Mr. Adipere is so lucid. This indeed is the period when academia should have been strutting up and down with the pride and joy of being “in government”, if not “in power”, with two members of their clan on top of the heap.

So at the beginning of each day, she would raise up some money, and tell him “You can either earn this by doing things right, or throw it back to me” The first infuriating thing he does, she goes “minus hundred naira or Two hundred naira” depending on how serious the offence is.

Like the ‘Briafran’ tragedy, the clear warning was treated with unpardonable levity until it was too late to avert a full-scale civil war. Now, if the militants have seen the wisdom of laying down their arms to give room for dialogue, then the voice of reason has triumphed.

By the way, if President Yar’Adua’s Amnesty does not take off until August 6th was the Nigerian Inspector-General of Police not committing a crime hobnobbing with self-confessed enemies of the state before that date? Should the Nigerian Bin Laden and others coming out of the cracks be allowed to move around freely?

And I’ve also been criticized by a handful of individuals (friends as well as foes), who either disagreed with some or all of the points I made or simply felt that my article was too divisive…and that I should have urged my fellow Ogonis to forget about the bitter mistakes of the past, instead of highlighting internal rifts.