As contingents for the 18th National Sports Festival tagged Eko 2012, begin to pour into Lagos today, chaos is threatening to rule the day to day competition, as preparations that will guarantee technical efficiency are lagging behind.

BEFORE the Delta State House of Assembly passed afresh, on Wednesday, November 7, the Bill stipulating death sentence for terrorists and kidnappers, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan had come under pressure to sign the Bill into law.

Seven years after the banking recapitalisation initiated by former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo, in 2005, over 14,000 Nigerians, under the umbrella of Ex-Staff of Non-Consolidated Banks, are on indefinite hunger strike, in protest against non-payment of their terminal benefits. Mr. Olubiyi Odunaro, a former staff of Hallmark Bank Plc, speaks on what he describes as injustice to the axed bank workers, calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to intervene.

Whatever your circumstances, Christmas invokes some excitement, the degree depending on how many Christmases you’ve celebrated. Naturally, the young are more excited than the more mature people because they look forward to having a good time of foods and drinks and entertainment, more than usual.

About 200 athletes from Cross River State are expected to feature in the 2012 National Sports Festival tagged Eko 2012 to be hosted by Lagos State.

In 48 hours from now, the National Sports Festival will begin with Lagos State already boasting it will host the best festival ever experienced in Nigeria since 1973 when the military administration of General Yakubu Gowon instituted the Games to heal the wounds of the civil war which ended three years earlier. What with the festival torch’s arrival through the sea yesterday.

Hence, if members of any other ethnic nationality living in defunct Eastern region were murdered with reckless abandon by Ndigbo, as the latter were killed in 1966, the murderers deserve punishment and the victims have a right to defend themselves.

NATIONAL president of the Itsekiri National Youth Council, INYC, and chairperson of the parallel Ugborodo Community Trust, Ugborodo, Warri South-West Local Government Area, Delta State, Mr. David Tonwe, has been removed from office purportedly for his involvement in the long-drawn Ugborodo crisis and inability to steer the affairs of the youth organization.

Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) yesterday received the torch for the 18th National Sports Festival at the State House in Marina from the zonal coordinator of the South West Zone of the National Sports Commission, NSC, Dr. Steve Olarinoye, who was the torch bearer.

The last couple of weeks has been a roll call of the who is who of the great and notable of Nigeria’s glorious past. These luminaries have contributed to the landscape of Nigeria’s political, judicial and sociological history.