Anybody with a heart should be bleeding for what is happening in Benue State in particular and the entire North-Central in general. Hardly a day goes by without reports of someone being killed in a most gruesome manner. Or people being displaced from their ancestral land. Or houses being burnt and farms destroyed in a most wanton manner. Or women being gang raped and slaughtered like cattle. The one thing that a rural community has, the one thing going for it is serenity.

I was just about two years on the Island, blissfully ignorant of the klieg lights and the throbbing night life which the Island represented and which was all around me when an old friend visited. It was a Friday night at about 10.30 pm. My wife and I—the only occupants in the apartment—were downstairs watching TV. And fiddling with our phones. It was a sedentary, homely setting. We were as spiritually removed from the ‘madding crowd’ despite its being physically close to home, as possible. My friend, who had lived on the Island for quite a while, was meeting some people at an upscale night club close to my place. He remembered the way we were and felt it would be fun to ‘drag’ me out if I was home. He was surprised at my ignorance of the existence of the club which was actually a walking distance and even more surprised at my reluctance to ‘explore.’ We shared a bottle of good wine and peppered chicken while listening to old school music. My state of relaxed and contented being on the night caught him by surprise and influenced his decision to call it a night. By this time it was after one anyway. Our conversation convinced him that the old indeed has passed away and could only be resuscitated on rare occasions not on a whim as used to be. 

The knives came out from the young and old—and from some unexpected quarters— immediately President Buhari made his desire to contest for the presidency in 2019 official. Some of the criticisms against his eligibility were true. Some were false. Many were exaggerated. All of that is to be expected as they happen even in more advanced democracies.

JOHESU is an acronym for Joint Health Sectors Union. Ordinarily, this should mean that it speaks for all the health sectors in the country. That should have been good news to government or whoever has to negotiate with these sectors. But it has turned out to be bad news instead because JOHESU sees the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA)—a major sector—as a rival and wants parity at all costs, including deaths to hapless patients who find themselves in the cross-fire. Sectors that should speak with one voice have thus become a tower of Babel.

The World Cup is just a few weeks away. It is a month long extravaganza created and planned for youths round the world by the old. It is another inescapable irony of life that one of the enduring symbols of youth and liberalism is run by conservative old men. FIFA eschews politics yet, the very choice of venue and hosting right is steeped in politics.

Two very disturbing pictures flashed through the media a couple of weeks ago. They were connected to a personality.

The debate in town is about our youths; whether they are too young to run for the highest political offices or too lazy for their own good and the good of the country. Like everything in Nigeria, what should have led to a robust debate capable of moving the country forward has been politicised and thereby, made pedestrian.

Both the mainstream and social media have been full of condemnations—and rightly so— for the randy Professor who wanted to ‘knack’—forgive my vulgarity—a girl young enough to be his grand-daughter five times before he could raise her marks from 33 to 40 —a rough translation of one ‘round’ per mark with two bonus marks that would probably be contingent on ‘satisfactory performance.’

Our President has now officially declared his intention to run for a second term. I don’t think it was a decision that took anybody by surprise except perhaps those who tried to hold a politician to his elusive words, or those who deluded themselves in wishing for the Mandela option. Mandela is, well, Mandela; a unique human being in many ways.

Four members of the National Assembly have died within weeks of each other. None of them made it to the biblical age of seventy years. For all their wealth and positions, they could not extend the inevitable; they could not negotiate their timeline on earth. One was said to be preparing for an outing when he breathed his last.