BELIEVE me; but I have spent the past week looking for a rebuttal of the story. Last Wednesday, November 28th, DAILY SUN carried the report on its page 8; the Nigerian government had begun discussions on the privatisation of Nigerian prisons. Interior Minister, Patrick Abba Moro, disclosed the “privatisation gone berserk” plan “to leave prisons management into the private hands (SIC)”. There is nothing unusual about discussions within governments.

THE Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) stumbled last week in its search for a chairman for its Board of Trustees (BOT). The position has been vacant since President Obasanjo walked away from it some months back.

ALL literature is ideological, so says Karin Barber in one of her ever cerebral and insightful works on Yoruba literature.

THE front page of Friday, November 23, 2012 Vanguard carries the prominent picture captioned “Reconciliation: From left were: Bishop Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury Designate; the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar; former Prime Minister Tony Blair; President, Christian Association of Nigeria, C.A.N, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, and Estu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar at the launching of Tony Blair Foundation Led-Work, to encourage reconciliation between Christian and Moslem communities.

SHOULD we sack Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for calling for a drastic cut-down of public sector workforce to make more money available for capital development?

I live in Lagos. I counted myself lucky that this time I did not have to travel out for the National Sports Festival. This time the festival was to be brought to my doorstep.

At the Second Annual Capital Market Retreat in Warri, the CBN Governor, Lamido Sanusi, made a strong case against the current dedication of about 70% of national income to purely consumption by civil servants and politicians, who comprise less than 1% out of our population of over 160 million.

Jesus says: “It is written in the prophets, ‘and they shall all be taught by God.’” (John 6:45). However, new believers are not allowed to be taught by God.

Philosophers,from antiquity to the present, have attempted to elucidate abstractly the notion of time.However, advancement in the specialised sciences such as physics and mathematics has vastly improved our understanding and measurement of time as an empirical concept.

Concerned about the plight of residents of popular Lagos slum, Makoko, a group of women under the aegis of Gender & Child Care Advancement Initiative-GCCAI, went to the community with some gift items. In this interview with Vista Woman at the event, Barr.(Mrs.) Phil Nneji, Executive Director, GCCAI, debunks the claim that giving aids to people in such communities makes them lazy, and also calls on government to consider having a round table discussion on a viable way forward for Makoko instead of a one-sided decision like the demolition exercise with which the community was threatened with months ago.

Sanya Osha’s new novel, An Underground Colony of Summer Beesbegins with Jerome Akpata moving from Johannesburg to Durban. “He had become tired of having to live looking constantly over his shoulder wondering if someone was coming at him with a gun or a blade.”

If you reduce poverty and the person is still poor, you have achieved nothing. I don’t believe in poverty reduction concept. It is more positive to talk about wealth creation”, Jonathan..

Section 147(1) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria provides for the appointment of Federal Ministers while Section 192(1) does same for the appointment of State Commissioners. The objective is to enable the Head of the Executive branch of government to appoint some citizens to assist him in the onerous task of governance.

The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.-Mohandas Gandhi.

I must confess that I was highly surprised to learn from a colleague that one-way airfare from Lagos to Abuja is thirty thousand naira (N30,00). It seemed outrageous to me.