FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chairman, Board of Trustees of the People Democratic Party (PDP) made a turn on his celebrated political route, and has left the nation guessing and following with intense interest.

THE just concluded National Convention of People Democratic Party which produced a new set of its leaders is a study in the perversion of all the core values of the democratic process.

YOU did not hear it from President Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy and the highest ranking northerner, Namadi Sambo, or any Minister, or Special Adviser, but it is now official.

GOVERNORS from South South states are angry with the north over its temerity to hint that their States are sitting on, and developing on resources to which they are not strictly entitled. They express a widespread indignation across much of the oil and gas producing region which has followed the publicized intention of Northern Governors to demand for a review of the formula for allocation of revenue from oil and gas derived from off-shore resources of the nation.

THIS piece was written a day after Ojukwu died. I have decided to have it published after his burial because the issues raised by the article are even more relevant today than when he just died. The reader also does not need to be reminded of the views expressed by the Igbo people, his former adversaries, enemies and friends, many of them sincere, many expressed just to capture a mood.

THREE important comments have recently been made on the linkages between poverty, politics and insecurity, and the current state of the North. First, the Governor of Borno State said that poverty and poor governance in the last few years are responsible for fuelling the Boko Haram insurgency in his region.

A GROUP which gave itself the title of Eminent National Leaders of Thought met a few days under the umbrella of a forum called National Summit Group with suspicious official support at the expensive Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Lagos.

IT is now tragically obvious that neither government nor Boko Haram will accept that it is losing a war which is bringing unprecedented levels of fear, pain and deprivation to the nation. In the last few weeks, the Boko Haram insurgency has escalated its campaign of terror, and says that it is doing so in response to arrests, killings and detentions of its members in Maiduguri, Kano and Kaduna, among other areas.

THE respected former Director-General of National Security organization (NSO) and a former top policeman, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi recently made a strong case for the introduction of police formations to be controlled and managed by State Governments.

AT the heat of the national resistance against President Jonathan’s decision to abruptly implement the decision to remove the subsidy on petroleum, a number of events took place which had the combined effect of raising the oldest question about the Nigerian state; as well as further damaging President Jonathan’s already limited capacity to offer an all-inclusive and purposeful leadership.