Timi and I served as technical experts on elections with the Independent Elections Commission of Liberia to organize the first post civil war election in that country in 1997. Some 5 days ago, he called me to commend last week’s article in this column, titled, “Who should the police tear gas?” Tim was delighted that i openly commended Mrs. Amina Zakari, the Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for her policy decision not to defend in court an election marred by malpractices done by her officials.

Jesus establishes three spiritual laws pertaining to prayer. He says: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8).

In just a couple of weeks, it will be one hundred days that the president, Mr. Muhamadu Buhari, assumed office as the elected president of Nigeria. There will be a lot of panegyrics commissioned as usual in the buyable spaces of the Nigerian media by sycophants and hangers-on, in praise of the president. Some will compare him to God – in his, well, God-inspired-omniscience.

President Muhammadu Buhari announced that his administration is going to recruit 10,000 police officers to boost security and help tackle youth unemployment. He also announced that they will introduce CCTV monitoring system in major cities to check crime (there are no functional CCTV monitoring system in any of the cities in the country, but that is another story).

The death of the late Ooni of Ife, like those of many great Nigerians, brought the usual avalanche of tributes from far and wide. Based on the time-honoured principle of never speaking ill of the dead, the tributes were generally positive. I would have loved to join the crowd but, to be honest, I met the Royal Father only once in my life – when he called a small group of Yoruba leaders of thought, to the Palace, to form a Non-Government Organisation

As I write this piece on whether President Muhammadu Buhari has made the right choice in Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu to reposition the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), I remember my mentor, the late Major General Mamman Kontagora and his rescue mission at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.

The NNPC has another Group Managing Director in the name of Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu who until his appointment, was the Vice-Chairman of Exxon-Mobil for Africa. He is about the fourth GMD for NNPC in half a dozen years. So volatile is this job, so open to abuse, political interference and pressure, that you wonder whether to congratulate the present occupant or commiserate with him. Yet, so important, nay, so vital is his job that it is in our collective interest to wish him the best.

Recently, I came across a number of write-ups from Europe and America questioning the relevance of the marriage institution. This thinking is mainly borne out of the increasing rate of divorce, and people now living together without being married and having children outside wedlock. In their thinking, if the primary purposes of marriage are companionship and procreation, why go into it when you can cohabit and procreate without being married?

Dr. Ifeoma Monye (FRCGP, MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, DFFP) is chief consultant, family physician at the National Hospital, Abuja. She pioneered the establishment of that department in 2003 which now ranks as a premier at the hospital.

Bishop Kukah is a thick-skinned social crusader. Christians from amongst the northern minority tribes have a reputation of commitment only life at the ‘battle front’ can impart. But if Kukah was just a man of the cloth who had an innate fearlessness, he would not have the stature he currently possesses.