What is there to fill the hearts of Easterners with joy,after the fratricidal episode that only showed how hardy a people they are, after frittering away a lot of that hardiness just to survive? That only reflects a part of the glorious past that was unable to address the present.

Last week, I recalled Alhaji Atiku Abubakar saying, when I interviewed him many years ago that he regretted the fact that it was very difficult for average citizens to survive or thrive if they didn’t have access to influential people who were willing to help them and that he would be very happy if our society eventually evolved to the point where the government provided safety nets that would enable everyone to get what they needed and deserved.

AS we struggle to understand our past as Africans, two veteran nationalists have dropped bombshells with the effect of category seven earthquakes over the fate of two African leaders.

LAST week I asked for involvement of the sports community in the politics that would produce leaders in 2011. It is obvious that sports would be neglected again if those who are its stakeholders do not prod candidates in the elections to create platforms to develop sports.

In a recent outing, Prof. Ben Egede of the Department of English, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, summarised the views on this side most succinctly, when he quipped rather angrily: “What is there to celebrate? Fifty years of looting from our national treasury by organised criminals masquerading as leaders of their people?