Last week the often touted view that Nigerians are a resilient lot was made unassailable in far away Morocco as the Super Falcons Football Team which participated in Women African Cup of Nations Tournament gave vent to that hypothesis when the team came from despair having gone down by two goals in the first half to win the coveted cup by trouncing the Moroccan team at home with three goals all scored in the second half. The match ended 3-2 in favour of Nigeria, making the country the African champions for the 10th time in the always pulsating tournament. In…
Author: Ufok Ibekwe
Governor Umo Eno movement through Akwa Ibom’s fierce political game field is like a master horologist, his hands simultaneously adjusting the gears of history while calibrating the dial of tomorrow. He is no prisoner of the past, but its alchemist, distilling the bitter herbs of yesterday’s political feuds into healing balms for today’s wounds. In his governance, ancestral wisdom flows through modern pipelines, purifying the present’s turbid waters to irrigate the arid fields of an uncertain future. Eno is a man of the moment who operates in the perpetual now, laying bricks for shelters while blueprints for skyscrapers unfurl in…
On a political stage where the ghosts of past tumult are constant actor, the 10th Senate under the leadership of Godswill Akpabio has spent the past two years rewiring the National script pursuing not the thunder of high drama but the calculated quietude of stability. Since its inauguration in June 2023, the chamber has consciously cultivated an environment of political cohesion, eschewing the internal strife that has historically hobbled Nigerian legislatures. This achievement is not merely a political footnote but the foundational asset upon which a deliberate and ambitious economic reform agenda is being built. This period of uncommon stability…
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE: Psalm 137: 1-2 “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung up our harps.” TODAY’S WORD There are seasons in life when it seems like everything has been taken away such as joy, peace, purpose. The Israelites understood this deeply when they sat as captives in Babylon, weeping over the loss of Zion. Their harps, once instruments of worship and celebration, now hung lifeless on the poplar trees. They had allowed their pain to silence their praise. But beloved, let me prophetically declare this: God will visit…
Chelsea, managed by Enzo Maresca, entered the final as underdogs against a PSG side that had recently won the UEFA Champions League. Maresca orchestrated a tactical masterclass, setting Chelsea up to be defensively solid and devastatingly effective on the counter-attack. In classic surgical fashion, it wasn’t about having the ball, but what you did when you got it. Rather than attempting to dominate possession against a ball-dominant PSG, Chelsea focused on creating overloads in wide areas and exploiting the acres of space left behind PSG’s advancing players. The key was the lightning speed of the transition. Upon winning the ball,…
There is something almost quaint—indeed, something medieval—about the way we continue to venerate the word “representation.” We utter it with reverence, as though merely shouting “my people!” is enough to sanctify any tantrum, any tomfoolery, any descent into the depths of legislative lunacy. Consider the case of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, the latest troubadour of this democratic superstition. Her acolytes—those wide-eyed apostles of performative politics—insist she must be restored to her seat, not because she is wise, remorseful or measured, or even mildly competent, but because “Kogi Central must be represented.” What they forget—or are congenitally incapable of grasping—is that representation…
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader, has spent the past two weeks in hiding and staying invisible in a secret bunker, cut off even from his own inner circle, fearing an Israeli assassination attempt. Now, as a fragile ceasefire takes hold, brokered by the U.S. and Qatar, he may finally step back into the light. But the Iran he returns to is not the one he left. The war with Israel has shattered the regime’s aura of invincibility. Key Revolutionary Guard commanders are dead. Military bases lie in ruins. Nuclear facilities, once the pride of Tehran’s defiance, have been…
The political air in Akwa Ibom was thick, not just with humidity but with the tension of a seismic shift. Governor Umo Eno, a man of sharp instincts and unblinking vision, had just crossed the political Rubicon, abandoning the wobbling umbrella of the PDP for the sturdy broom of the APC. To some, it was treachery. To others, sheer folly. But to those who see beyond the fog of partisan acrimony, it was a masterstroke. This wasn’t mere defection; it was strategic repositioning. While others played draughts, Eno was deep in a game of chess. The man with the golden…
The arena spangled with an assortment of colours – white, red, purple , yellow , grey, green, brown- either as uniform worn by different groups or flags fluttering as banners coalescing into a constellation of colourful spectacle. The atmosphere was boisterous as music from the speakers intertwined with varying entertainment from various groups. The mood hightened into an electrifyingly ecstatic symphony. The human traffic within and outside the arena bourgeoned to almost inelastic point. The massive crowd underscored the historic nature of the day. As it could be said, if one were to spiritually appraise the event, it could indeed…
NADECO-USA has penned a rambling, legally unmoored letter asking Donald Trump to impose visa bans on Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, and Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas — over the state of emergency in Rivers State, Nigeria. The only use of this asinine letter, signed by Dayo Kayode, Director of Strategies and Communication, is that it serves as further evidence that a lizard in Nigeria does not become a crocodile simply because it has crossed the Atlantic. Geography does not upgrade intelligence. A fool in Nigeria, when armed with delusions of grandeur abroad, often becomes a greater menace —…