Opinion

By Kenneth Ikonne I like Mr Dele Farotimi, his courage, forthrightness and pan-Nigerian views. But anyone with a basic understanding of the principles of the law of libel will concede that Mr Farotimi is in hot soup, and that there might be nothing untoward in his arraignment in a Magistrate Court in Ekiti State on charges of criminally defaming foremost lawyer, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN)! The courts in Ekiti State have jurisdiction to try criminal defamation, and all that the prosecution has to do to secure a conviction is to field one witness who will testify that the defamatory matter in the book was “published” to him in Ekiti, and that he read it in Ekiti, and thought the least of the eminent lawyer afterwards. Publication in this instance occurs when the book, put out for sale by...

OPINION By Peter Ameh Concerns are heated up in the media and political space over the arrest of Dele Farotimi and a purported invasion of his law Firm and harassment of lawyers and staff within the premises by alleged members of the Nigeria Police force. As at the time of making this statement, Dele Farotimi have been arraigned on a 16 count charge for alleged Defamation and Cybercrimes before a Magistrate Court sitting in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, and upon arraignment having pleaded not guilty to the charges, he was denied bail and remanded in prison custody in Ekiti state. This goes to show a steep level of decadence in the operations of our modern day democracy. Issues surrounding the said arrest are not farfetched. The unsavory action having been activated by a petition against...

OPINION BY TONNIE IREDIA According to Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999,”every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.” To underscore the importance of this right, the constitution further expands the empowerment beyond private discussions by recognizing the use of the media to effect communication across the globe by anyone desirous of consummating the freedom of speech provided by the section. Hence, Section 39(2) explicitly empowers citizens to “own, establish and operate any medium for the dissemination of information, ideas and opinions.”It is perhaps to avoid the misuse of this powerful right, that Nigeria also has a law of defa...

OPINION By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu PAUL Anyebe was a judge of the High Court of Benue State in north-central Nigeria who had a young son with sticky fingers and a sense of adventure  It was his role as a dad that endangered his job as a judge.  One night around 1983, Anyebe caught his son attempting to steal from his bedroom. In response, Anyebe pulled his gun in an effort to scare the boy. The gun went off, discharging a bullet which hit and seriously injured the boy. The Attorney-General of Benue State decided to prosecute Paul Anyebe for attempted murder. The Penal Code applicable in Benue State at the time had ample provisions for the crime of attempted murder.  The Attorney-General also added a charge of illegal possession of firearms, a federal offence. Unlik...

OPINION By Azu Ishiekwene I was watching the evening news on Monday night when two presenters used a word at different times that jolted me. I’ve heard and seen that word used often, especially by millennials and Gen Z, but I didn’t entirely pay heed because they were mostly in informal settings.  Anyways – I meant to write, anyway – I was jolted to hear that word, anyways, twice from two TV presenters on different programmes on the same station just minutes apart! My Use of English teachers would have beaten the straying “s” out of me if I had used that word even in error.  But that was at another time, before young adults invented more new words and other tokens of social expression, including memes and abbreviations, than at any other time in recent lexical history...

Image courtesy: Realnews OPINION By Paul Ejime WHEN the news filtered in on Saturday, November 28th, 2024, that Prince Yormie Johnson, Liberia’s professed “President,” “Field Marshal,” “General,” and warlord-turned-politician, had died at the age of 72, many took it for a fluke based on similar reports in the past, including in Nigeria, where he spent some time during his country’s civil war. Charles Taylor, Johnson’s fellow warlord and ally-turned-enemy. once told the world that he had killed Johnson, which proved untrue. Reports of Johnson’s death this time cited a domestic accident. It was said that he slipped in his bathroom and later died in a hospital in Paynesville, Montserrado – a tragic irony for a man who killed and supervised the killings of many during the war. A...

OPINION By Abiodun KOMOLAFE THERE has been another addition to President Bola Tinubu’s media team. The president has also restructured his media team in a bid to “enhance efficiency within the government’s communication machinery.” Thanks be to God! Well, we are not here to look into the costs and benefits of this new addition at a time when Nigerians are clamouring for a review of the cost of the machinery of the government and the implementation of the Oronsaye Report on the cost of governance. Our focus is on the strategic relationship between government and citizens, as explored in ‘Media, democracy and the public interest’. Politics, as Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci noted, involves shifting the territory of discourse to advance one’s project. In a...

Image credit: Marca By Ali Elias Would the world come to an end? Will it? Or is this one smoke without fire? My answer is, yes. An emphatic yes. It will come to an end. When? I can’t posit that exactly; and nobody can. But read on, and you may discover some information worthy of consideration. This article is a response to the one we published earlier,” countdown to apocalypse, NASA validate Hawkins chilling prediction for Earth's demise”. Considering Hawkins' viewpoint, let's approach it differently. The cyclical flow of time or the cycles of life. Paul Twitchell had this to say about cycles of time "the doctrine of cycles is built upon the same universal principle governing the functions of the universal laws which operates through an infinite series of wheels ...

OPINION By Ike Abonyi  “ _FOR unity to be meaningful it has to be creative, not the unity of Jonah in the whale but the unity of holy matrimony. The first can only lead to defecation, the second to procreation.”-_ Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. In 1989 the late Biafra hero, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu authored a book titled ‘Because I am Involved?’ which sold like a hot cake as not a few rushed to buy it wanting to read the Biafra story from the main character in the war but they all got disappointed that the war hero was in an amorous not in a war mood while writing the book. The book was all about his love for Bianca Onoh, a multiple beauty Queen and daughter of the former Governor of Enugu state, Christian Chukwuma Onoh, popularly known as C.O.Onoh, who he was to marry l...

Dear General Yakubu Gowon. You spoke to the Daily Trust on Saturday, October 19, 2024. The rare interview, conducted by Andrew Agbese and Isiaka Wakili, marked your 90th birthday anniversary. In it, you celebrated revisionism and claimed things that were not backed by evidence. This open letter is to point out and correct your horrendous amputations of contemporary Nigerian history. It is a necessary exercise because, as your Christian faith commands and as your fellow Christians profess, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32. Your interviewers asked this question: “You are committed to Nigeria’s unity; how did you take it when the civil war broke out?” You gave a long-winded answer that portrayed you as an all-time champion of national unity. But, ...