AFTER their burial, I did a tribute titled ‘Iyawo: Requiem for the Kuje ‘mother of two’ (Nov/3/2015) in honour of late Mrs. Adebayo (Iyawo or Mama Dolapo) who was tragically cut down along with two children in the Kuje bomb blast of October, 2 2015. I missed an opportunity last October, 2016 to do a remembrance piece on them –even though I had promised myself I would. But even as I rued that, a pleasant Facebook event happened which now requires a revisit of that tribute’: Vanguard’s Photo-Journalist Adeshida Yomi recently on his Facebook wall posted a material reminiscing on the Abuja ‘Fleet-Street’ of old –a bed-and-office media block of sixteen flats- in Area 3, and which reminiscing evoked not only fond memories of the good old cob reporting days in the nation’s capital, but also brought sad recollections of the tragic and the not so tragic fates of some fringe, non-journalist personalities that made life tick at that famed hub of Abuja Correspondents –Fleet-Street- where no journalist was worth the name unless he lived at or daily came to pick his bearing.

TWO days ago I read on- line, a seven-man gang-list –said to have been read out by the Nigeria Television Authority NTA- of suspects that kidnapped former Minister Bagudu Hirse. It was a list predominantly of South-Southern or South-Eastern characters confederating with some Northerners of ethnic minority extraction. None was Hausa, none was Fulani or Hausa-Fulani. In fact, none was a Muslim. Quite an unpalatable list you would say especially to cry-wolfers of hegemonic Hausa-Fulani agenda for the extermination of Christians and the Islamisation of Nigeria.

TO suggest that the Attorney General instituting criminal proceedings against the Senate leadership bears the imprimatur of the Executive arm undermining the principles of separation of powers, or that it constitutes a coup of one arm against another, is most uncharitable, to say the least…. The theoretical notion of the ‘independence’ of the arms of government is a misnomer. What exists in practice is functional ‘inter-dependence’.

AND although the American  Constitution, as Abraham Lincoln posited “contained no prohibition of secession or enforcement language to preserve the Union”, it did –like all other democratic constitutions- specify an oath of office mandating the President “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”.

THE ‘do-nothing’ advocates on corruption say that unless Buhari is able to net corrupt persons all at once, he has not the moral right to net any corrupt person at all.

I CLOSED last week with this key point, namely: that the ‘freedom of the press’ –ironically- does not belong to the press. That media ethicists say it is a ‘public trust’ reposed in the media to be enjoyed not by the media, but by the people. And that although journalists must be constantly alert to see that “the public’s business is conducted in public”, they must also “be vigilant against all who would exploit the press for selfish purposes, including from amongst themselves”.

NORTH gets lion’s share in police recruitment’. This was one of the front page stories of the Daily Sun’s edition of yesterday. And which obviously was an extension of the divisive media narrative about the alleged ethno-regional bias of the Buhari administration in the distribution of state resources and opportunities.

THE preamble to this week’s Column is from a previous piece titled ‘In Defense of Obasanjo’. The main body is a re-jigged version of yet another, titled ‘Obj: Tribute to a fighter’. Now that Obasanjo is on the menu -again- it is auspicious, on a lighter note to serve him unexpurgated. Again.

IN his November 5, 1952 concession speech, after losing the presidential election to Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson was asked how much it pained that a dye- in-the-wool politician, should lose the presidential election to a political neophyte who had just retired as General.

THAT the President’s Executive proposals nowadays go through rough legislative times before they are either rejected or at best rancorously approved, should worry Mr. President. Or so I thought.

Yes, now that Reuben Abati, Jonathan’s erstwhile Media Adviser, is on the menu, again, maybe we should do some reminiscing on a familiar recipe -the Abati attention-seeking industry. Shortly after his Principal left office,

The Right Honourable Lord Denning devotes a substantial portion of his book What Next In The Law, to discuss how the English justice system faired in the hands of some of the great judicial reformers of British antiquity.

WHEN Justice Musdapher announced publicly that Nigerian judges had no reason whatsoever to hear criminal matters beyond a period of six months, it was the much that any Chief Justice –without the luxury of a judicial fiat- could do to advance the course of speedy dispensation of justice.

IN his suave, genteel, self-effacing stride, and maybe even in his judicial worldview, he seemed like a judge who preferred that ‘settled judicial waters’ be left undisturbed. And why, by the way, should ‘settled judicial waters’ not be left undisturbed?

IT was French neoclassical architect, Jean Laurent Legeay who said “In politics, as in business, you must always ask for thirty pieces of silver even though you have more than enough”. Now whether this statement more aptly defines ‘greed’ than it does politics, is an entirely different matter. Anti-Tinubus have always asked, -often self-righteously- ‘What does Tinubu want?’