The defective nature of the 1999 constitution is becoming more glaring. If anything, the latest judgement on the Zamfara Governor Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi’s defection from ANPP, (the party on which platform he was elected), gives urgency to the need for thorough rework of that constitution.

We are familiar with the culture of “wasting” our great and talented citizens. When we cannot waste them we neutralize and shut them out of effective participation in nation-building.

I have been taking a serious look at the quantity and quality of arms said to have been given up by the so-called militants of the Niger Delta, and it keeps my heart racing that such arsenal of sophisticated arms could have been in the possession of those who are not in the regular security forces of this country.

Within a short space of 10 days, (late last month), two daring abductions – (kidnappings if you like), took place in Kaduna State. Secretary to the State Government, Mr Waje Yayok and businessman Alhaji Bala Bello were snatched by kidnappers, and the Kaduna Government was said to have paid N10 million to secure SSG’s release on Wednesday.
No doubt, these are worse than dangerous times in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s foreign minister was reported to have said in New York that “Mr President himself… publicly accepted that the process that brought him to power was flawed; so, Nigerians would be shocked if the same president goes ahead to re-appoint the same man to conduct the 2011 general election.”

It is not funny that four months on, public tertiary educational institutions in the country have remained shut because of the action and inaction of ASUU and the Federal Government.

Since the death of Gani Fawehinmi, a lot has been said and published about him: about his dogged fighting spirit; about his passion for improving the fortunes of the less privileged and the poor; about his fierce battles against injustice and wickedness in high places. The list is longer.

In the days of Idi Amin, Uganda took the risk of printing new money to bail that country’s economy out of the dull-drums. The exercise backfired so catastrophically, it has taken Museveni over two decades to right the disastrous consequences.

For several weeks on, all government-owned universities have been shut as a result of the “Academic Staff being on strike. Things have been this way for decades now. Yet we have still not devised an effective method to manage the crisis.

Democracy? That’s a long way off. What we have on ground is a quarter kilometre to one-party dictatorship. We say we are a Federal Republic of Nigeria, but there is nothing federal about the system which has mutated within half a century from a federation to a military-style unitary dictatorship.