In our march through time, we move from one life’s station to another. We acknowledge these movements in many ways.

The New Year, 2011, is two days old and the many resolutions of many are not likely to be crumbling this soon. But, because this year seems to be one of promise, in spite of the seething darkness trying to undermine what we have all anchored a volition for, we should tackle the bad in us for the good to emerge.

It takes time for the housemates of Big Brother Africa to get used to the fact that about two dozen cameras are trained on them for 24 hours a day. What is beamed to the outside world is not all that is happening, but what the moderators of the 24-hour reality tv want the world to see.

It is Christmas again! It is my favourite time of the year – when the languid air smells of good fare: the sharing of goodwill; the visit of friends and family; the return of migrants from various corners of the earth; the salute to the belly by all forms of gormandizing acts – the sheer sense of completion of another cycle of life and of the seasons. All these amplify the significance of this time of the year.

We lost our national guinea pig, Chief Anthony Eromosele Enahoro, to the cruel hands of death last week, at age 87. He did not die in America or England or India. He died in a hospital in Benin City, a lover of his ungrateful country unto death. In the Sunday Vanguard of June 11, 2000, I wrote a piece on The National Guinea Pig.

On October 31, I wrote a piece praying that the EFCC boss be not lured into taking decisions that would give the impression that she is being directed from the dark places of officialdom.

Sanusi is a pointer, and having performed the duty of pointing, it is left for the activists in our midst to push for the wrongs of indulgence to be righted. I think we have been indulging our organs of government by accepting that they can be judges in their own causes.

I received a newsflash from the Nation on the day a group of Northern elders was to announce the candidate they had chosen to do battle with President Goodluck Jonathan in the struggle for who carries the banner of the ruling PDP during the presidential election of 2011.

I was in Edo State for most of last week. I had read a lot about what Governor Adams Oshiomhole was supposed to be doing in the state; also the many write-ups of the erstwhile ruling PDP that the man has been planting flowers, digging up streets and abandoning them and borrowing money that was not being accounted for. Seeing, they say, is believing.

I do not like the negative points our law makers are earning for themselves. If what they are doing is in line with the behaviour and mindset of those who govern, then theirs draws more angst than what people think of the executive and the judiciary.

The body language of our people cannot be fully relayed in words. When they tell you something you ought to have done and you fail or refuse to do it and the come later comes to become, they look you in the face, put both hands on their faces with two fingers ready to produce a message, run the fingers from under the eyes to the chin. Some times they will mouth the invective “iyo” (pronounced i-yaw). No other sound follows, but the message is clear.

People ask me if what we, as columnists, say is ever read by those they affect. My answer has always been that, in a division of labour setting, ours is to show the way and leave the decision to follow the way to those who so choose. We can’t force anyone, but whenever things later go bad, in spite of our shouting and yelling, we go back in time and point to what we said that may have been ignored.

Many are celebrating the installation of Dr. Kayode Fayemi as Governor of Ekiti State. I am celebrating too, thank you. But I am sad, very sad indeed. I am sad because I am also mourning; and you can’t be popping bottles of champagne when you are mourning.

Someone called me at noon on Tuesday October 12. He told me his name which I first thought was a title. After he had lectured me for the better part of 15 minutes on the Niger Delta and the distraction the bombs of October 1 seem to be causing, and after I had wanted to explain a point or two but he would not let me, insisting that as someone who writes for people to know what is happening, I had to listen to him, I told him no one imposes their views on me.