its opposition seem to be playing a game of Russian roulette within their own party structures, in a last jostle to secure the top job at Osadebey Avenue.

One may not name the names of those who, in attempts to prove Aribisala wrong in his “David did not kill Goliath” contestation; instead one may frown at their unacademic responses against academic papers like Aribisala’s. “Aribisala is a Satan.” How, really, is Aribisala a Satan? “Aribisala is Antichrist.” How is he Antichrist? This discourse, fighting against calling him names, seeks to prove him wrong.

The governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, recently deployed a militia of local hunters to hunt down “Fulani” herdsmen in reaction to a recent incident in Ikole Ekiti, where some local people were killed as a result of clashes between “Fulani” herders and the local agrarian community. I have been trying to follow the arguments of those supporting the governor’s reaction to this unfortunate – but avoidable – incident.

IN Nigeria today, Religion is always used for wrong reasons. We witnessed the OIC palaver of 1986 which nearly split our country in two, the religious riots in the old Kaduna State during which a number of churches were set ablaze and innocent lives were lost, the Sharia controversy in some states in the North in 2000 which also led to loss of human lives and harassment of the Christian minori-ty in those states, the subjection of Nigerians to noise pollution issuing from churches and mosques, the exploitation of religious differences by politicians who would do or say anything to get votes, the use of religion to justify the obviously politically motivated Boko Haram insurgency, to mention but these. Religion is once again in the news, this time in Osun State on the wearing of HIJAB.