Hi Readers! Having dad back home, well and strong was just great! Praise God! Soon we began to disperse. Funke, my brother Benny’s wife and Ify, Joe’s , were the first to leave. They had to go see to the children and their businesses. Chuma, Dicta’s husband, who at last has been able to get into politics, howbeit in a very small way in his home state in Enugu, had to leave to go attend urgent meetings there.

It would be mischief on the part of this column if we subscribed to the bandwagon of elitist Nigerians whose stock in trade is the creation of false hope of a better year ahead at the end of every dismal year…

Years ago, while still in the university reading economics, I came across a pamphlet warning economists to always go beyond abstractions when discussing the effect of economic policies. He pointed out that the 10 per cent annual GDP growth claimed by the Communist USSR was purchased at the cost of over two million deaths a year.

A few years ago I wrote a column about political correctness. Back then I was as bemused as most people were by the new movement of protest about people’s use of language and expression. I do fully understand that certain words were unacceptable and could cause hurt and offence to a person, a group of people, a sex or even race.

In this connection, I believe that the hidden forces behind Boko Haram, if they still have flickers of humanity in their being, should begin a process of critical self-examination. Whatever the hidden agenda they might have, the crucial question they must address is: is it worth all the killings, maiming, and destruction?

When things happen, you look for precedents. Just as the case of the subsidy removal from the petrol. You would think its not done. But there are lots of that before.

Last Sunday, January 1, 2012, the first part of this series of articles ended as follows: “SUBSIDY IS GONE. Hardship begins!!!!” The next day Nigerians woke up to discover that, while they slept, the government they elected in April 2011, had stabbed them in the back.

The Jonathan administration truly gave Nigerians a left-handed gift for the New Year. Still reeling from the Christmas day bombing, Nigerians were hardly prepared for the surreptitious and final withdrawal of the so-called oil subsidy.

In his famous book “How we think”, renowned American philosopher, John Dewey, proposed what looks like a simple template on how to make a decision. According to the scholar, every decision maker should take 3 simple steps: (a) identify the problem (b) assemble all the solutions for it and (c) pick the best solution.

Err… happy (?) New Year? I’m not trying to be tongue in cheek but how do you say those words with good cheer given the recent backdrop of events. I’ve said it before… sometimes writing this column is a burden. I often tell my kids that it’s okay to be quiet if you don’t have something nice to say…

A new year dawned on us with the announcement of increase in pump prices of petrol (PMS) from sixty five Naira(N65) to between N140 and N200! Wow! I was not the only one who wondered and said “wait a minute, were we not told April?”

The Boko Haram sect has become bolder than ever. They can now confidently announce a locality that they have marked down for an attack, and proceed to launch the assault almost at will. They warned about the mayhem they were going to visit on several areas of Christmas Day, and almost made good their word. And now they have announced their intention of repeating that performance tomorrow.

A piece appeared the other day on the Aviation pages of a national daily about how extortion, harassment, stealing, etc., are still being carried on openly on passengers at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos. It was well-written and it must have been an eye witness account because it aptly described all the shenanigans that go on at our nation’s busiest airport.

IMPLICITLY, the policy initiatives enunciated in the President’s 2012 Budget address reflect similar reasoning. Instead of simply funding pre-existing programmes, the Jonathan administration appears to be formulating its own distinctive approach to the unemployment problem.

I CLEARLY recall President Goodluck Jonathan standing up at an Independence Day service a couple of months ago and informing his audience that he was not a lion, tiger, army general, Egyptian Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar (the neo-Babylonian king who conquered Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile).