When a man dies eulogies and tears are shed. Some of his enemies will contribute genuine tears from remorse , some friends will tear their dresses in affected grief. Some sympathy must belong to the one who has dropped from contention, death is a resignation. Sins are forgiven or forgotten, good deeds are confessed , professed, exaggerated.

The presumption that has sustained kidnapping, that abductions are invariably followed by ransoms, must be falsified. The evil business can’t remain lucrative.It has been all too easy for kidnappers. Ransoms are routinely delivered. But what options do terrified and traumatized families and friends of victims really have? The final solution may lie in a collective determination not to accede to ransoms.

In a fit of pique, the son threw the parable of ‘filth and pigs’ but refused to take on the father, resisted the temptations of those who egged him on to put the father beyond public redemption. He swallowed his pride , no one knows if he is still regarded worthy of his seat in the anti corruption assembly. Time will tell. Because these half- hearted “its ok now” reconciliations often cannot undo the damage already done to reputations . A shattered or tattered reputation , ordinarily, has no ‘nmekwatarism’ as the Igbo would joke.

If the president has anything close to the war against indiscipline of 1984 why are the police ,customs and immigration officials on the stretch of that road between Seme border and Agbara ridiculing him

Buhari’s first attempt failed in 1985 . Unbridled zeal and passion dominated sensitivity and discretion. An innate obsession for rectitude and order propelled by youth and absolute military powers would suffer no debilitation from political calculations and compromises. He failed to temper perhaps ill digested idealism with cold realism.

Suicide is bad but one would understand why Hitler preferred it. The boko haram variety is propelled by the lust for heavenly virgins. The delusional is sick , so his plight is perhaps understandable. But when my undergraduate second cousin drowned herself in shaving powder some years ago because her school boyfriend jilted her, anger more than sorrow took hold of me. Lagos APC is currently possessed by such a terminal folly. Vindictiveness is pathetic.

Bishop Kukah is a thick-skinned social crusader. Christians from amongst the northern minority tribes have a reputation of commitment only life at the ‘battle front’ can impart. But if Kukah was just a man of the cloth who had an innate fearlessness, he would not have the stature he currently possesses.

Obnoxious evil can pass by you unrecognized. A loved relation was brutally dispossessed by death, not once, twice. He lost his sons in succession and mysteriously.

Make money, ‘hammer’, be somebody. Anyhow! Under the rubric ‘deal ‘, ‘runs’ or ‘hustling’ , anything goes. Do it , just don’t get caught. Make money. If you are caught , settle or sort it. Only the cursed goes in for it and “that’s not your portion”. Mammonism.

Igbos will tell you that the taste of the coming faeces can be known from the flavor of the heralding fart.