In March of 2016, during a National Economic Council retreat, the following was reported, “Mr. Buhari advised state governments to increase their financial support through community groups.” This report implied that President Buhari was keen on seeing that states and State Governors worked towards achieving financial self-sufficiency through internally generated revenue. However, recent actions of the Buhari administration appear to negate this implied goal of encouraging states to be financially self-sufficient. In short, a series of actions so far by the Buhari administration appears to be fueling a concept and problem known as “Moral Hazard” among states and state governors, which negates the possibility that financial self-sufficiency will be achieved by states under the Buhari administration.

God is a God of purpose. Everything He says has a meaning and He performs all that He says. God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. Some people think that when they are asked to praise God, all they need to do is to sing and dance. This is good but not good enough. Just singing and dancing is not the real purpose of praise. Until you and I have a good understanding of praise, we cannot reap its full benefits. In Amos 9: 11-12, the bible says “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up the breaches thereof: and I will raise up his ruins and I will build it as in the days of old: that they may possess the remnant of Edom and of all the heathen which are called by my name, saith the Lord that does this”.

Last Sunday President Muhammadu Buhari in a national broadcast to mark his one year in office called for dialogue with the Niger Delta communities to find lasting solution to the spate of vandalism of critical energy infrastructure. He did not mince his words on militiamen testing the administration’s will and resolve. There was the choice of carrot-and-stick approach by the President which may be ideal. But the current agitators’ comprehension of the meeting between government and ex-militants in Abuja and Benin may not have been that of a conciliatory gesture considering the President’s speech to fish out the perpetrators, and their sponsors brought to justice.

Early one morning sometime in 1992, I alighted from the bus at Secretariat bus stop, second gate, at Alausa, Ikeja. I was a reporter for the Vanguard, covering Government House, Alausa at the time. A car, which by the way it appeared, seemed to have stopped abruptly by the road side with all four doors open. Curious, I joined the small crowd gathered on the pavement, right in front of the car park around a middle aged woman. She looked distraught, weeping as she told a heart wrenching story. Initially, I did not see the object of the whole drama, a little lifeless snake, by the roadside.

WOMEN have been the butt of most jokes when it comes to love-making. ‘Yet, a lot of the success of meaningful sex is put on the men’s shoulder. Instead of talking about their short-comings, most men laugh nervously about them while the self-centred, “well-endowed”, brag about their prowess. A reader, Emeka, 36, and a banker, confessed that, “I was aware I had a little organ—from a young age. When it’s resting, its like the tip of my little finger. When I was in school, I used to be awfully embarrassed when my mates jeered at me for having what they termed, ‘pea-nut’ penis. This affected my confidence so much that I didn’t go near a woman until I was well over 20!” As I continued reading his letter, I decided to share it with you readers. A lot of flat-chested women accused of having ‘bee stings’ for boobs would be glad they’re not alone.

Dogs don’t eat bones hung on their necks. Niger Delta Maritime University wasn’t lucky. They say when local dogs start lapping milk they let human feces be. Perhaps not political dogs. Well, lecturers scratch . So they force students to buy handouts. That’s pardonable extortion. Politicians munch crunchy security votes. And yet pad budgets, inflate contracts, and seize communal lands. Thieves , sensible thieves, steal from strangers. Mature pickpockets don’t work at home. And if home is miserable with great affliction then such looking inwards for local content is inhumanity. Niger delta thieves don’t get it.

The recent spate of bombings of oil facilities in the Niger Delta has put the Nigerian economy in dire straits, plunging the country further down the road to a financial crisis. Latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, said the Nigerian economy is teetering on the brink of recession and the increase in bombings is throwing the country deeper into the abyss. The situation becomes worrisome when viewed against the backdrop that crude oil exports account for about 70 per cent of Nigeria’s revenue and 90 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings.

The 2014 National Constitutional Conference was one of the boldest attempts in recent times in appraising the operational structure and system on which the country is run. The conference which was convened by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2014 however faced many controversies, the first of which was its acceptance. The 492 delegates of the conference following months of brainstorming finally came up with a report which among others sought the creation of nearly 18 more states, the systematic restructuring of the polity, rotational presidency, the creation of state police, the scrapping of state/local government joint accounts among several others.

It was salt upon injury for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. At a time when the party was still trying to resolve the crisis in its national leadership, the party’s lot in the House of Representatives sank further after two of its members defected from the party to the All Progressives Congress, APC last Wednesday. The defection of the two lawmakers came a day after the end of the nine-day lockout of staff and officials of the party out of the national secretariat by the police. The police claimed to have acted to prevent any of the factions contending for the party’s leadership from taking over the national secretariat.

The din of the enthusiasm to have a say about the performance—or non-performance—of the first year of the Buhari administration, has subsided in connection with some issues. It will no doubt linger for a while longer over some other issues that need to be further addressed, if they are subjected to the lack of urgency that has been a noticeable habit of the government’s approach to some pressing issues over the past year. Although the response to the quality of governance has not been resoundingly encouraging among the populace, as gathered from reactions through the mass media, the plea for patience seems to have become mixed with emotions roused by disappointment over unfulfilled promises.

You would have noticed that I have never written on romance in this column. Well, that is because you cannot give what you do not have, or so I was made to believe. At my 40th birthday party long ago, I told my hosts (they actually organized it for me) that “my wife has been wonderful and most supportive, but she complains that I am not romantic.” They roared into laughter, while a friend jokingly commented that “how can she say you are not romantic, yet she is pregnant.” But you know even rape can result in pregnancy, yet rape is not romantic. I know that for a fact. In other words, sex can be romantic, but not all sex is romantic.

This year’s May 29, was no different. You could tell which side of the political divide a writer came from just by reading his assessment of the past year. In addition to this, and it is unsettling, is the new dimension of regional bias. These days, you could tell, by looking at the by-line, what the tone of the article would be. It seems a section of the country has decided to shoot the President down irrespective of where he is perched. Unfortunately, there are many reasons to shoot him down if you are so inclined. Or if you are unwilling to understand the peculiar circumstances of this presidency.

The launch last week of the “Clean Hands” initiative by the EFCC indicates that the anti-corruption agency is beginning to move in the right direction. Any institution set up to combat a prevailing social challenge should realize that the measure of its effectiveness should be in the prevention rather than cure. The launch of the “Clean Hands” project indicates that EFCC under its current leadership is prepared to embrace a new way of thinking and accept a new interpretation of its role. EFCC is beginning to realize that all the years of ruthless devotion to catching people and throwing them in detentions have hardly dented the huge problem of corruption in Nigeria. With this new initiative, EFCC is bringing preventive advocacy to the heart of its operation. This should be commended.

ABOUT twenty years after the infamous Otokoto saga which claimed several lives and property in Owerri, the Imo State capital in 1996, one of the people that would not forget the ugly incident in a hurry is Bishop N.E. Moses, the General Overseer of Overcomers Church World Outreach, Lagos. The Otokoto uprising was triggered off, following the killing of one master Ikechukwu Okonkwo for rituals.

MANY persons sustained gunshot injuries and houses razed as fresh hostilities broke out yesterday evening, between Ogbe-Ijoh and Aladja communities in Udu and Warri South West local government areas in Delta state. A source, who spoke to Saturday Vanguard, said: “It started at about 4.30 pm, soldiers came but could not stop the heavy gun battle. As at the time of writing this report, the skirmish continued. The communities have been fighting over a piece of land, not even more than one kilometer for many years now.”