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.