WE are going to impeach the President”. This is one of the most abused phrases in the Nigerian legislative arena. It has been taken to mean that the President is being removed.

EVEN where the President of a country dies intestate these days, it may not come as a surprise. After all, most deaths now come suddenly.

At times, it is prudent that you throw a stone on a house with a view to finding out the actual location of the house owner.

This stammerer in our little village, Oghada, woke up one morning and burst into tears, unwittingly coming up with what later became a song in the village: “Oghada come, come and see, come and see that a lame man has run faster than me”.

THE press in Nigeria has been attacked for poking its big nose in the affairs of others. It lambasts public officials with impunity and it attacks any governmental action with the supreme benefit of hindsight; it formulates bold policies without having to take responsibility for their implementation.

Nigerians are a peculiar breed. This shows up everywhere. In a football match with another country on our home ground, Nigerians would start off encouraging their team; but as soon as the Nigerian team falls into goal deficit, Nigerians would switch their support to the visiting team and, depending on their level of disappointment, they might begin to haul stones at the Nigerian players.

THERE is the seemingly pessimistic view that even without a government, this country cannot be worse than it already is. As a corollary, people may also add that even without a police force, the crime situation in Nigeria cannot get any worse than it already is.

THERE was something for which we kept applauding the military juntas of those days, without the least inkling that they were destroying us softly: We could go to bed one night in State ‘A’ and wake up the following morning to find that we were in State ‘B’ – during the night, a state had been created for us!

WE have just emerged from a gubernatorial contest in Edo State. The election is being adjudged as free, fair and credible(?). For fear of being labelled a sadist, one is forced to join the bandwagon and admit that even if the election was not an outright success, it was perhaps a lesser failure than its forebears.

WHILE we were yet sleeping, the world became fully automated and all those unable to speak the language of the machine have been permanently left behind.

IT is not the intention of this column to return to what was said last week. Since senators are already bent on the ludicrous exercise of patching the already patched Constitution, this column shall only attempt to x-ray some of the proposed amendments.

MY main idea for the adjustment of structure to make Nigeria work better is for the zones to transform into the second tier of government; states and local councils abolished and community governments to replace the local councils. There will be resource control and federal revenue will be shared equally among the regions or zones.

Even where it is not in our character to over use a particular quote, we still find it necessary to start today’s piece with the view expressed by Adlai Stevenson as far back as 1952.

IT is Monday morning. We suddenly realise that this column is still waiting. The congratulatory messages must also wait for us to do the needful. I will rather leave my people wondering why I am absent from the celebration rendezvous than for this column to fail. After all, every occasion must have some opportunity cost.

WHAT is the first prerequisite for development? Peace. What is the next most important prerequisite for development? Peace. What is the third most important requisite for the development of any place? Peace.

THE countdown to July 14 – the gubernatorial election in Edo State – has started in earnest. This column is just two editions away from that day: July 5 and 12, 2012. Both editions shall be devoted to the search for peace in Edo State.

IN the real world, the aviation industry has been developed into excellence to the extent that plane crashes have become a rarity.

INSPITE of the proliferation of churches and mosques in Nigeria , it is clear that most Nigerians are not sufficiently thankful to God.

THESE old men atThe Hague, with their goggles dropping on their noses, carefully calculate the relative life span of the accused and to make up for error factor, they just add about 10 years, and that’s the sentence. Where they are not sure, it makes the job simpler: The accused bags a life sentence.

THE Christian religion encourages us to confess positive because the power of the tongue is so strong that whatever you confess easily becomes your portion. But if all you see around you is an aura of pessimism, it also behoves you to tell the bitter truth and continue to pray for change.

HISTORY repeats itself once in a while. It has taken almost four centuries for American history to replicate itself in Nigeria, more specifically, in the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. We are reminded of the Biblical case of the rejected stone that later became the cornerstone.

NO matter how much a man tries to cross his mind, there comes a time when he must cry out at some ugly situations around him. If it is a coincidence, it must be a great one.

IN the beginning, the foundation level at the primary school was very difficult. If you failed very badly at the promotion examination, you were sometimes demoted. If you were in primary three, for instance, while the successful ones went to primary four, you were moved to primary two.

TODAY’s essay is dedicated to Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, the immediate past Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS. She bowed out of service honourably, the penultimate week, leaving her bold footprints in the sands of time.

PURELY as a matter of self interest, I have deliberately decided to adopt an approach that is slightly different from that of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. The penultimate weekend, Sanusi tried to examine the issue of how to remove crushing poverty from Northern Nigeria.

FOR some time now, thieves have invaded the privacy of the police by going to cart away, a large part of the money meant for taking care of the old men and women who had helped to catch thieves in years past. We are also informed that the thieving of the police money could be the handiwork of people closely related to them.

MADAM erred by making a no-case submission. At best, she would have entered a plea bargain arrangement, which, in this land, is a euphemism for the normal “you wash my back, I wash your own” and all concerned would have gone away unscratched.