A couple of years ago, a young lady working at the JAMB office stunned the nation when she said the JAMB money in her possession was swallowed by a snake. It was such an incredulous admission that the social media made a joke of it for quite a while. Even the regular, mainstream media made jocular comments.

Professor Bolaji Akinyemi epitomises both professional and  personal success. He is a pride to his generation which already has a constellation of competent, accomplished names. Prof was in the news last week doing us proud again by lending his experience and intellect to the affairs of the nation.

There are stark reminders all around us if we needed any, of the strange times we are in. Yesterday typified one of them.

On the eve Mallam Ismaila Isa Funtua, the founding Managing Director of the defunct Democrat Newspaper died, Eric Teniola, my colleague and good friend, called to intimate me as he often does whenever any event of mutual concern or a momentous development occurs.

It was reported last week that our President wrote to the President of South Africa who is currently the Head of AU (African Union) on the debilitating effect of corruption in Africa.

The whole country was bursting with pride some thirty-five years ago when Professor Wole Soyinka became the first black man to win the Nobel Prize for literature. I was the Editor of Vanguard Newspapers then and was therefore in a vantage position to witness the buzz that swept across the country.

This is a wrong time to be sick. Especially if you are over sixty five years old with ‘underlining conditions’. That means if you are diabetic, hypertensive, asthmatic or if your vital organs are working sub-optimally. And rare is the person at that age who doesn’t have an underlining condition – from the mild to the serious; the benign to the malignant.

“They came in numbers, wielding dangerous weapons. I heard my late husband reciting prayers from the Qur’an. They shot and killed him….in our presence. Oh Allah!!! Where is the government? Who will take care of our numerous children? Is this how the government will allow these bandits to be killing us?

I recently read Owei Lakemfa’s article on June 12. Owei writes for both Vanguard, one of his former employers and Premium Times which is owned by his friend and former colleague. He is one of the few columnists I read often.

I got a few calls from some regular readers who felt I should have written about the brutal killing of George Floyd, the Black American who was killed by a White police officer while three other policemen watched.

Last week was May 29; a day which for many years, was our Democracy Day. And if my arithmetic is correct, our 21st since 1999 when we started this second democratic experience after years of military rule. In a normal world, a man of twenty one is a formed adult, entitled to and ready for whatever life throws at him. In a democratic world however, a twenty one year old democracy is still at its infancy really.

The world I grew up in must be totally incomprehensible to the children of today. But it was the world we knew then. I grew up in a community setting where peers grouped naturally and respect for the groups ahead of you came so easily and naturally that nobody had to force it.

By virtue of my trade, I knew many top people in Government during my active days. But only few will I say I was reasonably close to. One of them was Alhaji Shehu Musa. I drove with him in the same car from Lagos to Bida when he was made the Makanma.

The earth is breathing; literally. It is aeriated and suffused with life nurturing oxygen. Air is now cleaner, fresher and crisper almost everywhere. Many areas of Europe and Asia which had been covered in smug have been reportedly cleared.

I had this irresistible urge to go out on Tuesday that was quite unlike me. The ease in lockdown was just a day old and the normal me would have skipped the week just to test the waters. I tried to justify this itch by rationalising that I had been on personal lockdown long before the official one.