As the elections draw closer, the availability of electricity, behind the economy and corruption remains the three most engaging issues upon which Nigerians continue to seek leadership direction and end-product.
A cursory look at the education sector in our country would reveal that things are not going on smoothly there at all. With protests by universities students over increase in school fees, a nearly one-year old strike by polytechnics and colleges of technology lecturers, and teachers’ strikes in some states, we are simply breeding illiterates.
By Prof. Wole Soyinka
Let us go back a little, nearly a year ago, to that earlier attempt to interfere in, and legislate on sexual conduct between consenting adults. Profiting from that experience, I would like to caution – yet again - that it is high time we learnt to ignore what we conveniently designate and react to as ‘foreign interference’. By now, we should be able to restrict ourselves to the a priori position that, as rational beings, we make pronouncements on choices of ethical directions from our own collective and/or majority will, independent of what is described as ‘external dictation’.
Festus Iyayi was, by every account, a truly exceptional Nigerian. University lecturer and activist, he was, between 1986 to 1988, the leader of the labour union entity known as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the umbrella organization responsible for the activities of academic staff unions across universities in Nigeria.
No sooner had I written an article here on Sahara about the rise in the number of rape incidents in Nigeria only to learn that Nigeria's House Senate wants to literally legitimise paedophilia in Nigeria by altering section 29(a) of our constitution which stipulates that a woman shall not be qualified for marriage until she attains 18 years of age.
Nigeria's electricity deficits have been well rehearsed in the last few years. With approximate installed power generation capacity of just over 9GW and peak generation capacity fluctuating around 4GW, power generation remains grossly inadequate to meet demand many times in excess of availability.
The recent surge of rape and molestation in Nigeria seem to have sparked my interest, especially because I was a repeat victim of this societal degradation; yet the lackadaisical attitude with which this menace is treated is disturbingly sad. Culprits seem to have graduated from committing this act secretly to videoing the scene and broadcasting it for the world to see.
Barely a day now goes by without one reading the sad news report of yet another rape atrocity on women in Nigeria! This madness is now getting to such an extent that even the already pathetically useless, badly trained and incompetent Nigeria Police Force (NPF) who so happens "to be our friend" do almost little or close to nothing in prosecuting alleged suspects of rape. They just do not have the training even on how to handle victims. The male members of the NPF who attend to rape reports and thus victims are so crass it is unbelievable!
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