Last week, I started with Jos and ended with Warri; this week let me reverse the approach. In the end we are looking at the same impending catastrophe from two different ends of a prism.

A modern philosopher has also added his own list, the stomach which demands food everyday and the sea into which all rivers flow, yet never seems to have enough.

All of a sudden, the language changes to suit the new situation. Fortunately, the matters involved are very simple and straightforward to people who are not shackled by demands of office.

After that he hurdled over three Boeing 747 planes, two Airbuses and a Boeing 787 Dreamliner taxing for take-off almost hitting his back foot on the tail fin of the aircraft. He claimed another record in the highest hurdles.

“But history sometimes indulges in jokes of questionable taste”. Joseph S. Schumpeter, 1942. We gained international disrepute by having the largest pool of ghost workers in public service in the world.

There are at least three reasons Jonathan will not be on the ballot in 2010; and if he forces himself on it disaster will follow. One reason, and one reason only, dictates this letter to Mrs Jonathan. She can ignore it if she likes. But, at least half a dozen people (Mustapha, Ekwueme, Obasanjo, El-Rufai, Ribadu, Soludo etc ) who were warned on this page and who ignored the warning are now licking their wounds –including her predecessor in office. I don’t want her to join them in “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. The choice however is hers.

To be quite candid, not being a lawyer and after reading what various lawyers have said about the senate action, I don’t really know. This is one of those matters on which the majority might not even be right. What has been done is certainly expedient but whether it is constitutional or not will eventually be determined by the courts because there is little doubt in my mind that the action will be challenged. Yar’Adua is to blame.

Indeed what went wrong, as the text message asked? Interestingly, that text message represents perhaps the mildest form of dishonour attaching to the person of Yar’Adua that I have heard people voice across the land since the man and his wife departed to Saudi 69 days ago today Sunday, January 31, 2010. Many of the other insults that have been hauled in the direction of the presidency are totally unprintable.

“All men like best to join up with the power that is the first to show its strength”. Xenophon, 430-370 B.C.
(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p. 197).

“Successful leaders at all levels love their status and power and are hesitant to leaving voluntarily”.
Jack Welch, Chairman, General Electric Company, 1988.

A few people are “alive” in the world today but who are on perpetual life support systems. They cannot leave the hospital and are virtually vegetables. The former Prime Minister of Israel, Sharon, has been in coma since 2006; so are about 200 people worldwide. None of them, however great will ever be allowed to govern their nations from their sick beds. As General De Gaulle had said, “The graveyards are full of indispensable people”. Yar’Adua and nobody else born of woman in Nigeria is indispensable.

This article could have been titled Obama and Media Executioners Vs Farouk and Nigeria and it will still be appropriate. But, the selection of the title was based on the need to come quickly to the conclusion before providing the supporting evidence.

CONTRARY to what many people think, the culprit is not NNPC.
As far as importing and making fuel available is concerned, the corporation had done its duty. There is sufficient fuel in Nigeria’s territorial waters to ensure that we do not experience any scarcity throughout the yuletide. The imminent deregulation of the downstream sector is not even the issue.

IF you think there is fuel scarcity in Nigeria then you must either be ignorant or a fool. There is no fuel scarcity; and that is authoritative – as you will discover shortly. But, there is scarcity of patriotism and abundance of saboteurs – again as you will soon find out.

James Ibori’s case which has been turned into a charade can serve as proxy for others pending in the courts. This particular case has demonstrated, as no other, how those expensive lawyers, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, and judges have conspired to delay justice. Granted, the great Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, had pronounced that, “A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes”.