We’ve been advised not to act on every forwarded mail we get on the internet, as our responses are closely monitored by the initiators, so that they can add more e-mail addresses to their mailing list for SPAM mail, which in most cases is commercial.

They view the North from the prism that shows us its indolent elite or rulers. There are many truths in the broad canvas of images, but there are also many norths as there are many souths. Nigeria is made of people – complex and varied: kind, cruel, greedy, industrious; the zealot and the one of measured faith.

As usual, his supporters wanted to know if there was something personal in my remarks. They could not, of course, accuse me of tribalism that time. Yar’Adua/Jonathan followed with the unwieldy seven-point agenda; I counseled three – power, roads and resolution of the Niger Delta conflict for the first term and others for the second –if ever there was a second.

The Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, electronic media owners, was not a party to the suit. Other media bodies, as members of the Nigerian Press Organisation, were also not there. Those who initiated the suit in 1999 were not officers of the Nigerian Press Organisation (that is, the NPAN, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists) outside of Ismaila Isa Funtua, publisher of the rested Democrat who was then president of the NPAN.

UP TILL yesterday, it was still accusation and counter-accusation between Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) and the United Ufuoma Fish Farmers Association, Ekpan in Uvwie local government area of Delta State over the July 22 pollution of the largest fish farm in the Niger-Delta with about 6,000 fish ponds.