The sport of baseball has traditionally been referred to as the national sport of the American nation. Its handsome uniforms, consisting of embroidered caps, buttoned tops and knickerbockers, suggested the spirit of civilized competitiveness. Adapted from English ‘rounders’, it was, and perhaps still is, seen as something of an embodiment of the American way. “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America,” wrote Jacques Barzun, “had better learn baseball.”

I have therefore decided not to give myself a heart attack by dwelling on and repeating what we know, but to reproduce an article (the original was complete with pictures) written in UK’s Sunday Times Magazine of 15th September 1974, which should shed some lights on how we came about our present unfortunate and seemingly irreversible situation as we turned 49. Can we hope for at least a dim light at the end of the tunnel before we turn 50?

Boko Haram insurgence, Zaria Shiites outbreak, Jos Mayhem, Maiduguri onslaughts, Kaduna religious riots, Ilorin Church burnings, Maitatsine insurgents, Zaria Uprising, are some of what most of Nigeria leaders experience during their administrations. The religious uprisings surfaced especially in the northern part of the country after the administration of General Yakubu Gowon, since then it has been a test for each administration.

About half of Nigeria's population are children. In a generation these children will become job seeking adults. If they are unable to find jobs, a young, angry and idle population means only one thing: big trouble. The problems of Nigeria's rapidly growing population are already being felt.

The militants require a political wing and a skilled orator to articulate their struggle. The ANC had Nelson Mandela, the IRA had Gerry Adams, the PLO had Yasser Arafat. Who is their interlocutor? If the militants rely on violence alone, we may end up with another Saro-Wiwa or Adaka Boro outcome…..

While several northern states became the gory theatre for mindless violence and wanton bloodshed last week, and hundreds of corpses littered the already greening stretch of the savannah leaving a dreadful fog of gloom, mourning, sadness, fear and despair in the air, President Umar Musa Yar’Adua and his increasingly fashionable and insufferably ubiquitous wife, Turai, grinning from ear to ear like over-excited pupils undertaking their first excursion, and resplendent in their best Sallah costumes, boarded a Presidential Jet at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja,

This paper is a response to the gloom and doom pedaled by so-called astrophysicists on how the world would end. It says that whereas it is true that the physical world would end, not soon, though, that there is an eternal spirit in human beings and that that spiritual aspect of them ought to be emphasized to give them hope and prevent the excessive fear generated by those who take their so-called scientific conjectures as facts.

The Publishers of Ozodi Osuji's forthcoming book had it reviewed by their reviewers; the following is one of their anonymous reviews of the book.

This paper was originally planned as a book review but quickly developed into what can be done with American power. The book in question, Starobin’s After America, talked about the waning American power and wondered what kind of world would succeed it: chaos, the emergence of a new Multipolar international system, the rise of India and or China as the new superpower (s), the global city state, and a world government with its accompanying universal civilization.

Thursday January 15, 2009 marks the 39th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian civil war. *On that day in Dodan Barracks, a brutal 920-day civil war ended as former colleagues and combatants who had engaged each other in bitter warfare for over two and a half years embraced each other with unprecedented speech and warmth.

This essay points out the inherent dangers of attributing what seems sound psychological ideas to origination in spirit (be it Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit etc) and deifying them. Such behavior, it says, tends to generate belief in those ideas and remove them from intellectual discourse. When ideas are not critically examined they tend to retrograde civilization. The article used Helen Schucman's apparent spiritualization of psychoanalytic and behavioral psychological ideas as example of this phenomenon.

This essay, written in response to accusation that I hate Igbos hence would not understand the alleged high level of criminal activity among Igbos, attempts to explicate the origin of that level of criminality in Alaigbo. It says that a society that accepts its people conditionally, mostly when they are highly achieving and rejects failures, makes its people fearful of failing and some of them resort to criminal activity to become rich so as to be socially accepted. It concludes that if Igbo society accepted its people unconditionally positively it would produce fewer criminals.

This brief paper explains my mission to Igbos: to warn them that their tendency to insult other people, especially Nigerians, breeds hatred for them. I urge them to desist from doing so and, instead, respect and love Nigerians and all people, if they desire love and respect from people, that is. If they persist in insulting people they will continue to receive what they have always received: attack and death. Insanity, they say, is tendency to do the same thing and expect different results.  

This essay examines aspects of Africans reprehensible past behaviors. The behaviors included throwing away twin babies, burying life slaves with dead important men and selling folk into slavery. The writer believes that Africans need to understand their ancestors’ unacceptable behaviors and try to correct those aspects of them manifested in their present behaviors.

The current financial melt down in the developed nations coupled with rapid depletion of excess crude dollars should be cause for concern in Nigeria. Africa in general and Nigeria in particular have not taking stock of their financial standing in these deplorable financial melt down scenario. It seems that Nigeria continues to believe that when all else fail, IMF will be the saving grace.

No matter who is announced winner of the American presidential election after November 4, what would never remain in doubt is that this is one election that would be far-reaching in redefining the political and social scene of the United States. As the campaigns rage and voters package their decisions, virtually nothing would be spared the raging fire of large-scale transformations sweeping through the US, as cherished.

This essay examines Achebe’s tendency to see himself and Igbos as the victims of other Nigerians. It points out that whereas Igbos have been killed by other Nigerians that, by and large, their arrogant and insulting behaviors generated such killing. It urges Igbos to see themselves as responsible for their fate; that for Igbos to have a more favorable fate they should consciously eliminate their false pride and vanity and see all human beings as their equals and respect them.

This essay looks at the idea that our self concepts and self images determine our behaviors and what we get out of life and that if we change our self concepts and images we behave differently and get different outcomes from life. It is largely a review of Dr Maxwell Maltz's book, Psycho-Cybernectis.