“There is a long running dispute between NNPC and PSC operators as to the calculation of the cost of oil, tax oil, and royalty oil under the PSCs. This meant that the parties cannot agree on the entitlements to amounts being lifted by NNPC and the contractors. Amounts reported for reconciliation revealed different interpretations for the same lifting transactions.”

EXACTLY one week ago, two directors of Newswatch Magazine – Malam Yakubu Mohammed and Mr. Soji Akinrinade, were ushered into the usual Monday meeting of Vanguard Board of Editors. They brandished the newest product of their “inventive genius” (apologies, Bambulu in James Ene Henshaw’s hilarious play This is Our Chance).

Peter Alexander Egom is our Guest Columnist this week. By way of introduction, perhaps it may be more appropriate if I let our Guest Columnist speak for himself! The following paragraph is an excerpt of Egom’s profile from a ‘professionals’ social media network’.

IT is generally assumed by Christians that God is all-knowing. We say insistently God is omniscient. Peter said to Jesus: “We understand that you know everything.” (Jn 16:30). However, there are things Jesus did not know. He did not know a fig-tree did not have figs. (Mk 11:13). He did not know the time of his return. (Mk 13:32).

Boko Haram issued an ultimatum to all Christians and Southerners to leave the North or face attack and death. This threat came with a backdrop already dimmed with blood.

There are two obvious sides to every story; both sides have not more than the same characters in common. The sides are true to all involved based on perception and reception. A story that involves actual people, happening in real time and is similar to rivulets of water coming downstream.

Part of the text message from Idris has been recalled in order to remind our readers that this series is a response to a reasonable challenge from a regular customer of our paper; and like all customers we owe a duty to inform and, if possible, to also entertain.

I could not believe it is six years ago that we met at your office at Centre for Constitutional Governance at Ilupeju on the eve of a ‘town meeting’ taking place at the Airport Hotel Ikeja. There I sought your permission to be allowed to speak after your invited speakers might have aired their views against or in support of the Constitutional Conference of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo planned early for 2006.

On many occasions, as a columnist and concerned Nigerian, I feel depressedwhile discussing the hydra-headed, mostly man-made, problems of contemporary Nigeria. In fact, the more I think about the country and its unending recycling of failed members of the ruling elite into positions of power, authority and influence, the more I am convinced that Nigerian leaders do not believe in the Nigerian project.

Many Nigerians had looked forward with hope to year 2000 when the good things of life were expected to be realized by them according to a government slogan. Later, the date of the vision moved to year 2010 before President Yar’ Adua classified all the good things of the vision into 7 and shifted the expected date to 20-20-20.

One day, give or take about seven years ago, I was in my kitchen with a much younger friend when a certain song that took me way back came on. As I screamed in delight and began to sing along, she squeezed up her face in that annoying way younger people do when they come across something they consider ‘old school’ and said…

“She was not more than three feet away from me the whole night. She was quite tired because we partied the whole night and that is how I would like to remember her”.

The agitation for the convocation of what some called Sovereign National Conference has been around us for a long time and particularly gained currency in the last ten years. Some of the agitators with all their political and intellectual pedigree still show a remarkable lack of understanding of the socio-political dynamics of the country, especially the intricate logic of being a country of several configurations.

A FEW weeks before the start of the unnecessary but costly Biafran war or The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), I wrote an article in the Daily Times with the caption, ‘CAN WE AFFORD TO FALL APART?‘. In my pardonable innocence, I examined the economic implications of a break_up on internal trade and movements of people.

FOR give my interest in this field. I am the son of a professor of Medical Microbiology so it must be in my genes. So aside from petroleum engineering, project management and information technology where I can mix it with the best, politics and medicine with a tilt towards microbiology also hold a place in my heart.