WHEN six-year-old Emmanuel Jumbo-Ochigbo got into the blue-coloured Golf hatchback to school in the morning of Wednesday, March 20, it was like any other day – bright and sunny.

I DON’T know why a few  state governors are running around, dragging President Muhammadu Buhari by the hem of his agbada to save them from the misery of inconclusive election in their states. Their conduct reminds me of the days when lazy neighbourhood kids used to run home to Big Daddy to save them from the street bully.

IT’s incredible how eight years have ended as a two-word parable: constituted authority. That’s what Governor Abiola Isiaka Ajimobi would be most remembered for – the epigram from his encounter with students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH. That episode was perhaps one of the most catastrophic PR disasters of Ajimobi’s eight-year tenure.

I WOKE up several times peeping for the first sign of dawn before my phone finally rang at ten-past-six. A family friend who suspected we would be voting at the same place wanted to know if I was already at the booth because she couldn’t find it.

AS the final results of last week’s presidential poll were released, three broad groups emerged: Those genuinely surprised that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Atiku Abubakar, lost; those in pretentious denial of his defeat; and those in a quandary because they hoped to profit from a stalemate.

LAST week, when I described the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, as one of the most frequently executed men on social media, I had no idea what was coming. About 48 hours later – and after weeks, if not months of repeatedly assuring the public that the commission was ready – he unexpectedly announced a one-week postponement of the elections. He set himself up not just for a fresh round of execution but also to have his remains burnt at the electoral stake.

IF you walk by sight you cannot help approaching Saturday’s presidential election with a heavy heart. The candidates of the two major parties, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have been presented in the worst light possible.

These days Nigeria is treated as either the continent’s worst joke or the world’s laggard for democracy. From Nairobi to Brussels and from London to Washington, we’re getting lengthy lectures on how not to run a country. And we’re laughing them off and forwarding the messages. 

I didn’t notice the squirrel until later. The Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, ACPN, actually has a squirrel as its logo, but I didn’t make out the silhouette until the leadership of the party showed its furry hand last week.

AT this rate, President Muhammadu Buhari may beat former military President General Ibrahim Babangida to the record of collecting the most abusive letters from a former president.