“Money makes everything legitimate; including bastards”.Jewish proverb. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 163).
And in no country is that statement truer than in Nigeria. Given loads and loads of cash, a certificate forger can be given an award, nay several awards, for integrity. It has happened before. It will happen again.

The extreme of opulence and want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in this country than in any other than I ever saw. -John Quincy Adams

A few years ago, a friend whose son and daughter-in-law had very good jobs in Europe, persuaded the couple to relocate to Nigeria, to come use their skills to help develop the country, and also raise their children on our soil so that they can get connected to their roots.

Hon. Mrs Elizabeth Ativie is the only woman in the Edo State House of Assembly. She is the Chairman, House Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development, representing Uhunmwode Constituency. Cutting her political teeth in 1999 when she first contested for the State House of Assembly but had to step down twice for one of the party candidates in 1999 and 2003, Hon. Ativie went back to the drawing board in 2006, contested again in 2007 elections and she won the elections. But she had barely spent 18 months in office before losing her mandate when the tribunal nullified the elections.

For a nonreligious columnist like me, faith-based celebrations like Easter, id el malud, Christmas and so on provide a good opportunity for interrogating the fundamentals of religious worship.

The process of selecting the next President of the World Bank has reached its final stage as three nominated candidates are being interviewed in Washington DC, from tomorrow, Monday April 09, 2012. The candidates are Nigeria’s Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala; Jose Antonio Ocampo, former finance minister of Colombia and currently a professor at Columbia University in New York and Dr. Jim Yong Kim, a South Korea-born, naturalised American who is the current President of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

Last week I drew attention to this question of the loss of mission and the diminution of the enterprise of the Nigerian university. I pointed to the dire implications of “privatized” universities and university education, particularly in inadequate environments and limited structures, factors which lead to the production of ill-equipped, half-educated, and in fact dysfunctional university graduates.

Jesus came into the world as a heavenly commando sent by God to destroy the works of Satan single-handedly. The devil holds men in bondage through the singular sin of the love of life; the foundation of all sin. We steal, cheat, fight, kill and commit adultery in order to save our lives. God required Jesus to call us to repentance and tell us about his kingdom. He would then demonstrate that our fear of death is baseless by laying down his life and then rising from the dead.

A friend sent me a link a few weeks back (www.ogorip.com). I was sceptical about opening it as I did not want to download any virus into my phone. I had to call her and ask what the link contained. She said to me: “Kate, open it, it is the kind of thing you would be interested in”.

The downside of my day job is that when things get intense that make-believe world can become my reality and other than close family members and their needs (oh my kids are guaranteed to bring me down to terra firma with a bump!) very little else penetrates. So I can go days, sometimes even weeks without seeing a newspaper headline.

Fresh happenings in Nigeria these days keep one wondering about our determination to help our country get past all the sordid stories of yester years. At the dawn of each blessed day, one is confounded by the ingenuity of those who are in authority at explaining away gory details about their conduct in public office.

For me, Easter Sundays have a singular association, apart from the strictly religious position it holds in Christian belief and faith. It marks another year of the absence of my elder brother, Tunde, who joined the Church Triumphant on the Twelfth day of April, 1998. It was Easter Sunday that year.

THE enormous outpouring of goodwill that President Goodluck Jonathan inspired during and last year’s election season has largely and gradually evaporated.

AT this moment when the topic of ‘corruption‘ is on the lips of many Nigerians, it will be unethical for the columnists of widely read newspapers not to add a thought, however negative, to the topic of the day. The word corruption, is not new to Nigerians because it is a part of their culture and getting rich by immoral means or sourcing money by all means is an accepted norm in the country‘s daily existence.

AS for South Africa, it not only operates two nuclear power reactors, but the African-American Environmentalist Association’s website says the energy company, Eskom, has also “been working on a 110-megawatt nuclear power plant design since 1993”.