Author: Osmond Agbo
Recorded in Plato’s Apology is Socrates’ famous observation that the unexamined life is not worth living. For people of faith, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, or adherents of other traditions, this insight carries a quiet challenge. The examination of belief should not be feared as heresy. If one were to ask an American evangelical or a Nigerian Christian why their support for Israel is often unwavering and unconditional, the response would likely be identical. Many would point to biblical passages that describe Israel as God’s chosen people and conclude that support for the modern state is therefore a religious…
The task before us is to ensure that anonymity is no longer the default setting of our story, and that future generations inherit not fragments, but the full, unvarnished architecture of truth. More than three decades have passed, yet his figure remains vivid in my memory. Professor Singh, whose middle name now escapes me, was tall almost gaunt, animated in gesture, and generous in spirit. He stood before us in our second year Human Anatomy class and lectured on this congenital heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. He spoke with the confidence of a man who believed medicine was not…
And please remember: if life ever forces you to choose between being right and being happy, pause. There are cemeteries filled with men who were right and alone. Wisdom often whispers what pride refuses to hear. Happiness is not found in winning every argument; it is found in mastering yourself. Dear Son, In a few short weeks, you will turn eighteen. The law will call you a man. The world will test whether you are one. I still remember the first time I held you. You were small enough to fit along my forearm, your entire existence contained in something…
Perhaps sovereignty should be examined through a similar prism. For some, it signifies insulation from foreign entanglement. For others, it signifies the ability to farm, trade, and sleep through the night without fear. The latter cannot be dismissed as philosophically inferior. I read with rapt attention Jibrin Ibrahim’s essay published in Premium Times in February 13th, 2026, titled Nigeria on the brink, as we hand over sovereignty to America. It was vintage Prof: elegant, historically grounded, morally alert. For years, he and I have shared space in the Premium Times WhatsApp forum, a conclave of public intellectuals and policy wonks…
To participate in the process without addressing its structural infirmities is to confer a veneer of legitimacy upon a charade. When news broke that Peter Obi had joined pro-democracy activists and youth groups in a protest at the National Assembly under the banner “Occupy the National Assembly,” I was compelled to read and reread the report. This was not the political temperament Nigerians have come to associate with the former Labour Party presidential candidate. Obi is measured to a fault, deliberate almost to the point of excessive restraint. For such a man to march in Abuja, at personal risk of…
When confidence in institutions erodes, survival sometimes begins not with solutions, but with the audacity to imagine life elsewhere. The American space agency, NASA, is poised to launch Artemis II, a landmark crewed mission that will carry four astronauts on an approximately ten-day flyby around the Moon and back. This will mark humanity’s first journey beyond low Earth orbit in more than half a century. Scheduled for liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center early this year, the mission is designed to rigorously test life support, navigation, and deep space systems aboard the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket.…
In the end, no empire reigns forever. Power is always temporary, and supremacy always expires. The ruins of Rome, the transformed halls of Hagia Sophia, and the silent courtyards of Topkapi all whisper the same warning. Authority is borrowed, never owned. A few days ago, as President Tinubu was making news for all the wrong reasons in Ankara, on the heels of his state visit to the Republic of Turkey, I found myself less than five hours away from him. But since dis-life-no-balance, there was no guard of honor mounted on my behalf, no entourage, and no official delegation. I…
In The New York Times article, Emeka Umeagbalasi, former South East Coordinator of the Civil Liberties Organization, founder of Intersociety, former volunteer and coordinator with Amnesty International, and former associate member of Human Rights Watch, was reduced to a screwdriver seller. Not because the description was false, but because it was useful. After the last United States election, I cancelled my cable news subscriptions without a second thought. I had reached a point of saturation. I no longer wished to permit Time Warner, the Murdoch family, or any other corporate media conglomerate to monetize my anxiety. I could not continue…
Be water, my friend. For many years, I have maintained a sustained and discerning interest in Nigeria’s real estate sector, gradually assembling what might fairly be described as a modest portfolio.It has not been easy though. Residing on the other side of the Atlantic and far removed from the immediacies of home, I was compelled to rely on a network of suppliers, many of whom I cultivated over time and entrusted with confidence and loyalty. Regrettably, that trust was often violated. The pattern became grimly familiar: padded invoices, quiet substitution of inferior materials, imaginative bookkeeping, and a relentless inclination…
“Personal success will not insulate you from the failures of your society”—Author Unknown For many Africans in the diaspora, there is a quiet but enduring dream that our children will not grow up as strangers to the land that shaped us. We long for them to feel a living connection to the motherland, not as tourists, but as heirs to a history, a culture, and a people. In pursuit of this, many families make deliberate sacrifices. Some send their children back home for a few formative years, enrolling them in secondary schools so they can absorb the rhythms of daily…