BABAGANA Kingibe has   had it good. Nigeria has been quite fair and very kind to him. Even his Ordinary  and Advanced Level education in London were paid for by the Nigerian authorities. In 1981, at 36, he was  appointed Ambassador to Greece,  then Pakistan and High Commissioner to Cyprus. Kingibe was Director General of the 1988 Constituent Assembly, Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, SDP,  one of the two official parties in 1990.   He  was Vice President-elect in 1993.  That same year, his reward for betraying the Presidential Mandate was to be clothed in a Minister’s  toga by  the bloody Abacha regime first as Foreign Minister, then from 1995, as  Minister of Internal Affairs  and from 1997,  Minister of Power and Steel.

WE gathered at the Communication University, CUC,  Beijing. We were media and Communication scholars from a dozen countries. Eleven from Africa, and host China. It was for frank discussions on how Africans and the Chinese perceive themselves, and how to advance mutual interests.  The gathering  this Saturday, November 10, 2018 chaired by Professor Zhang Yanqiu, the CUC Director of African Communication Research Centre was not primarily concerned about the misinformation peddled by other countries and institutions worried about the growing cooperation between the African and Chinese people.

I STAND on the Great Wall of China. Not for the first time. This time on Monday, November   5, peering down at sprawling   Beijing, and literarily, the whole of the country. Trying to understand this gigantic dam almost going burst; whose waters of over production, full financial rivers and fast rapids of technological leaps and knowledgeable labour, is being systematically, released on the world.

WITH the approach of the February 2019 elections, we are back in the season when the political class, like Father Christmas,  come with  packages. But while the latter comes with gifts, the packages of the politician are promissory. They are promises which in many instances are not kept after the votes have been secured.

A BEAUTIFUL looking lady, perhaps  in her mid- twenties, smiles into the camera. The chubby-cheeked child she is carrying is wearing a cap, but he is shirtless. They are part of the over 7,200 Latin Americans who embarked on an estimated  17-day walk towards the United States, US,  border.