The two most engaging Ministers in President Jonathan’s lackluster cabinet, are, arguably, Messrs Adewunmi (Ade), the Federal Minister of Agriculture and Aganga (Segun), the Federal Minister of Trade and Investment. They are both eminently erudite, impeccably dressed, full of mesmerizing data, big dreamers and mostly misleading.

The message of the birth of Christ was first brought to mere shepherds, sleeping out of doors. “Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’” (Luke 2:10-11)

There are times when it seems pointless talking about the obvious and after awhile it does get to you and it has got to me that I refuse to slip into the doldrums of doom and negativity. I assure you it is very hard when you talk about the shenanigans of our government and lives of the masses.

Deaconess(MRS) Regina Oviaesu is a former Vice-Chairman of Oredo local government of Edo State and also the National President of the Great Women Movement, based in Edo State. A woman of many parts, in this interview with Sunday Vanguard in Benin, she speaks of the importance the group attaches to the empowerment of women in the state, the importance of the girl child education, the 35 percent Beijing affirmation for appointment of women into government offices, and the need for women to take active part in partisan politics.

Yesterday, March 16, 2013, was precisely the seventh year that Campbell Shittu Momoh, Professor of African Philosophy, University of Lagos died. To members of his immediate family and those of us he influenced positively one way or another, the psychological wound his sad exit left in our hearts is yet to heal completely. I still remember the discussion I had with him the very night he died, and his demise reminds me of the utter transitoriness of human life here on earth.

Fellow Nigerians, see what you have done to GEJ. Plucked out of obscurity; promoted rapidly beyond his ability to govern; he is now desperate to continue. He is now blundering deeper into a political quagmire and taking the nation with him. He has finally got selected as Chairman of the Board of Trustees, a man who had served OBJ. The late president cared about Nigeria; because he came from solid Nigerian stock.

When a Nigerian University bestows honorary degrees on certain persons, the recipients need not meet any academic requirement. Some of them may be elementary school drop-outs or tradesmen like carpenters, sometimes described as ‘furniture makers’.

I have an ‘auntie’ who gets really upset whenever she hears/reads about the frantic moves the various political parties are making towards the 2015 elections.

The recent call on the President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, by none other than His Eminence, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Sultan of Sokoto, to grant amnesty to all the members of the Boko Haram, deserves a second look.

I often think of Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe when thinking of leadership and how a leader’s action or inaction can make or mar a country. Mugabe and Mandela had a similar background; they were pillars in the struggle to liberate their people and suffered untold hardships in the process.

It’s amusing how we scurry about our ‘daily grind’ planning this, scheming that, plotting the other… all legitimate of course, all seemingly ‘worthwhile’, like somebody promised you tomorrow. No one said tomorrow wouldn’t come either so hey! I guess we just carry on… .

LAST week, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, condemned the government’s crackdown on Boko Haram and said that President Goodluck Jonathan should grant “total amnesty” to the group’s members.

The statement that Nigeria is a poor country with widespread poverty is axiomatic. It is estimated that more than 75% in the Nigerian population live in squalor and could hardly make a decent living from what they do. This situation calls into question the general assumption that a country blessed with crude oil and other mineral resources and also endowed with natural human talents would have anything to do with deepening poverty and its attendant sufferings and deprivations.

MANY commentators are not pleased with President Goodluck Jonathan over his Borno/Yobe outing last week.

AFTER running out of a stock of ridiculous excuses, President Goodluck Jonathan finally plucked the courage to visit Borno and Yobe states, last week. As if to underline the various strands of prejudice which have informed official security thinking since the commencement of the Boko Haram insurgency, three thousand policemen were deployed to secure the presidential visit, commanded by the IGP himself!