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.

“In every mess I find a friend’, Charles Dibdin, 1745-1814.Sometimes being prophetic and turning out to be right can cause as much anguish as being wrong – when catastrophe results. About five weeks ago, I wrote in an article titled” PRESIDENT JONATHAN: AMAECHI SHOULD NOT DIE, that given Governor Amaechi’s open feud with Jonathan and the alarm that somebody wants him (Amaechi) dead, then it is the President’s duty to ensure the governor does not die. The fingers of suspicion will point in one direction.

Just a little over two years ago, My Fellow Nigerians went to the poles to elect a candidate called Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan as our president – by a wide margin. He won in all the six zones of Nigeria; in what, in my opinion, was the second free and fair presidential election since 1979 when we started experimenting with the presidential system. Given the position and the strangle-hold a president has over our lives, one would have supposed that we considered the matter carefully before casting our votes.

Late President John Kennedy, 1917-1963, of the United States, in his classic, PROFILES IN COURAGE, recalled a Senator who told anyone, who cared to listen, “I never quarrel; but I fight. And when I fight, a funeral follows”. From the second year of PDP in Nigeria, the party had left a trail of blood.

“Seek home for rest for home is best”, Thomas Tusser, 1524-1580.
It was almost nineteen years ago when my first article appeared on the pages of the Sunday Vanguard. But, even before that first one came out, a policy decision had been made about this page. Because the Federal Government looms so large and the states are, by comparison, midgets, the focus will be on issues which are federal or national in scope – with only occasional stop-over to address state or local matters.

The Nigeria’s Governors Forum, NGF, is not a constitutionally recognized body. But, contrary to the opinion in certain quarters, it is not illegal. The reason is simple. While everything in the constitution is “legal”; not everything that is not in the constitution is illegal. The reader should note the inverted comas in the word legal. Governments in democracies worldwide are under obligations to respect citizens’ rights to privacy; but for “security reasons”, these rights are violated in virtually every country. Governments, all over the world, including those of the US, Britain, France, Germany and India, not to talk of Nigeria, spy on their citizens, routinely, under various pretences labeled as security

May 2013 will remain a particularly blessed month for the entire Sobowale family and, especially, for me. On May 8, one daughter and I celebrated our birthday as usual. I was 69. Two other daughters followed on May 9 and 17. And, to cap it all, the May 8 girl got married on May 11 giving the two of us a befitting birthday present. It was also the twenty-third year I would become the Head of Family in a family in which no male child had reached 60 until now.

This column could easily have been titled JONATHAN’s TAG TEAM SLAMMED and it would still have been appropriate. A wrestling champion who selects his tag team partners from the geriatric ward, in a contest with young and agile opponents, should expect a wicked body slam.

If you think aviation matters are unimportant, just remember that the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001 has opened the eyes of all right thinking people to the fact that those things flying over our heads are bombs. And if that is not enough, DANA Airlines crash should serve a permanent notice that those in the plane and those below are perpetually imperiled each time an aircraft flies overhead.