The nation-wide strike action embarked upon since last Tuesday by the National Association of Resident Doctors has expectedly made its painful impact on Nigerians. The doctors are angered among other things by the failure of government to observe the implementation of the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) agreement reached between government and the doctors. Briefing the media during the week, the President of the Association Dr. Jibril Abdullahi explained that his Association had given government uptil September 30, 2013, to resolve the issues involved but that it failed to do so. He added that the Enugu State Government also failed to implement the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) for his members in the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital.

The need to identify every Nigerian citizen does not call for lengthy explanations. It is therefore in order for the Nigerian Identity Management Commission whose mandate it is to do so to take steps which it considers necessary to meet the mandate. In this age of technology, the commission would probably have the right to acquire the biometrics of all citizens.

About a month ago, the Nigerian Guild of Editors held its Annual Convention in Asaba with the theme ‘Nigeria beyond Oil’. It is noteworthy that the conference took the form of a crusade to get the nation to diversify its economy and stop its over reliance on oil. For this reason, this column commended the move especially the pivotal role of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State. Considering that the crusade will evolve a plan B for even development of the nation, the need to evolve such initiatives in all sectors cannot be overemphasized.

One of the issues yet to be appropriately addressed in our democratic experiment is the insulation of societal institutions from partisan politics so that they can effectively perform their statutory functions. The failure to do this has been due largely to our inability to observe the fine divide between the ruling political party and the government of the day.

The Special Mini Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to fill some positions in the party’s National Executive has come and gone. Whether or not the party deserves commendation can be viewed from two standpoints. The first and perhaps the more obvious is that which believes that to congratulate the party on the event does not in essence arise. This is because there was nothing special about the convention as its title tended to impute. The correct title should have been “PDP Repeat Convention”.