ONE of the most traumatic days in my life was September 21, 2005. Exactly ten years today. A few weeks before, then President Olusegun Obasanjo had again decided to increase the price of petrol (PMS) In reaction, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) decided to hold mass rallies and street marches in selected parts of the country to demonstrate the people’s opposition, and as a warning that the citizenry would resist such increase.

BRITAIN has within a week, set three new records. Wayne Roonney by scoring his fiftieth international goal for England in the Euro 2016 qualification match against Switzerland, set the record as the country’s highest goal scorer.

NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, titled his 1946-1965 memoirs, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years. He explained that “The inventor and embodiment of this deliberate, populist corruption of ‘peculiar mess’ was, appropriately, a certain Ibadan shon of de shoil (son of the soil) by the name of Adelabu.”

POPE Francis, born, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and known widely, as a pacifist, is visiting the United States, a famous warrior nation, for six days from September 22. Just as the hood does not make a monk, so does a papal regalia, not make a pacifist. There have been warmongering Popes like Pope Urban II who militarily, mobilised Europe in 1095 to attack parts of Europe and the Middle East in the name of a crusade. The wars ignited by that Pope, raged for over two centuries leaving massive destruction, wasted lives and horrendous massacres of Judaists, Muslims and Christians.

I PLEDGE to Buhari my President, to be , faithful, loyal and honest. To serve him with all my strength. To uphold his honour and glory so I will not be counted amongst his enemies. So help me God. Knowing that he is an ‘ol soja’ I need to pledge my one hundred percent loyalty to him as he marks his first hundred days in office.

I WAS at the Baden International Business School (BIBS) Switzerland from August 23 – 29 as a Resource Person. My presentation was on Labour Unions and their Future in the Energy Industry. In the paper, I had written: “So fundamental had electricity become at the turn of the 20th Century, that it was one of the three reasons for the October 1917 Russian Revolution; the electrification of the country, under what became known as the National Economic Programme (NEP) The other two aims were to pull the country out of the First World War and provide food for the starving populace.”

THE Presidency in announcing that 10,000 more policemen and women are to be recruited, accompanied it with a warning that there must be no extortion of potential recruits. This is not only an indictment, but also a vote of no confidence in the police. The public Presidential warning, tears away at the self-esteem of the police.

EUROPE is in panic. No, not because of tumbling stocks over what they see as China ‘slowing down’. This itself is intriguing; fanatical prophets and apostles of market forces, begging the Chinese Government to intervene in the Stock Market. The panic is about the tidal waves of migrants from war torn countries, surviving the seas, especially the Mediterranean, to make landfall on European coasts.

BISHOP Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese has almost been buried in a pile of criticism. This followed his comments as a spokesperson of the National Peace Committee, on the war against corruption. If the cerebral Bishop has erred, I plead he be forgiven. After all, to err is human, to forgive is divine. Having known the Bishop for several years, I want to testify that he has no inheritance in the House of Jonathan.

IF the United States (US) were not the most powerful country in the world which can change the course of human history. If its President were not the most powerful politician in the universe with the largest military. If American policies and actions would not affect world economy. If it were not a nuclear power with an arsenal that can sink the world.

WHEN you go for a Nigerian passport, you are finger printed, photographed and your signature, taken. Then you provide your full names, height, date of birth, place of birth, permanent home address, state of origin, Local Government, home town, e-mail, phone number, occupation, marital status, maiden name, colour of eyes and hair, special features, next- of- kin, the kin’s contact number and address.

WHEN I was Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in 2011, we ordered workers’ strikes following disagreements on the implementation of the new Minimum Wage. Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola, Executive Governor of the State of Osun asked me for a discussion in Abuja.

MULLAH Mohammed Omar, founder of the Taliban Movement in Afghanistan is dead. He was one of the most feared ‘terrorists’ in the world. Yet, he was essentially, an Afghan patriot.

THERE is a jam in our tertiary institutions admission. Unfortunately, the regulatory Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) which last month, raced to decongest the process, became part of the problem; creating more chaos leading to protests by students, teachers and parents. JAMB was forced to abandon its new policy.

THE Cuban flag has gone up in Washington DC. It had come down 54 years ago. The American flag is to go up in Havana on August 14. It had come down in 1961. Cuba had on July 20, packed about five hundred guests into its 16th Street mansion Embassy to raise its flag. It has two primary requests of its big brother neigbour; lift the 54-year embargo on Cuba, and get out of our Guantanamo Bay.