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VERITATEM with Obadiah Mailafia
Angela’s ashes
I have always been an admirer of German culture and civilisation. I have visited Deutschland more times than I can recall.I have studied German history with assiduity from Leopold von Ranke to Friedrich Meinecke and Golo Mann.German…
Next Year in Jerusalem
The German Kaiser once asked his Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck:“Can you prove the existence of God?”Bismarck was supposed to have replied: “The Jews, your majesty. The Jews.”The return of the Jews to the Land of Promise after 2000 years of…
Israel as the start-up nation
Israel is a small country of 9 million, with a landmass of 20,22,145 km2 – about the size of Cross River State. Niger State, with a landmass of 76,363 km2, is more than 3 and a half times the size of Israel. Most of the country is desert,…
How Zamfara State is spearheading a renaissance in the North
Today, we welcome a Guest Columnist in the person of Sesugh Akume, a public policy analyst and businessman, who is offering his personal reflections on how Zamfara State is making progress in healing the wounds of a broken people.Until…
The Perils of being an economist
The year 2020 was a rather tumultuous one for the world economy. The spread of the novel coronavirus from the provincial city of Wuhan in China to the rest of the world was one of those Black Swan events that appear once in a century. By…
The Year of the Scorched Yams
When some of us were young, our country had the promise of greatness. We entertained the vision of a New Jerusalem. Today, it has become a dream deferred. There is a creeping, odious, despondency in the atmosphere. The collective zeitgeist…
How to kill, skin and bury a country
NOTHING lasts forever. Except true love as rhapsodised by the poets. Life has taught me that whatever you have to do, do it now and do it with all your might. You must strike while the iron is hot. Because you might never pass through this…
Remittances, diaspora and development
Early in the month, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeira (CBN), Godwin Emefiele announced a new directive on Diaspora remittances. The new directive allows all recipients of remittances to collect their funds in dollars. They are also…
The man on horseback and the better angels of our nature
Chief of Army Staff Lt.-General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, ably represented by Lt.-General Lamidi Adeosun; all protocols duly observed. I feel honoured to be invited as Keynote Speaker on this occasion of the Second Army Spiritual Warfare…
Did Gowon loot the Central Bank?
I love Nigeria. But there is a part of me, to echo the poet Rupert Brooke, that is forever England. Perhaps it’s on account of her medieval knights and Plantagenet troubadours; her baroque royal trumpets; her decency and manners;her poets…