WHEN I saw the story in one of the newspapers it made me laugh. One of the headlines read: “1000 Bishops Storm Abuja To Reconcile Jonathan, Obasanjo”. The story had it that 1,000 Christian clerics from the southern part of Nigeria last weekend invaded the Christian Ecumenical Centre, Abuja to pray and forge a reconciliation between President Goodluck Jonathan and one of his predecessors and estranged political godfather, former President Olusegun Obasanjo. It made me laugh for several reasons.

TWO phenomena are currently playing out and defining the Nigerian political space. This is the politics of defection and impeachment. Politicians are either defecting, that is changing party affiliations with the sole aim of positioning themselves, literally, for personal aggrandizement. Or they are being impeached from one position or another by erstwhile friends turned foes- also for the same selfish reasons of personal elevation.

IT is not easy finding anything new or profound to say over the defection of Malam Nuhu Ribadu from the APC to the PDP in search of a governorship position of his state, Adamawa. I know how deeply personal that decision has been for him.

I don’t like early-morning phone-calls, but this one was a distress-call from Femi-Kevin. “Do you know that the doctor at First Consultants that contracted Ebola is Dr. Adadevoh?” he asked. He had to tell me this twice because his call woke me up. I tried not to believe it. In a very selfish and foolish manner, I wished it were not her but someone else. But if it were someone else, that someone else would also be somebody.

A popular indigenous artiste cautioned in one of his lyrics that you cannot sow cocoyam and hope to harvest rice. Notwithstanding the above wise counsel, Nigerians inexplicably hope and believe that in spite of over 70% of our population, reportedly, currently living on less than $2/day, our country could still blossom to become one of the top 20 economies six years from now.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan received the 22-voume, 10,335-page report of the National Conference, along with its 600 resolutions last week Thursday, and went into a poetic rhapsody. He declared: “All those who had predicted the disintegration of our country at the end of our first centenary would wish they chose another country when the possibilities of the new vision for Nigeria are actualised”.N

A honest politician, like a chaste prostitute, is almost an oxymoron – a contradiction in terms. Still there are a few who are passably honest and stay true to the ideals associated with them from start to finish. By contrast, the nation had witnessed a tragic-comical episode of two young politicians who in the space of a few years have turned themselves into political nuisances.

The Igbo have a rather pithy saying about fortuitous revelations. It is good, they say, that the wind blows now and then, or so that men too would know that the chicken has an anus. The chicken indeed does have an anus, and there is evidence of this in the Enugu Government House where an impeachment saga has opened up some funny chicken business.

I don’t usually agree with IBB, but he recently made rather valid point that it is difficult to ignore; the use of soldiers during elections. I did mention exactly this concern last week that I feared that the FG is setting up a dangerous precedent and the fear of breeding future guns for hire.

Last week, the media was replete with tributes marking the 73rd birthday anniversary of former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB). I was also thrilled by the interview he granted on the occasion where he made two profound and related pronouncements-one, that it is dangerous to involve the military in elections and the other, that the Nigerian Military would soon be compromised. Last year, some top army personnel and the leadership of our electoral body were not too happy with me for expressing similar opinions. Now that a personality like Babangida has publicly expressed the same “offending” opinions, I have no option than to ‘agree with IBB’.