Seldom does one come across an individual about whom all those who knew him in life have nothing but good things to say. Professor Ajibade Abayomi Rokosu, “IROKO”, 1940-2016, had just completed one the most amazingly blessed lives anybody can dream of and spent. When good Prof passed away, late last month, he left everybody wondering if it is possible he could pass their way again.

Sam Rayburn, whose protégé was the late President Lyndon Johnson, 1908-1973, who was Senator, Vice-President and President in 1963 when late President John Kennedy, 1917-1963, was assassinated in Texas, Johnson’s own state, was perhaps the most powerful Speaker ever in America’s history. He was also a Texan. If a President of Nigeria is ever killed in the home state of his Vice-President, a civil war would follow. Some of us who remember that episode in 1963 which brought Johnson to power, were praying extra-hard that nothing would happen to Buhari on his visit to Ogun State, early in the month. A civil war would have followed if something similar happened. I hope Buhari stays away from Ogun State; or the South West for that matter until his tenure expires.

An old friend called from the United States last week. He is a naturalized Nigerian American who had not been in Nigeria since he left about twenty years ago. He had been following the revelations concerning the arms deal and withdrawals of millions of dollars from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, allegedly purely for the PDP campaign.

Our country is bleeding profusely from the blows inflicted on it by the apparently unending Boko Haram insurgency; another possibly prolonged round of blood-letting has started with the pro-Biafra movement which recently claimed reportedly over twenty lives in Aba on February 7, 2016. The last thing we need now is another religious conflict; and certainly not in Kaduna state. Yet, the stage is being set, even if inadvertently, for one. That would constitute the mother of all tragedies to befall Nigeria.

I was in Abuja on Tuesday, the day after the Minister made this announcement. As usual, I strolled out of the hotel to buy newspapers. But, from a short distance away, I could see that the vendor had more than the usual number of visitors; something big must be in the papers.