MY friend, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, is the Chief Press Secretary to Seriake Dickson, the Bayelsa State Governor. Daniel’s mother recently passed away and will be buried this weekend; and I want to share the moving tribute he sent me.

IN his November 5, 1952 concession speech, after losing the presidential election to Dwight Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson was asked how much it pained that a dye- in-the-wool politician, should lose the presidential election to a political neophyte who had just retired as General.

IN times of increased problems, people would look at every direction for possible solutions. By mid-1970s, the city of Lagos had become so clumsy. That was when Tai Solarin (1922-1994) was asked to offer a view on how some sanity could be infused into Lagos. Solarin did not hesitate an inch before saying that anyone intent on reclaiming Lagos must enter into an aero-plane flying over Lagos; bomb down the entire city and begin to rearrange it.

THE candidacy of Donald Trump appealed to me for a variety of reasons. I like the Republican Party because they tend to propagate the core foundational values which make America a country that appeals to me in a special way. I respect the Democratic Party because they tend to expend the frontiers of civil rights, which means that the Minorities are more included. But I am more of the former than the latter.

DECREE No. 1 of 1999Also in 1999, in order to give the service more bite and reposition it for greater efficiency, Abdulsalami ABUBAKAR (Gen./retd) in exercise of his powers as President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, by virtue of Instrument No. 1 of 1999 relating to the general duties of the SSS as set out in Section 2-(3) of the decree’s objectives, the SSS at this point, was mandated to carry out the following functions amongst others :