Those who killed the woman are not Muslims.”Agreed, they may be pickpockets

Jero is a deity. In church, at PTA meetings, and when he condescends to his town union meetings, he conjures unfathomable dignity. Not the glory of politicians that fades quicker than cheap ‘ankara’ but a permanent invocation of raw awe. Once in a while, at the old boys’, he lets them have the privilege of his scarce humanity. Only a few of his classmates still remember he was never a genius. JB was inconspicuous. Jeroboam, the Justice, is a masquerade.

The court is a novel attempt at setting standards and checking impunity. The court is therefore morally indispensable in social craters and dark spots where local authorities lack the willingness or the capacity to bring to book principalities and powers, committing egregious evil against humanity, from hitherto unassailable towers and sanctuaries

Those who committed atrocities under the cover of darkness were exposed when their elephantiasis of the scrotum became cautionary spectacles of enduring deterrence

When Jesus chased away those who had made the defilement of the temple their occupation, he was perhaps short on due process. But that is what rottenness and wanton impunity invite – drastic intervention. If that synagogue were a Nigerian institution, many would have flung his rule of love at Him. And labeled him a rascally hypocrite – preaching love and ruthlessly whipping elders.

Audu’s death was unfortunate. Its timing was profoundly problematic. But what is ludicrous is what it exposed. The lack of painstakingness in our attention to important details. There will always be hard cases in law. Cases will always lie on the fringes.

So it’s 56 years since independence. Who knows where they imagined we would be? Yes, Hebert Macaulay and co-dreamers. Perhaps in the neighbourhood of Indonesia. Fate can be treacherous and life cruel, but many disasters are self inflicted.

She is neither. Rigour has become outdated, noisy charlatanism reigns. Howlers are everywhere. So Kemi Adeosun scampered to safety. She left her case. The accusation of blasphemy by Nigeria’s ‘Almajiris’ , religious or political, is not fought with reasons and arguments. A minister of finance has a duty to be honest and compassionate, and a compelling duty to prevent and stem panic. The proposed emergency economic bill is evidence of direness and government’s appreciation of it. It’s incontrovertible that sufficient urgency and dexterity haven’t been marshaled against our predicament. But it isn’t because Adeosun is ignorant or callous.

When others, constrained by scruples, could only whisper their conspiracy theories , ‘the mother of the nation’ asked for cameras. What followed was even by her standards an epic. In that melodrama, she reveled all her parts – warmth, emotionality, irreverent spontaneity, crudity, daring aggression. She wouldn’t join her dithering husband in skirting around, she dived headlong and wallowed in it . In being more simple and less sophisticated, a certain license to disregard the bounds of propriety is assumed. Artlessness becomes sincerity. And peevishness can become virtuous unpretentiousness. Loyalty was being redefined as worship. Dame was an emerging political Juggernaut

The Niger Delta militants were not cowards. They operated clandestinely but didn’t need masks. The morality of their enterprise before amnesty was their pride. But the Avengers are ghosts. Troubled by the glare of the unrighteousness of their present endeavor , they took to the protective shield of anonymity . Anonymity, paints the picture of cowardice.

You would think that an EFCC that has just come out of slumber would be helped to stay awake and alert. That its new found vigour would gladden even hearts worried about neutrality and due process lapses. Because some lofty aspirations are only desirable as superstructures on a foundation of firm deterrence. Only an agency inflicting some determined damage on impunity has the chance of being polished beyond vindictiveness and de-wormed of political bias. The EFCC has sloughed off lukewarmness.

Every father owes his children a little marriage talk. Fears and idiosyncrasies, regrets and dreams , magic and blunders will intermingle. Political correctness won’t feature. The father wants for them – a head start. If the father thinks marriage is blissful but sacred , and divorce is a catastrophic last resort , his wisdom would be cautionary. Age sees beyond the shimmer of youth . It has witnessed the death of too many fantasies. Old eyes may dim from wear but the benefit of retrospection makes the old, despite its tears, more reliable. Hindsight ,they say, is perfect vision.

Jamaica. Bahamas. What happened to us? We became rich, and foolish? Before our athletes started running for inconsequential countries like Qatar, our teams at international meets had started having more officials than competitors. We once dominated the sprints and gunned for boxing medals. Now, we are in Brazil with one real sprinter , and only one boxer. Prayers are good.

Magu started well. Ribadu had so much zeal, the public treated his penchant for flagrant transgression of rights with levity. Magu is a great improvement on Ribadu. Ribadu attended to widespread rot with uncommon but unchecked enthusiasm. And the public responded with uncritical goodwill and doting adoration. That honeymoon era is gone. After Ribadu, the EFCC lapsed into willful docility. Farida’s agency fell into the hands of its enemies. And they smothered it . Corruption then was treated with the sort of sympathy normally reserved for addictions.

Dogara has continued like a master whose dignity a disgruntled house boy cannot touch despite his most audacious tantrums. Because the combination of malicious rascality of a wasp and the indignation of a cheated nation cannot ruffle the feathers of an emerging political principality.