Nigeria must not continue to rub this into the historical wound which is still sharply felt in these areas

Come the d-day, we set off at the crack of dawn. By the time we arrived Mark’s town house, some wizened old people were already gathered for the ceremony.

In April 2017, Igbo traders took to the streets in Yenagoa in an unprecedented protest. Something had rattled them. Three prominent Igbo traders had been murdered in one month. They suspected something more sinister than routine armed robbery and assassination. They put their finger on xenophobia. The police dismissed the insinuation and reassured them of their safety. The murders were unrelated incidents, they said. The traders took the assurance but remained nervous.

Traditionally the power and influence of first term American Presidents start with their accomplishments in a hundred days in office. President Donald Trump in wielding that power reversed President Barack Obama administration’s leasing ban on oil blocks in the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific waters. The euphoric executive order was also to open up exploration activities in the Virginia and North and South Carolina where drilling has been blocked for decades.

There was this story among the popular folklore in the South Western part of the country. It was a story of the tortoise and his In-law. For some strange reasons, many of the stories in the ancient folk-lore were woven around the tortoise. Some depicted him as very clever, some had him as very stupid; he was dubious in some and very greedy in some others. But they all invariably taught lessons about character and life. This particular story depicted him as a thief who was caught red-handed by his In-law. As the story went, the In-law tied him to a tree very early in the morning and started caning him. The villagers saw the spectacle on their way to the farm and wondered why his In-law was publicly humiliating him.