Two statements published in the newspapers recently have just come to my attention. The first deals directly with my person. The other is of a more general kind, and they are all tied to the question of governance in the East. The first, by an obscure hagiographer, Mr. Ethelbert Okere who advises the governor of Imo State on media matters, was a rather puerile attempt to respond to a piece in my column on the subject, “governing the East.”

If you believe Commissioner Rugbere, you will believe anything. You are clearly not fit to be an Area Boy. With all due respects, the CP, Akwa Ibom can go and say that to the marines. Let me quickly give some reasons, which though not meant to embarrass the CP, but which cast doubt on the ability of his “men already in the bush” to perform. Just a few weeks ago, three kidnappers already in police custody, in Uyo, escaped and have not been caught since by the “men already in the bush”.

Within the past four weeks, I have read reports where some Nigerians suggested that revolution may yet be the way out of the mess in which we have found ourselves floundering as a nation. Some of them were well-meaning citizens too.

FRANCE has been aflame for seven weeks as the President Nicolas Sarkozy government took on the people of France which elected it. The primary reason why the French are up in arms, the proposal to increase retirement age from 60 to 62 years, will shock the average Nigerian. That is putting it mildly; to many of them, the reason will appear insane.

Allegations of corruption against FIFA are not new. One of the major ones was against Sepp Blatter in 1998 during his campaign for the FIFA presidency. He was, along with his godfather, the departing FIFA President Joao Havelange, accused of bribing delegates to the FIFA Congress to vote for Blatter who wriggled out of the morass with claims that the money was federations to develop the game.