TURKISH leader, Tayyip Erdogan decided to change his country’s ceremonial Presidency to an executive one. So he told his countrymen: “There are already examples in the world. You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany. There are later examples in various other countries”. But he came under international criticism for allegedly casting Adolf Hitler in a favourable light. He immediately began a series of summersaults saying the governance system in Hitler’s Germany was not an effective one and that “if the system is abused, it may lead to bad management resulting in disasters as in Hitler’s Germany”.

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”