THE Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) finally woke from its deep slumber to sack Professor Ndidi Okereke-Onyuike, the Director General of the Nigeria Stock Exchange(NSE). Also falling under the axe is the NSE Council and its president, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. Onyuike had sailed from the New York Exchange to the NSE in 1983 as a consultant and metamorphosed into the Exchange’s boss.

UP until that moment I entered this gathering where monarchs outnumbered ‘commoners’, I had no idea of how royals behave in the company of other monarchs. My moment of truth was the retreat, conceived as a conference and refresher course towards re-inventing and sustaining traditional rulership, organised by traditional rulers from the Osun Central Division in Osu State.

THE Ministry of Defence will be holding at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre a two-day International Seminar on Peace Operation, August 2-3, 2010. The subject matter is intriguing because as it is phrased the topic of the seminar pertains to a matter in the portfolio of the Ministry of External Affairs.

I have some fears. The fear that by the time you get to read this column, some of the view points canvassed therein may have been overtaken by events. That is how dynamic the issue is so much that situations change by the minute, by the day. I wish I could hand over this column this week to Alhaji Gara Gombe that incurable critic of the Lulu administration and a crusader for a better football culture.

WHEN Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji finally decided to dump the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) he was widely expected to return straight to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He chose instead to embrace the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He obviously did not reckon with the surprising return of Chief Orji Kalu to the PDP. His calculation was probably that in a three-cornered fight between a factionalised PDP, an emptied-out PPA and incumbent APGA, he would have the upper hand.