iPostThisWeek

Nigeria’s poorest citizens are locked in a silent contest of survival against two very different but equally destructive forces. On one side stand the unregulated pastoralists whose cattle roam freely into farmlands. On the other side stand the political elites: governors, commissioners, and agencies, who bulldoze homes and seize ancestral lands in the name of industrialization, road expansion, and “development.” One group carries sticks and machetes: the other carries constitutions, bulldozers, and state power. Yet the outcome for the poor is strikingly similar: dispossession, hunger, and despair. The Pastoralist Problem: When Cattle Become Weapons Across many rural communities, herders release their cattle into farmlands as though the crops were planted for the animals. Maize, cassava, rice, yam leaves, legumes, everything becomes fodder. These are not just crops; they are the lifeline of families who depend on them for food, school fees, and survival. Humans eat crops. Human...

Introduction History is humanity’s compass. It points to the present, warns of danger, and protects the future. Every society that has risen from chaos to stability has done so by remembering, by holding its past close enough to learn from it, yet far enough to transcend it. But what happens when a nation forgets? When memory is not merely lost but buried? When the past is not a teacher but a corpse? The present becomes hollow, and the future becomes a casualty. Nigeria today is a living example of what it means for a people to exist without memory. It is a nation where remembrance has been wiped out, where collective experience has been cleansed, where lessons once learned are now discarded like waste. Nigeria’s absurdity is not accidental; it is the predictable outcome of a society that refuses to be informed by its own history. The Paradox of a People Who Kill the Past and Bury the Future The title of this essay carries a deliberate paradox: Nigeria’s present buries the past...

Introduction “Ebela m akwa ụwa” meaning I have cried about my world is more than a song. It is a lament, a confession, a spiritual mirror held up to the human condition. When the Oriental Brothers released this highlife classic, they were not merely entertaining; they were interpreting life. They were naming the ache of existence, the fragility of fortune, and the inevitability of accountability before God. The song’s central metaphor, the world as a marketplace is one of the oldest in Igbo cosmology. Life is a temporary market trip; no matter how long you stay, you must eventually pack your wares and return home. And when you do, you stand before the One who sent you. In today’s Nigeria, this metaphor feels painfully relevant. The poor cry about their world because their world has become unbearably heavy. Political instability, economic hardship, social fragmentation, and religious manipulation have turned daily survival into a spiritual trial. This essay draws from the song’...

Introduction The word viaticum carries a double resonance: one literary, one theological. In Birago Diop’s poem Viaticum , a mother prepares her child for the journey into life. She marks the child with ritual gestures, invokes the breath of the ancestors, and sends them forth with the assurance that they are not alone. It is a poetic initiation, a covenant of protection. … With her three fingers red with blood, with dog’s blood, with bull’s blood, with goat’s blood, Mother touched me three times…. Then Mother said, ‘Go into the world, go! They will follow your steps in life.’… In Catholic tradition, viaticum refers to the final sacrament given to the dying, “food for the journey.” It is the Church’s way of saying: You will not walk this last road alone. We will accompany you with prayers, Holy Communion, tenderness and dignity. Both meanings converge on a profound truth: A community that cares prepares its people for the journey: whether into life or out of it. ...

Diana Ross's lyric phrases in her album Upside Down : “Upside ‑ down, … inside ‑ out … round and round ” , reflects Nigeria's national mood shaped by years of corruption and misgovernance. It captures a condition. A lived experience. It mirrors the dizzying spin that Nigerians have been forced into by decades of corruption, misgovernance, and institutional decay. Nigeria’s leaders have not merely failed; they have inverted the very logic of governance. What should lift the people up has instead turned them upside‑down. What should stabilize their lives has twisted them inside‑out. And what should move the nation forward has left citizens running “round and round” in circles: exhausted, disoriented, and unsure of where the next step leads. A Nation in Perpetual Spin Corruption in Nigeria is not an occasional misstep; it is a system, a culture, a rhythm that plays on loop. According to Transparency International, Nigeria ranks among the top quarter of the most corrupt coun...