Our electoral umpire has reached its wits end. The incoming National Assembly must  review the 2019 elections and overhaul our electoral laws. The loopholes are gaping.  INEC has tried to be impartial and struggled to follow the  law. But with desperate politicians everywhere, undue legalism could be self defeating, could further injustice.

You can never  see it all in Nigeria. When you think you have seen it  all with mediocrity and unscrupulousness, someone pulls something new, egregious,  off the top drawer, and we all laugh about it.

In the end, Rivers is our shame. A political culture of violence unlimited.

Igbo is a migrant tribe. Lagos is a melting pot. Igbos will always abound in Lagos, any Lagos. They can’t be stopped. And can’t stop themselves.  They have taken their industriousness  everywhere. They have become the mostly widely dispersed and widely entrenched race in Nigeria and perhaps Africa. Lagos is where things happen.  Igbos are made for Lagos.

The country is still with him. He won popular votes by a huge margin. He won in four of the six geographical zones. Buhari has proved his point. He is the choice of the majority, esteemed letter writers and a council of bishops notwithstanding.

Our politics is the caricature of the real thing. You can call it a circus.  But if it’s a circus then the main show is in the stares. It’s amongst our governors that the travesty becomes truly naked. In the states,  absurdities strut  the streets, shoulders held high, without blinking.

It was a timely message, poorly delivered. What Governor Nasir El-Rufai has in boldness, he lacks intact.  It has proved a chronic handicap. But let’s keep the baby and throw away only  the dirty bath water.

Everyone must die. Death is a debt we must all pay. Youth gives us a false sense of immortality. But age clears the fog.  We see our friends and family disappear. And that illusory immortality fades. Death makes life finite and therefore  precious. But it’s the arbitrariness of death  that makes living a nervous enterprise.

Corruption can kill Nigeria. Fake news can decimate it. But fuel poured on it from high by acclaimed fathers can ruin it quickly and leave it desolate for ages. That is why Bishop Kukah must rush back to Ota.

Atiku will sell the NNPC. We know he will.  They sold quite a lot the last time. So he didn’t need to swear he would do it. 

I had a chat with some youths in Orodo, my home town,  recently. Orodo is in Imo state.  The bulk of them were unemployed and under employed. We talked about  the coming elections.

The police have been at Senator Dino Melaye’s gate. They have been there for days. The weight of that absurdity has fallen not on Dino Melaye who has been literally clowning;  not on his friends and family  who haven’t been consumed by shame; not on the police who seem lost; not on the  Atiku campaign who thinks its not a moral burden; not on the society who seem apathetic.

Lt Col Sakaba  died for his country.  He was killed by Boko Haram insurgents last month. He left a wife  and a baby boy. He was the commander of the battalion that was overrun by Boko Haram in Metele. That massacre at Metele sparked more national anger than sorrow. The military admitted, hesitantly, the horror  but claimed that the casualty figures thrown around were the work of mischief makers. Late Sakaba and his soldiers were buried in the midst of doubts, anguish  and recriminations.

The first time was two years ago. She went on rampage on the  BBC. Mouths were left agape.  She said her husband had performed abysmally. She said she would neither campaign for nor vote for him if he failed to wake up. 

Father Mbaka is an ordained priest of the Catholic Church. He is revered in Enugu. He   is a household name in Igbo land.   Many cardinals aren’t that lucky.   His adoration ministry meets the spiritual and physical needs of his   poor   and desperate flock. Father Mbaka’s sermons talk about heaven but they are known   for their blistering political contents. Mbaka perhaps understands that bad governance is worse than all the Mosaic plagues that befell Pharaoh’s country men.    His poor congregation therefore sees him   more as a freedom fighter than a distributor of holy communion. If Father Mbaka has acquired many antagonists it is because of his rampant foray into politics from the shield of the Catholic Pulpit. His style is pugnacious.   His   bishops as a big head priest with a loose tongue.