If we are to be guided by media reports, everyone is set for the eventful year, 2011 – the year of all important elections. Even President Goodluck Jonathan appears more enthusiastic than others when he cautioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against any form of failure when he emphatically said that, ‘gone are the days when those in charge of electoral or other responsibilities will use such phrases as ‘our hands are tied‘ for justification or failure‘.

NIGERIANS are in celebration after the scintillating performance of the Falconets in the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The 4-2 (penalty shoot outs) defeat of the USA in the quarter-finals of the competition is epochal, not because for the first time Nigeria would be playing in the semi-final, but the expectation that women’s football would get respect for the first time.

MUCH furore has attended debates the financial status of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The much telling of the revelation is the confirmation that NNPC budgets have not been available to the National Assembly since 1999.

ORGANISERS of the northern political summit under the aegis of G20 (19 northern states and Abuja), yesterday, warned that the country risked a deeper crisis if the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, prevented Dr. Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the presidency in the 2011 elections on the grounds of zoning.

BARELY a week after men of the Delta State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, confiscated 33,000 litres of suspected adulterated petroleum product at the Asaba end of the Niger Bridge Head, another truck has been intercepted with three suspects arrested.

Whenever Nigerians talk about zoning in particular or politics in general, they talk as if they are totally wedded to the idea that a Southern President must have a Northern Vice-President; and vice versa. There is also a tendency to regard each geopolitical zone as a united interest group…AND a widespread assumption that it’s OK for every Head of State to have two four-year terms.

Residents of Lagos were last week shocked when photographs of a 30/40 feet well stored with petroleum products were beamed on their televison screens. In fact, more shocking was the fact that the well was originally dug for purposes of supplying water to a wood producing factory only for it to be cleverly converted into fuel dump.

In Criminology, blue-collar crime is regarded as any crime committed by an individual from a lower social class, as opposed to white-collar crime committed by individuals of higher social class. An example of a blue-collar criminal is a police person who demands for a bribe at the police check-point.

The tribunal again re-listed the case and dismissed Dr Ali’s case on the ground that in her pleadings, she had admitted that Senator Osakwe had defected from PDP to the Accord Party and that there was neither any documentary nor oral evidence to buttress the allegation that Osakwe was not even a member of AP or its valid candidate for the senatorial poll.

Education is said to be the bed rock of any developing country, as it serves as a spring board to the well being of any nation. It also serves as the hub through which all sectors of any economy are powered. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case in Nigeria.

DECORUM was abandoned by public figures, yesterday, as the Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, Ogun State Governor, Olugbenga Daniel and the Minister of Works, Senator Sanusi Daggash, engaged themselves in war of words at the site of the opening of the Ota Bridge along the Lagos_Abeokuta Express Way.

THE House of Representatives, yesterday, passed a budget of N240.5billion for the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC in 2010.

Former Head of State and presidential aspirant of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the scheduled 2011 general election, Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said Nigerians should not dissipate energy discussing presidential zoning even as he described it as outdated

FORMER Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida(rtd) yesterday called the bluff of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo over alleged statement credited to him that South-West governors should not support his presidential ambition come 2011.

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stormed Adamawa State yesterday and quizzed the State Commissioner for Local Government, Alhaji Abubakar Madawaki, and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry Mrs. Gladys Delo