IT’s been three full months since Comrade Adams Oshiomole was returned to government house in Benin. In the build-up to the July 14 election, it was as if the contest for the governor’s sit could have gone in the direction of either of the two dominant parties, the ACN and the PDP, in the state.

I ended the first part of this article on how Ghanaians helped rebuild their broken country. The foundation for Ghana’s rebirth was laid by Flt Lt Jerry Rawlings, a military dictator who used strong arms, including the execution of three former Heads of State, to sound the death knell for corruption in Ghana.

OBVIOUSLY, we are concerned that what is going on in northern Mali could have destabilizing effect on the entire region which could provide a haven for those who wish to do obvious harm, to train.

What Ibrahim Okai said in the 1980s was true before then and still true today – especially in Nigeria. Banks according to economic principle, are the only entities established to create wealth. But, they seldom do it for the poor in most countries. In Nigeria, never. In fact, here, they prefer to lose money on rich dead-beats than to make money on small struggling business people.

In the light of the usual extended recess during the forthcoming Id el-Kabir and the Christmas/New Year celebrations, the Legislature may have, possibly less than two months within which to consider and approve the 2013 budget, which President Jonathan laid before the National Assembly last week.

 
Imagine you are at a meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.  Suddenly, some policemen come in to arrest him.  The President refuses to alert the National Guard.  He does not call the army.  When one of his Secret Service details tries to defend him, the President restrains him.

Publication, this past week, of Chinua Achebe’s memoir of Biafra, There Was A Country, had the Awoist camp up in arms. The Awoists – followers and defenders of the legacy of Chief Awolowo- have expended a lot of verbal grapes on the person of Chinua Achebe. It felt like a dangerous mob unleashed on one of the world’s most important cultural icons. All Achebe did was tell the truth about Awo.

Time was when a lawyer could predict the likely outcome of a case because of the facts, the law and the brilliance of the lawyers that handled the case. Today things have changed and nobody can be sure….Nowadays, politicians would text the outcome of the judgment to their party men before judgment is delivered and prepare their supporters ahead of time for celebration”. Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, in PUNCH, September 23, 2012, p 9 in an article titled Toying with corruption in the temple of justice.

A long time ago, I attended a concert for peace in Africa. International and local artistes were billed to perform. If memory serves me correctly, a lot of the American ones didn’t show up but quite a lot of the African ones did. My assessment of the concert was that it was abysmal; the arrangements were at best poor and the cheapest seats turned out to be the best as the VIP section was so far removed from the stage. One needed hearing aids and binoculars to hear the music or see the artistes. It started out late and most of us were understandably upset that the superstars we were promised didn’t come.

Given the very real probability that the critical, self-replicating, molecular Rubicon was crossed on the basis of natural mechanisms without any supernatural intervention, no serious scientist should doubt the validity of Doolittle’s argument that life on earth (at all levels in its evolution) developed in stages, each stage built on the stabilising, catalytic and replicative power of the stage before it.

TWo weeks ago, well- known Nigerians were buried in Abeokuta amidst tears and encomiums. They were natives of Abeokuta who had many things in common- very highly educated; urban and they served town and country.

Efeturi Abayomi is the founder of Rehoboth Ministry, an NGO dedicated to the less privileged widows in the society. Several years before her husband passed on, she had developed an unflinching passion for widows, touching and impacting their lives in different ways. Recently, we met her at an event organized to celebrate International Widows Day in Lagos where she was the Chief Guest speaker.

In the last two weeks, it has been a harvest of killings in some Nigerian higher institutions; first in the University of Maiduguri on September 29, followed by Federal Polytechnic, Mubi and lastly University of Port Harcourt. All the scenarios surrounding the killings are gruesomely disturbing.

As ugly a human undertaking as any kind of war is, none is as gruesome as a fratricidal conflict and that describes every civil war. Our three year-long experience could not have been devoid of some shameful acts on both sides, soured as it was by ethnic prejudices. But the mature and cultured mind takes it all in and allows the finest touch of the human spirit to mellow it down. That is the quality of the mentality that one would expect in an accomplished writer like Chinua Achebe.

The opening scene is four naked bodies, beaten and bloodied lying in the mud almost lifeless. A man bends down to raise a young man’s head and places a tyre over it; then came the words: “die, die…” Then a big plank is raised and brought down repeatedly on the head of one of the boys still trying to move on the floor, from the corner a big slab of concrete is hurled and it hits the face of another; in another corner lies another young man whose lips are swollen and he has a dazed look on his face…