THE name, Asuquo Ita may not ring a bell in the country. But, Eskor Toyo does amongst intellectuals, academics, economists, trade unionists, human rights activists, leftists and in university campuses across the country. However, both names refer to the same person. The real name of this revolutionary professor of Economics and moral leader of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is the former, while Eskor Toyo was his nom de plume which stuck and under which he became a professor.

ERITREA is a relatively unknown African country. Little news filters out. In October 2012, I wanted to pay with a hundred dollar bill in a Washington supermarket, and the cashier declined. He asked me to pay with a smaller denomination, which I did not have. Noticing his features, I asked if he was of African decent. He asked if I knew Ethiopia. He said his country is near Ethiopia. I asked, Eritrea? “Yes” “So why didn’t you simply say you are from Eritrea?” “I tell people, and they never seem to have heard of such a country”

INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director, Madam Christine Lagarde was on a four-day visit to Nigeria from January 4. She claimed it was a friendly visit: “I’m not in Nigeria to negotiate for IMF loans but to promote fiscal discipline and favourable monetary policies”

IN the days of innocence, the preachment was ‘Blessed are the peace makers’. In these days of globalisation, rather than make peace, nations tend to stoke the fires of conflict. So is it with the Saudi Arabia-Iran spat which began with the January 2, 2016 mass execution of forty seven persons after trials which even the usually complacent United Nations described as raising “serious concerns over the nature of the charges and the fairness of the process”

The new year will be quite challenging for Nigerians. They need no prophet nor soothsayer to predict this. The country’s situation evolves from its reliance on a mono- culture; oil. Politics is the largest and most productive industry in the country with being in government, the most profitable investment. With falling crude oil prices, the economy is bound to wobble, and unpalatable policy dishes served. Wisely, the Government benchmarked the 2016 Budget on a very low figure of $38 per barrel down from the $53 last year, and $76 for the 2014 Budget. Based on a 2.2 million barrels quota, it is hoping to make a daily income of $83.6 million or $30.514 billion in 2016.

IN my November piece, The enemy within, I paid homage to Comrade Ibrahim Yusuf, the humble labour leader who introduced me to trade unionism. I was fresh from the university and held strongly to certain ideas. For instance, the State Security Services, then known as the Nigeria Security Organisation (NSO)were supposed to be kept at arms length and not allowed to know students, workers or union plans. For me, they were the enemy of the working people.

THE world woke up on Friday December 18 to the calamity that is the proxy war in Syria. The war began four years ago. Over 250,000 killed. Cities destroyed, 7.6 million, internally displaced. Over four million are refugees with an increasing number pushing into Europe. Most of the refugees are children; too young to have started the bloody conflict, but not too young to be victims of the senseless war.THE world woke up on Friday December 18 to the calamity that is the proxy war in Syria. The war began four years ago. Over 250,000 killed. Cities destroyed, 7.6 million, internally displaced. Over four million are refugees with an increasing number pushing into Europe. Most of the refugees are children; too young to have started the bloody conflict, but not too young to be victims of the senseless war.

HUMAN history is replete with instances of the people getting fed up with official policies and taking on the government. Monday January 9, 2012 was one of those days when the Nigerian people in anger, decided to shut down the country.

IN my crawls at the back of British taxis in London a fortnight ago, the radio stations never seemed tired wailing about United States (US) Republican presidential front runner, Donald Trump.

The Senate stands alone. Cold, desolate. and isolated. Open to the elements as showers of criticism rain on it relentlessly from all parts of the country, and even abroad. The Senate’s pains are self- inflicted; it had consciously invited the torrents on its head when it decided to entertain a frivolous bill, “The Bill for an Act to Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and Other Matters Connected therewith”, otherwise known as the Anti-Social Media Bill.

The power, impact and influence of China was evident last Friday in Johannesburg when it met over 40 African leaders. It is instructive that a single country which in the 1980s was still considered a Third World country, could convene what was virtually a meeting of the African Union, AU, and so many Heads of State attended. This was no gathering of some old colonial master holding a Francophone summit with its former subjects, or some illusory ‘commonwealth’ of an ex-slave master giving his former servants the opportunity to take tea and have a handshake. Nor was it some summit of international lenders or do-gooders dishing out interest loans with slavish instructions and conditionalities. Rather, it was a gathering of people with shared colonial memories of forced occupation, exploitation and underdevelopment. A people with a common past whose gathering exuded self- respect and dignity for all, and a shared vision of a non-exploitative world.

I floated through the stores of a new mall opened in Abuja 12 days ago. It is sprawling; taking one side of the only water/river in Abuja.

THE European Union, EU, fox decided that unwanted guests from its watering holes in the Middle East were swarming on it.

Prince Abubakar Audu stood on the verge of history. He had been twice governor of Kogi State, and the electoral results showed that he would be elected a third time.

Turkey is playing dangerous games and endangering world peace. On Tuesday, it plucked off the sky, a Russian Sukhoi SU-24 attack aircraft which it claimed strayed into its territory. As is generally known, the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan administration in Turkey tilts towards the same Islamic fundamentalism exhibited by the Islamic State, ISIS.