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On Wednesday February 5, British MPs voted on the question of whether or not to legalize same sex marriage. After a mostly civil five-hour debate, the legislation, proposed by Culture Secretary Maria Miller, Conservative MP from Basingstoke was passed by a majority of 225. Following this momentous outcome, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill will now go before the House [...]
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By Hezekiah Shobiye In Part 1 of this series, I wrote that the Nigerian health care system is unresponsive to both the medical and non-medical needs of its patients; the Nigerian brand of health worker-patient relationship is not working, there is paucity of human and material resources, long waiting times, lack of quality hospitals and a dearth of health professionals with [...]
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Last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) toughened its regulatory regime. Its review of risk weights on certain exposures in the computation of capital adequacy essentially did four main things. (1) It increased the risk weight on direct lending to government from 100% to 200%; (2) where a bank's exposure to a particular sector of the economy exceeds 20% [...]
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The writer (and current winner of the Nigerian Prize for Literature) Chika Unigwe was at a Secondary School in Lagos about a week ago, on invitation, to talk to literature students about the process and vocation of writing. On the way out of the venue, one student who had not got a chance to ask questions during the programme ran up [...]
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by Emmanuel Iduma This didn't happen every day. A man and a woman were sitting by themselves beside a gutter.Her head was resting on his shoulders; his arm drew her close to himself like he had paid for her body and soul. Their belongings were collected in polythene bags that seemed to contain all the mundane things of this world. Yet [...]
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By Obinna Udenwe Today is not a market day, so we are not packing brooms and beads into baskets to be taken to the market. I am just sitting on the pavement of our house, staring at the birds. Papa is preparing to leave for Nwida market, where he goes everyday to drink palm wine - for papa, everyday [...]
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's room 's neighbours to trees. The walls are lemon green. Gently the curtains blew as if they're clothes on two walking the dusk browned beach. A wave of her came at me. It was a dove out of a mist. by Yemi Soneye ____________ Yemi is a poet and freelance writer whose work has appeared in Istanbul Literary Review, [...]
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The controversy triggered by Mallam Nasir el-Rufai's comments about Jesus Christ on Twitter is instructive on several levels. Here, I shall limit myself to two immediate implications. In the first instance, it is a sordid demonstration of the deterioration of public debate in Nigeria. Given the quality of most of the arguments (sic) on display, especially from so-called Born Agains, [...]
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If the Nigerian police had not cold-bloodedly executed the leaders of Boko Haram, the country might have been spared the sect's murderous rampage that has left large tracts of the country prostrate and in a virtual state of war. As it is, four years after the act, not one police officer has been convicted, though the faces of the culprits [...]
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Should we be concerned who the next governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will be? This query assumes that we will go with tradition and not re-appoint the incumbent. The latter has got until June next year before his current term ends. And arguably, he, more than any other central bank governor in this country, has drawn a [...]
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