PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari was Petroleum Minister from 1976-78 and  Governor of North-Eastern State, comprising  today’s Bauchi, Gombe, Borno, Yobe, Taraba and Adamawa states. He was also Head of State for 20 months from December 31, 1983. So when as a presidential candidate he told the country in 2011 that the much touted fuel subsidy is a fraud, it was assumed he knew what he was talking about. He asked the basic question: “Who is subsidizing who?”

AS part of international delegations, I met Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir thrice when he was President of Sudan. At the first meeting, the gate had opened and there was a land rover-like jeep with a handful of soldiers. I had reflected that the State House seemed lightly guarded.  Even state governors in Nigeria seemed far better protected. We were ushered into what I thought was a waiting room. We chatted and were waiting to be ushered to the president’s presence, only for him to appear.

IN an unprecedented and meaningless step, the United States President Donald Trump this Monday designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organisation. It is like designating the American Marines Corps a terrorist organisation. Some of the implications are that economic and travel sanctions would be imposed on the corps, and organisations that maintain ties with it will be sanctioned. 

SENATOR Hassan Adisa Babatunde “HAB” Fasinro, one of the founding fathers of Lagos State, passed away March 31, at 99. A senator of the Second Republic, he was called to the Bar in 1951. He  attended Ereko Methodist School and the Methodist Boys High School, MBHS, Lagos.

BIRTHDAYS are not for dying. They are usually for celebration. However, in the case of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, which turned 70 this Wednesday, April 4, it should be the Nunc Dimittis; and then, wishing its soul to rest in peace. That is if our goal is world peace, rather than a fractious world.