Author: Obayomi Abiola Benjamin

I have been thinking lately why Nigeria has remained the way it is, despite her being one of the most religious countries in the world. We are a praying nation, and we have more churches and mosques than we have tertiary institutions in the country. Our towns and cities boasts of the finest and largest church auditoriums you would see around the world. A foreigner visiting Nigeria for the first time needs no stress in feeling the ambience of our religiosity. The signs are just everywhere! Our streets are filled with countless number of churches and mosques. But amidst this,…

When you look around the world today, and you see the spate of divorce here and there, there is no need for you to look further before arriving at the conclusion that most marriages are not healthy. When a marriage stays unhealthy for a long period of time, divorce is usually its final destination. Sometimes, you can view it from the angle of someone who had been sick and bedridden for a long time, the doctors and everyone had tried all they could to save such an individual, but in the end, the person died. Now, what many people witnessed…

I watched the terror attack at the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was really sad, like many the world over, that 50 persons, and many other innocent people had to pay the price for the harebrained attitude of a man who refused to increase his swathe of humanity. But I was consoled at the fact that the people in that country including top government officials rallied round the Muslim community in grief to console and reassure them that they were all in the despicable act together. I was impressed by the attitude of the country’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern.…

Followership is not Fanaticism! Followership is the capacity to follow a leader. Fanaticism on the other is marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion. But followership, on the other hand; means commitment to leadership. It means finding a leader and then devoting to them. Followership is not just being around a leader, it is commitment to that leader. You can hang around people and not learn anything from them. But you can’t be committed to someone and not learn from that person. Commitment has to do with focus. Your gaze is on that leader. You observe carefully and…

The relationship that God has with man is on the basis of three things: His Love for us, His Grace and His Righteousness. These three are foundational in the sense that they form the pillars upon which our relationship with God rests, and upon which we grow spiritually as well. LOVE God’s love towards us is not based on anything that we did but flows from who God is (1 John 4:7-8). From the very beginning, while we were yet in His loins, before He even made us in His very own image, He has loved us. In Jeremiah…

President Muhammadu Buhari’s utterances most times are like unguided missiles, which may wreck serious havoc on the entire nation, if care is not taken. I remember sometimes in 2011, he said if the elections were rigged, that baboons and dogs would be soaked in blood. Many people came out to say that Muhammadu Buhari did not mean that people would be soaked in blood and that it is just an idiomatic expression. Just in a recent interview with a CNN anchor, he said nobody can unseat him. The question being asked him was how would he take it if the…

There are times one wonders if Nigeria ever learn from its own history. In the book of Job 8:8 (ERV) in the Bible, it is written that “Ask those who are now old. Find out what their ancestors learned.” There is definitely something that history has to teach each and every one of us, either as an individual or as a group. One of the things you learn by making inquiries into the past is that it gives you the privilege, and the hindsight not to fall into the same errors those in the past fell into, and then pick…

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.” Proverbs 29:2 In some few days from now, Nigerians will be going into the polls to choose another leader who will guide the affairs of the nation for the next four years. One of the beauty of democracy as a system of government is that it allows the people to choose who they wants as their leader. It is not an imposition as it were, the people through their votes and the ballots; determines who leads them. And so, as much as we try to blame everything…

Bans waivers, commences clampdown on foreign vessels NNPC’s refineries record N137.5bn operational losses Nigerians may experience scarcity of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), better known as cooking gas, following the detention of NLNG Limited’s vessel by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) over alleged violation of the Cabotage Act, THISDAY has learnt. It was gathered that the detention of ‘MT Navigator Capricorn,’ the only vessel that supplies cooking gas to Nigeria’s domestic market, has created supply crisis, leading to a hike in the price of the product. The maritime regulator yesterday also said it had commenced clampdown on vessels…

A global property consultancy firm, Knight Frank, has released its inaugural Urban Futures report, which revealed that the affordable housing gap reached some $740 billion globally in 2018 with Amsterdam, Auckland and Hong Kong amongst the least affordable places to buy a home. According to the newly published Urban Futures report 2019, the affordable housing gap – as measured by the difference between house prices and income – increases due to limitations on supply, historical restrictions and a growing urban population. Urbanisation is the key trend leading to stretched affordability. Job prospects and increased wages are the major draw to…