Hi Readers! Do know that feeling of deflation you have, when on rushing home to report to your mother a clever thing you’ve done, and you meet a blank stare from her, indicating that what you considered ‘being clever’ was actually an act of stupidity? That was how I felt when I got home and told nanny of my encounter with Belinda in the office in Ikeja.

It must be remarked that the overemphasis by Atiku and Babangida on the zoning arrangement of the PDP is disingenuous: it implies that both men are not sure of convincing the party that they are suitable for the job without relying on quota system. The zoning formula is expedient, given our chequered political history.

There are strong indications that the battle for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, may have shifted to the National Assembly with a fresh proposal for an amendment to the Electoral Act 2010, Sunday Vanguard can reveal.

TWENTY-HOURS after the 15 kidnapped pupils of Abayi International School, Aba were rescued by the joint military task force, five persons, a Customs officer, a woman, and three students of Federal Government College, Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, were freed, yesterday, by anti-terrorist operatives, in Onicha Ngwa, Obingwa Council area of Abia State.

I doubt that we have done anything different at the end of the 50th year of our independence. The future beginning Oct 2 cannot work if we bring the past along.
Take as another example, the economy. The future will recognize the great mistake we made when we paid good money running into billions of dollars in settlement of debts of doubtful origin.

Somewhere in Nigeria’s new capital city, Abuja, is a street called “Winston Churchill Street” named in honour of Britain’s famous wartime Prime Minister and Nigeria’s former colonial overlord.

FORMER Minister of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday, described the Abuja bomb blasts that occurred on Friday as very sad, just as he labelled the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, as a terrorist group.

Accordingly, the PDP would understandably continue to speak from the two sides of its mouth on the subject until D-Day. It will still win elections because it is the ruling party in a nation where there is no opposition party.

Fifty years ago on October 1, 1960, Nigeria gained independence as a nation, joining other African countries who had regained freedom from their colonial masters. The lowering of the British union jack and the hoisting of the Nigerian flag, symbolised a new beginning for Nigerians. A Nigeria that will be run and managed by Nigerians. A Nigeria that will propagate the ideals of Nigerians rather than one imposed on us by others.

They were both landed with treasonable felony charges. They both represent the redemptive symbols of the southerners. To crush them is to remove the obstacles in their path to the Atlantic.