How would anyone expect that, in rural communities where cows are not deities, herds of cattle can march through and destroy farmlands and be spared? And how can anyone parade hundreds of cattle through a Nigeria filled with armed robbers and yet consider cattle rustling as such a crime which unfortunate local inhabitants must pay for with their blood? Human lives are worthless where every other thing is exorbitantly priced . You need not wonder, there is a death penalty for murder but mass murderers are rarely apprehended.

An unwanted pregnancy is an exceptionally gruesome burden. In a 14 year old it isn’t just a blemish, it is a blight. The medical and social complications of childhood pregnancy are potentially grave and crippling. We have collectively failed that child, severally. We must begin to mitigate the proliferating consequences of our degenerate system. We must now envelop her with comprehensive perinatal care. Because she lacks the psychological maturity to be a mother, because the pregnancy was forced on her, we must not let her lose her mind. Tomorrow is in the stranglehold of pedophilia, it must be rescued. Accepting the child by all around her, and cushioning her life back onto an educational track will go a long way in keeping the demons away. While our focus rests on her well-being, we must scan this tragedy and cure sick minds. And let many culpable heads roll.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has learnt nothing but the PDP must not die. It’s unfortunate that a party that ruled the biggest black nation for so long has not managed to acquire a soul. Wanton wastefulness, whether of goodwill or of financial resources, be it private or public, should have a saturation point. The point beyond which the consequences of prodigality, satiation of vulgar appetites and burnt out taste buds, and forces of regret begin to exert a determined pull towards reason. It is perhaps also the point at which those who will never recover, who are refractory to sobriety, fall off the cliff.

I am constrained to write you again so soon . Our sick economy ought to be receiving intensive care management. But it is at home receiving the sort of attention that street corner patent medicine dealers are noted for , and pity from passersby . Even founders of Jonathan’s TAN have passed by , mocking our helplessness , touting their Ojuelegba ‘staphylococcal’ ideas . It is true that some of those weeping, cursing and feeling bereaved, raped and bled this economy. Others have lent their sympathy to the rapists. They will spit curses at anyone who doesn’t share the folly that the rapists are saints or that we are all too evil to condemn anyone. Be that as it may, we elected you to clean up their confusion and the filth.

My confidence in the president’s ability to rein in impunity is unshaken. But my fears that he lacks the adroitness and the personnel to do a thorough job on a comatose economy is accentuated Ministers are now distancing themselves from the budget the president, in broad day light, presented to the senate. Chinewtalu Agu of the Nollywood fame would have ejaculated – “azuikpokpo”! Unlike those unplanned newborns abandoned in trash heaps in Onitsha, those days, by nervous teenage mothers running from shame and elusive fathers , too fickle to take responsibility, this orphaned baby was birthed in pomp and handshakes.

It is true traditional rulers have with the time and the wind, started abandoning bitter kolas and alligator peppers and falling for ice creams and chocolates while steadily keeping up with the Kardashians. No one foresaw what time had in store for our Pentecostal churches. Patience , contentment and abstemiousness have been excommunicated. Bliss is coveted and pastors now envy the life of Hugh Hefner. Their predilection for frivolity and controversy , their allergy to rigour, painstakingness and scholarship and their love for money and life have birthed a counterfeit Christianity. Monks must see our pastors now as self-indulgent ,self-absorbed , bottle fed infants, lacking in toilet training. And they won’t be too wrong.

In 1984 I visited Eyadema’s Togo. I was dumbfounded. Eyadema was after all an empty inconsequential vessel. The stark rurality and wretchedness of Lome and the cheerful naivety of its residents could only be surpassed by Gnassigbe’s megalomania. The national radio would pause and greet him almost hourly and would never forget to wish him well with his meals. His pictures which hung every where seemed to summon reverence from passersby. Policemen would line the routes he would travel and would herald his passage with their whistles which compelled everyone to stop and to join them in clapping furiously, waving frantically and smiling with a determination to please him.

By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo Igbos say tomorrow is pregnant. Amaechi means no one knows tomorrow. Fate doesn’t pretend not to be fickle. But we never learn. Not the here today , dead and rotting tomorrow scary finality of this earthly sojourn- we know that in all likelihood we will be eaten by worms or vultures. […]

At the peak of the campaigns, just before the elections, on one bright day, the OPC laid siege on Ikorodu road. They brandished their guns, their characteristic lawlessness, and their new fatness. They tried to force the people into knowing that president Jonathan enjoyed their support and therefore had the southwest. Many mouths were not left agape by the nakedness of that which was utterly sordid. Because ethnic militias now fight for their pockets while fighting for freedom. Pipeline contracts that had been awarded them were pragmatic for more than security reasons. After all billions were shared yet the pipelines received no respite.

Our soldiers are stretched. And when stretched minds snap rebukes are measured, condemnations muffled . They are giving it their all, fighting demons with gloves. The depravity of the other side makes any rule following seem a handicap. We knew something was amiss but we didn’t know that the billions of dollars meant for the war were this footloose. Against the asymmetry and barbarism of boko haram for whom killing and maiming is a compulsive obsession , the waywardness of the ‘boko haram dollars’ was egregious evil.