A colleague of mine who taught in South Africa informed me that President Nelson Mandela had regular meetings with the heads of departments of political science. Mandela’s practice would, therefore, appear as a validation of Colonel Sir William F. Butler’s recollection of the following opinion of Charles Gordon:

THE Vanguard of Monday July 30, 2012 carries an alarm on its front page titled: “State of insecurity: Nigeria must not break up OBJ, IBB warn”.

INSECURITY of life in Nigeria has become the context of social life in the country. The wonder is that government is adapting to this condition of insecurity.

THE notion of Diaspora attained public policy relevance during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. Nigerians who had emigrated to the United States were engaged by President Obasanjo to become partners with government in the promotion of the nation’s development.

VANGUARD, Tuesday July 24, 2012, Crime Alert carried a story by Evelyn Usman and Ruth Chukwuemeka titled: “We were caught after renewing our charms on penetration of bullets”. This is a story of eight-man trans-state gang of armed robbers.

THE Saturday Vanguard July 14, 2012 carries the comment of the Attorney General of the Federation: “The Federal Government, yesterday, expressed its concern over the increasing spate of violence across the country, saying it is working hard to stem the gradual descent into anarchy by diligently prosecuting all those indicted for civil disturbances to serve as deterrence”.

A COLLEAGUE of mine who taught in South Africa informed me that President Nelson Mandela had regular meetings with the heads of departments of political science. Mandela’s practice would therefore appear as a validation of Colonel Sir William F. Butler’s recollection of the following opinion of Charles Gordon:

IS’HAQ Modibo Kawu summed up in the following the import of the imminent gubernatorial elections in Edo State in his Vanguard Thursday, July 12, 2012 column.

THE Guardian, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 carried the following story headlined: “Police unveil new strategy against terror”.

THE notion of Diaspora attained public policy relevance during the Obasanjo Presidency. Nigerians who had emigrated to the United States were engaged by President Obasanjo to become partners with Government in the promotion of the nation’s development.

IN addition, also, are such allegation as the illegal purchase of 20 refurbished graders at the cost of N950 million for local government councils and subsequent deduction of the same from their allocation from the Federation Account; illegal purchase of 20 Toyota Prado SUVs to the tune of N200 million for local government councils and the illegal deduction of the same from their allocations.

THE Guardian Tuesday May 22 2012 interview of Yele Delano (SAN) made explicit the government policy on corruption. Government has defined corruption as a crime and set up the process of prosecuting those accused of corruption with the aim of having the accused convicted and punished.

THERE is no better way to state the point but to put it as starkly as it is: Nigerians are a suicidal lot. A traffic caution broadcast through social media in the wake of the DANA air disaster in Iju-Ishaga, Lagos, captures this aspect of the Nigerian character very well.

THE problem in the Concept of Peer Review is the notion of Peer. Once who is a peer is understood, then the process of peer review can be evaluated.

REPRESENTATIVE electoral democracies are opposite of direct rule democracies. In the latter, every member of the rulership participates directly and with equal voice in the government of their society.

HE noted that of the three amalgamation of the British colonial government, India, Sudan and Nigeria, only Nigeria stands at present… “We can’t ignore these facts. We can’t take these facts for granted. We either sit down and talk on them or we will wish them away as our leaders are trying to make us believe”.

GENERAL Danjuma’s view made on the current security situation in Nigeria on the occasion of the 50th birthday celebration of the publisher of The Leadership, Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah in Abuja, is a summary description.

I say the South-South initiative was reminiscent of the constitutional autonomy of the regional governments of the First Republic in the foreign policy arena, and not that they had identical autonomy.

TWO approaches to the present security and governance crises have been floated. The one, a Northern approach, was presented to the public by Professor Ango Abdullahi, former VC of ABU and former Adviser to President Obasanjo.

THE Wall Street Journal of Thursday-Monday April 5-9, 2012 highlights the relationship between the politics and process of regime change and insecurity. That relationship is structural. Why? Because insecurity is a feature of all transitions- the transition between an established regime changed by revolution or reform and the implementation of a substitute regime.

OCHEREOME Nnanna in his piece on ‘Why The North May Remain Poor’ provides an answer to his implied question- ‘Why Is The North Poor?’

WE run an executive driven government and this is why unconstitutional change of the executive government is followed by constitutional retooling of the political system. In this process, the legislative and judicial branches offer no barrier to unconstitutional change of government.

WADE’S concession of his defeat in the presidential run-off election has drawn understandable attention to the politics of Senegal.

THE Vanguard Comment of March 14, 2012 titled “Challenges of Regionalisation” provides an interesting approach to the history of the Regionalist Federalism of the independence movement of the 1950s.

FROM my wife to my daughter, from my congregants to my good neighbour and elder brother, him that we call ToT, I have received the admonition.

BEN Agande in the News Section of Vanguard Thursday, March 8, 2012 provided the following summary of the review of the Committee’s findings by another committee headed by the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro. The method adopted in the work of the Galtimari Committee and Abba Moro Review Committee is worthy of notice.

EMMA Amaize, Vanguard Regional Editor, South-South commented in his front page story titled “Derivation Formula: North fishing for trouble- South-South”.

FLIGHT AJ 132 was scheduled to depart Abuja Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport for Lagos at 7pm or 19.00hrs. I was booked on that flight being unable to travel with AERO Flight AJ128 whose departure Abuja-Lagos was scheduled for 14:45.