The presido of Area boys is going home – victim of arthritis which has rendered the right arm almost useless. After serious consideration regarding what needs to be done before I can no longer write anything, it suddenly occurred to me that I have been neglecting my duty to my closest politician brother, mentor, adviser and friend – Obong Victor Attah. Let me discharge it now because another chance might not present itself unless the doctors can find a breakthrough. As it is, this column, which ordinarily should be finished in three hours or less will now consume eight hours of declining time. But it will be eight hours well-spent as my late father taught me in 1957.

A friend of mine who’s very pro-Nigeria has been recommended a bed-rest of one week by a health specialist, after a four-day visit to Benin City last week.

She’s from Edo State, but lives and works in Europe. She was in the country on a three-week vacation , and after a few days in Lagos, she badly wanted to visit her home state capital.

Magnus Kpakol, as Chief Economic Adviser to President Obasanjo, once explained ‘economic growth’ in the sense I discerned to mean a most ludicrous paradox. Like: ‘progressing on the path of retrogression’, or maybe ‘gaining in the direction of losses’; or yet ‘improving on the path of depletion’; or better still ‘growing from the rump of decay’.

When the present cabinet was being put together by President Goodluck Jonathan, many of us looked forward to stars who would gain public acceptance at the mere mention of their names.

The Governor of Bauchi State, Issa Yuguda, has offered his services as the manager for the electioneering campaign of Babatunde Fashola, should the Lagos State Governor decide to present himself for the high office of the president in future.

Many Nigerians, me included, have complained about the fact that President Jonathan did not hit the ground running as soon as the polling season ended.

FOR more than 30 minutes last week Wednesday, President Goodluck Jonathan had the time to ask players and officials of the Nigerian U-20 football team, “How are you?” The session that saw him repeating the same question after each person was identified was meant to be a pep talk ahead of the encounter against England in a FIFA competition in Columbia.

The pleasant news of the week is that the country‘s respected elders and some past political leaders would meet in Port Harcourt and also in Abuja, the nation‘s capital to deliberate on suitable amendments to some sections of the 1999 Constitution.

Evidently, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has a lot going for him at the political arena. One may be tempted at times to reckon that he may have wasted his years in the military, when he should have enrolled in politics from the very beginning.

In this second part, I will endeavour to discuss how we can make the “indigenisation” legislation work. But let us start by observing that six months is too short for a total stranger to stand for election in his new community, even though he can vote if his voter registration detail permits.

WHATEVER might be the reasons for its decision, we must thank the Nigerian Senate for the investigation conducted last week, into the privatisation and commercialisation programme of the government.

The images are not typical of the sorts associated with any part of the ‘civilised’ world. When you saw such pictures you thought of Africa, Asia, the restive parts of the Middle East or such other parts we’ve been told belong in the ‘developing’ or ‘third’ world. If you were told any such image was coming out of any part of the West you’ll call for some form of reality check.

LAST week, several national papers lamented the abysmal performance of Nigerian candidates who sat for the 2011 West African Secondary School Certificate Examination. According to reports, of the 1.5 million candidates who sat for the May/June examination, only 472,906, or a disappointing 31 percent, obtained five credits and above in the subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s rumoured constitutional reform ideas hit me hot and cold at the same time. I don’t know if the Presidential Advisory Committee headed by General TY Danjuma, with Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, is still functioning for him and he is still giving them a listening ear. I don’t think so. Otherwise, we would not be having these bits and pieces of sometimes half-chewed, sometimes ill-timed “rumours” about his intended constitutional reforms.

In the wake of the Central Bank’s pseudo liberalization of dollar supply to the foreign exchange market, naira rate tumbled from over N140=$1 to today’s rate of about N130=$1 in the black market, leaving a spread of just about N2 from the official rate.