I do not think much of our progress in relation to crime fighting and justice. And the federal government then goes and throws the proverbial spanner in the works and proved me right. If Nigerians regularly compile crime statistics, they will be staggered by how much crime is committed in our country on a daily basis and it shows no signs of abating.

The paths we take in life are often not of our choosing and sometimes we reach destinations we never set out to. Vanguard has been a staple of my world for what will shortly be a decade come December and it’s been interesting.

I was chilled to the bone as I read last Saturday Vanguard’s account of how a few young men kidnapped the aged mother of our Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and how a septuagenarian was killed because the ransom money was not enough.

We seem to have gone through it all before. The Presidency, or The Party— seldom the President — feels uncomfortable about someone of influence, particularly in the party of the President, and swiftly various unsavoury things begin to happen to the man; all sorts of unsavoury information begin to float around about him; it suddenly becomes apparent that he is unfit for the post he holds; his face is turned to a downward route from the peak of a precipice, and every effort is applied to make him take the wrong step so as to tumble down.

“Children are a gift from God and the fruit of the womb, His reward” so the Holy Book says. Having attended a wedding last week Saturday, the priest preached that the purpose of marriage was for companionship between a man and woman and procreation.

Uche Igwe is a doctoral researcher at Sussex University in the UK. He is attached to the university’s Centre For The Study Of Corruption and has just sent me an article that he recently wrote, partly as a response to the Presidency’s claim that widespread speculations about Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 plans are not only riddled with falsehoods but are unnecessary distractions.

THE other day a friend gave me as Easter gift, a Chinese made Electric/Solar Lantern. After charging, the magical lantern could provide an uninterrupted brightness for at least eight hours.

February 2013: Seigha Porbeni called me from Port Harcourt where he was watching the last Secondary School Games and lamented this way:

THERE is an innovation to electioneering campaigns in Edo State. Apparently, at the approach of every election, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, puts a basket in the hands of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to go to the river and fetch water, with instruction not to return until the basket is full.

NIgeria sowed the wind and is reaping the whirlwind. It is a country that has no plans for the people who will control its future. Every former military ruler alive wants to be elected to rule again.

LAST Thursday in Washington, USA, Kingsley Kuku, President Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Niger Delta and chairman, presidential amnesty programme, gave us a peek into the mindset of the administration current in power in Nigeria.

WHAT do the Nigerian people have to do to be heard by their government? As you read this, President Goodluck Jonathan is busy trying to impose amnesty on a bloodthirsty jihadist group that feels insulted by the idea.

IT’s exactly three years ago this week since President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died after an unhappy presidency that was from the very beginning marred by ill-health.

AN amusing report in one of the dailies last week claimed that PDP governors are demanding N46b worth of projects for their states for voting for President Jonathan in 2015.

TO appreciate the title of this news analysis a map has been generated. This map is a geopolitical map of the Central African Republic, CAR.