The PUNCH of Wednesday October 23, 2013 was for me particularly remarkable. Its reports – regular columns and opinions – summarized all Nigerians need to know about the government they overwhelmingly elected in 2011. Many long term readers of this column would recall my strident calls for Nigerians to massively reject the PDP, including Jonathan, at the polls. My reason was simple. Based on information at my command, some of which was published in my book, PDP: CORRUPTION INCORPORATED, Nigeria could never get out of the mess in which we are stuck as long as the PDP, as presently constituted, is in power at the centre. And, by power, I mean the legislature as well as the Presidency.

Tuesday October 29, 2013 will mark exactly one year since Mrs Nenyin Alison Attah, the former First Lady of Akwa Ibom State departed this world for eternal life. For the two children, Felicia and Christopher, and for His Excellency, Obong Victor Attah, the Father of Akwa Ibom State, it has been a long year; made longer by the absence of the centre-piece of every home – a loving wife and mother. Life had ceased to be the same for them; but life must go on.
But it was not only the husband and kids who will miss her. Eno, the house help of over three decades, who through the generousity of the former First Lady, had sent two kids to university and is the proud owner of three bedroom bungalow, with boys quarters attached, had refused to go. Like the Biblical Ruth she had decided that even in death “Your people shall be my people”. She represents a lot of people who are still to come to terms that their long term benefactor had gone – never to return.

“The population of Lagos State is estimated at 20 million with 10 million being Christians. The ten million have no more control over their lives than ten million cows being driven about by nomads”. Dele Sobowale, September 26, 2013, at the Seminar organized by Christian Conscience at Alausa, Ikeja.

Why am I writing a tribute to someone who was unknown to me until May of this year? And when we first met, I discovered that he was just about old enough to be my second child? Yet, in less than six months, I had become so fond of him that when the news of his sudden death in the Associated Airline crash reached me at Ibadan, my regular refuge from the chaotic life in Lagos, tears came tumbling out of my eyes uncontrollably for hours – as if he was my son. In reality, right from our first conversation on the phone, which started with him calling, he always called me “Daddy”. Even, when I told him that “Uncle will be more appropriate”, he had replied, “Sir, you are like a Daddy to a lot of us educated young ones around Campus Square. We are proud that you are one of our own; and we read you every Sunday religiously”.

In 2008, I wrote two articles titled “WHEN GENIUS FAILS”. The first was about the former Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Dr Ndidi Onyuike warning about the imminent collapse of the Stock Exchange that year. It happened as predicted. The second was related to the crisis in the banking sector even as Professor Soludo was pretending that all was well with the banks. Today, everybody knows better. Where are OCEANIC, INTERCONTINENTAL, BANK PHB etc today? This article also might have been titled “WHEN GENIUS FAILS -3” and it would have been appropriate because the Federal Minister of Finance is no longer the highly respected figure she was in 2003-2005. Her return is shaping out to be some sort of personal disaster for her for many reasons – mostly political.

On some of her visits to Nigeria from Barbados, she had been known to sit next to IBB, our future Head of State and playfully pull his ears while saying: “Why did a handsome boy like you get into the army? You want to get yourself killed”

The story continued by reporting that Mr Fidelis Chukwujindu and his accomplice, Mrs Ngozi Ayoha, operating University College Hospital Ogboko, Ideato, P.O. Box 1960 (Nigeria’s year of independence if you don’t remember), Orlu, Imo State, had collected N8,000 from prospective candidates this year alone for application fees alone.

“0803-307-2836 …You are quite right about the quality of private universities in Ghana and those in Nigeria and it’s no brainer to say there’s no comparison. Most of the ones in Ghana are not better than glorified secondary schools in terms of infrastructure and course contents. I should know, because I was in that country to inspect a few on behalf of my son…Mike Oteri.

Every monumental task I have assigned myself on this page, since the first article appeared in August 1994, always calls for too quotations. It invariably marks my departure from the tedium of present economic, social and political crises on which everybody is focused – especially my co-columnists writing for every paper.

Henry Fielding, the author of world classic, TOM JONES, was an excellent writer and the classical “woman wrapper”. So, he knew what he was talking about. For Fielding as for all men, there is an abiding warning – be careful when your woman (wife, running mate, mistress, girl-friend etc) intrudes too much in your business. Irrespective of whether the business is politics or a church or illegal oil bunkering the odds of a happy ending are very long. Conventional wisdom has it that “behind any successful man, there is a woman”. But, conventional wisdom is not history and the verdict of history has not been too kind to conventional wisdom.

President Jonathan certainly did not wish this to happen. But, whether the country will be willing to stomach four more years of Mrs Patience Jonathan, or not, has suddenly become a campaign issue – even before the struggle for Aso Rock 2015 starts. However, before going into the details, permit me to bring the issue into historical, global and political perspective – if not for anything else but because of those who already concluded that Dele Sobowale hates Jonathan.

SUNDAY PUNCH of August 11, 2013, on pages 70 and 71 provided the names and pictures of people it called “Opposition Power brokers: The Strongmen of APC”. It reads to me like pictures of WANTED men at a Police Station. For a start, the list had no single woman – that tells us a lot about the gender discrimination in the new political organization. It is doubtful if this new “progressive” political contraption is what will take us to the promised land.

Until the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, registered the alliance of political associations which had come together under the banner of All Progressives Congress, APC, to me, there was nothing to discuss about the matter. APC is now a reality, so there are loads of issues to consider. The first, and most important, has already been addressed by Harold Macmillan. The former British Prime Minister, on February 3, 1960, in a speech to the South African Parliament, had pronounced as follows:

By Dele Sobowale “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight”. Woodrow Wilson,1856-1924,  28th President of the US. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 60). Woodrow Wilson was an academic, President of Princeton University before he became President of the United States and he was the originator of the League of […]

After all the lies and denials by the presidency, Mrs Patience Jonathan had revealed the truth; which most people knew anyway. She and her husband are at loggerheads with the Governor of Rivers State. She, on account of her wish that parts of Okrika be spared from demolition. Those with any memory at all will recollect the incident.