Anambra State deputy governor, Dame Virgy Etiaba, has expressed satisfaction with the conduct of penultimate Saturday governorship election in the state by Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, even as she urged other contestants to close ranks with the governor-elect and deputy governor-elect in order to move the state forward.

There are many things that are automatic for most people. We take everything for granted: we breathe, eat , walk and go about our everyday lives like it’s the norm, like nothing we do is special.

One of the public faces of contemporary literary scholarship in Africa, the reasons why Professor Nwachukwu-Agbada maintains an exulted status in African literary criticism range from his awesome prolificity to his incisive and indepth consideration of the most germane issues in African literature. In this interview, he handles in characteristic manner some of those issues.

It is said that a book is known by the company it keeps. Great books keep great company. Governor Ikedi Ohakim’s “Challenging New Frontiers: Vision, Power, Courage and the Struggle to Transform Imo State, Nigeria” and “Pushing the Limits: Daring to Lead Change in Imo State” are great books because they keep great company. There is no better company for each of these books than one another. The books inhabit symmetrical universes of beauty of forms and words, of rhyme and reason; of syntax and semantics; and of sentiments and sensibilities.

It was a gathering of eminent personalities at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) Victoria Island venue of the public presentation of the book, Tenants of the House written by Dr. Wale Okediran, a medical practitioner, writer, politician and former ANA president and former member of the House of Representatives as his friends, associates and lovers of book converged for the sole purpose of identifying with a worthy cause.

The headline for this piece in honour of the true, the good and the beauty exemplified in two great mortals of our time-Most Rev Valerian Maduka Okeke, the Archbishop of Onitsha and the Metropolitan of the Onitsha Eccl. Province, and Professor Patrick Okey Utomi – has to do with grace and gravity, hence the choice.

We have been treated to tons of analysis since February 6, 2010, when Anambra’s electorate returned Governor Peter Obi for a second term of office. Everyone seems to know in great detail the factors that produced the result that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared. Finding nothing wrong in joining the Joneses, I should have my take on the topical issue

The world with the greatest excess of good over evil is the best. God could have created a world in which evil is non-existent,but it would not have been as good as the actual world. The teleological aspect of Leibniz’s theory is that God has a purpose for creating the real world: to establish the best of all possible worlds.

“I’ve already told my boyfriend what present I would like for this year’s Valentine, and where I would like to be taken to,” said Miss A. “Last year he only gave me a card and couldn’t even take me out to an eatery. If he doesn’t give me something worthwhile this year, I’m going to leave him. It’s not as if he doesn’t work and earn good money. I like him but he’s so mean about presents and money. How can a man give his girlfriend only a card for Valentine’s day?”

Tension is less in the land now that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has assumed office as Acting President. That is after 78 days when the simple procedure that would have led us to that position had been ignored. And what did we do? It seemed as if we dreamt that if we failed to do something, just anything, by the end of the 78th day of the President’s absence from office and out of sight, something would give.

THE tradition of intellectual inquiry in Nigeria, in at least, the last 30 years has been at best self-indulgent and unadventurous.

To be quite candid, not being a lawyer and after reading what various lawyers have said about the senate action, I don’t really know. This is one of those matters on which the majority might not even be right. What has been done is certainly expedient but whether it is constitutional or not will eventually be determined by the courts because there is little doubt in my mind that the action will be challenged. Yar’Adua is to blame.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all our esteemed readers.

Loyalists of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua, especially those who had held sway since his November 23, 2009 departure to Saudi Arabia, are now fighting what may be termed the battle of a lifetime, following Wednesday’s assumption of office by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as Acting President, while a PDP delegation led by its National Chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor was billed to see the President last night in his Jeddah hospital.

NO fewer than 15 persons were feared dead Saturday morning in Port Harcourt when a high tension wire belonging to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) gave way and landed on two commercial buses, electrocuting the passengers on the spot. The sad incident occurred around Oginigba, very close to Slaughter – Trans Amadi part of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area.