“Statistics say Nigeria is the richest country in Africa, with an average annual per capita income of 1,200 pounds, great wealth in most of the continent. But this is the greatest kleptocracy on Earth, whose oil wealth is pillaged by an elite which claws not millions, but billions…

NOT since the OCCUPY NIGERIA demonstrations of January 2012, against the Jonathan administration’s hike of petroleum products prices, has an event shocked and united Nigerians like the on-going #BRING BACK OUR GIRLS manifestation.

Despite my hope and preferred choices, I was made a member of the Political Parties and Electoral Matters Committee of the National Conference. Frankly, I had wanted, above all else, to serve in the committee dealing with political restructuring issues.

LAST week, I argued that in moments of crisis, the political elite must unite the country, to ward off a nation endangering process.

IN the best case scenario,countries rally together in moments of national crisis. They put aside superficial divisions; suspend deep-seated hostilities to create the necessary national accord to defeat a nation-threatening crisis. Many examples abound in history.

LAST Monday, it was my turn to respond to President Goodluck Jonathan’s address at the opening ceremony of the National Conference, 2014. As was set out by the conference leadership, every delegate was expected to say something about Jonathan’s speech. The great handicap was that each one of us was assigned just three minutes for a statement. Not enough time to open full hearts about the Nigerian condition.

It was GG Darah who first pointed it out to me graphically, just before the commencement of plenary on Monday this week. Nigerians have always known how to move away from the brink.

Last week, Olisa Metuh, the ruling PDP’s Publicity Secretary, said the insurgency in the country was sponsored by unpatriotic elements to discredit President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. According to him, Jonathan is being persecuted for no other reason than being a Nigerian from a minority ethnic group, adding further that no leader in the history of the country faced the height of persecution the President has been subjected to since he assumed office.

WHEN members of the Nigerian Collective issued an open letter at the beginning of this week, I didn’t hesitate to add my name to the long list of signatories. The petition demanded the sack of Nigeria’s Interior Minister, Abba Moro, for his insensitive comments in the wake of the tragic killing of young Nigerian applicants at the weekend.

NEXT Monday, the National Conference will be inaugurated in Abuja. From that date, at least 490 Nigerians (looks like the opposition APC is determined to push a boycott of the process) will begin what will certainly be one of the most controversial gatherings in recent Nigerian history.

This week, President Goodluck Jonathan led a delegation of PDP bigwigs to attend what was termed a “Unity/Freedom Rally”, in Ilorin, Kwara State. Senate President, David Mark, must have spoken the minds of other members of the delegation when he confessed apprehension that they might have just a few people to receive the delegation

WHEN Goodluck Jonathan announced Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s suspension as CBN Governor last Thursday, it was hinged upon sundry allegations prepared by an obscure Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria.

EARLY this week, the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima was in Abuja to brief President Goodluck Jonathan on the heightened insurgency in his state. It was coming against the background of the massacres perpetrated by Boko Haram insurgents in a huge swathe of the state. So alarming has the situation become that the Northern Governors’ Forum convened to explore issues of the widening insecurity in the region as well as efforts to find solutions. These are the worst of times indeed for innocent, often very poor people eking out a desperate livelihood in ecologically challenged environments.

IN this column last week, I pointed out the fact that scarcity of water has remained a major social problem in Ilorin. A succession of military and civilian administrations has fleeced the state of billions of naira, under the guise of providing solution to water problem in Ilorin. Muhammed Sha’aba Lafiagi, a senator today, was the first governor who misappropriated money meant for water supply in Kwara state.

A LINGERING memory from my early child in Ilorin is the shortage of potable water in many homes in the city. During the 60s, there was a standing pipe which served hundreds of families, in a depression where what was then Oyo. Bypass (today’s Ibrahim Taiwo Road), meets the Emir’s Road. People will form long lines of buckets with regular outbreaks of fights as each one desperately attempts to get water for their family use.