MY attempt this week is to bring some attention to the subject of the Asaba massacres, one of the haunting ghosts of Nigeria’s last civil war. I pay particular tribute to Emma Okocha – Onye Amuma Cable – author of Blood on the Niger, the chilling account of the Asaba massacres of October 7, 1967.

We are familiar with the culture of “wasting” our great and talented citizens. When we cannot waste them we neutralize and shut them out of effective participation in nation-building.

President Umaru Yar’Adua cannot be under the delusion that all is well in the Niger Delta, in the sense that the recent amnesty, following the surrender of arms by the militants, is the harbinger of peace in that difficult area. Of course, it definitely points the way, but it has no loud announcement to make yet about our arrival.

OF all the constitutions that Nigerians and Nigeria had operated, none has been so severally stricture as the 1999 constitution presumably because of its military background. Some see it as an imposition by the military to ensure the unity of the country through a powerful and wealthy central government in a federal environment.

The devil can cite scriptures for his purpose”…William Shakespeare