This article could have been titled “SECOND CHILDISHNESS SETS IN” and it would still be apt. Baba Iyabo who claims to be 76, but whose son, Gbenga, had also told us that “my father does not know his real age” and who on top of that parades two birthdays, is in “The last scene of all,/That ends this [his] strange eventful history,/ [Which] is second childishness and mere oblivion,/ Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”.

No matter how mature we are or think we are, most of us hate being told ‘I told you so!’ In the past two weeks I’ve been told this several times by friends, and even two readers who sent text messages to me, along these lines.

Hamza Al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer to General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s erstwhile Military Dictator, opened his defence this week on the murder trial for the death of Kudirat Abiola in 1996.

Dawkins provides an interesting account of the origin of religion. He began by explaining why, for example, moths fly into the candle flame, which seems like suicide (p.201). Dawkins argues that before human beings invented artificial light, the only available sources of illumination in the night scene were the moon and the stars. At optical infinity, these celestial objects are suitable for insects to use as compasses.

I should be directing this to the President of Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN but it may also interest Patrick Ekeji, the Director-General of the National Sports Commission.

IT will be pointless counting the number of committees that have looked through Nigerian football. One more committee will not do any harm if it can proffer solutions to the viral challenges Nigerian football faces.

CAN someone please explain to me why so many intelligent and seemingly rational Nigerian Christians and Muslims are such ardent believers in juju or “jazz”?!

In the noble exercise of attempting to plan for the future greatness of Nigeria, perhaps it would be necessary to peep into the past and examine the present. Before the peculiar amalgamation of 1914, British military forces had already prepared ground for Lord Lugard who gave the country the name, Nigeria.

WHAT is the population of Nigeria at any given time? We do not know. In terms of actual figures, we may never know because as we write now, there are numerous missing links; and between the idea and the reality, there are many shadows.

LAST week, Olusegun Obasanjo, addressed the Board of Trustees of the ruling PDP and made the startling request that Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and other PDP principal officers in the House of Representatives, resign from office in two years “to allow the rectification of the party’s zoning policy truncated by the present set of officers.”

THE terms in which we discuss what is generally called ‘the fight against corruption’ gives one the impression that that fight itself has become a project in its own right.

AFTER we have noted the following events reported in just one day’s coverage in the Friday July 22, 2011 Vanguard, we may see why Nigeria, typical of Africa’s post-colonial societies is portrayed as a polity of government without states and a society without government.

IN the ’80s, the decade of Nigeria’s brightest journalism, Ado’b Obe of West Africa Magazine popularised the phrase, “legitimacy engineering”.

A FEW days ago, I got a call from a lady, a “veteran mother” as she described herself. She spoke in melancholic – even tearful – tones. Her point of bother: President Goodluck Jonathan’s (then) rumoured tenure elongation bid.

The Kenya Airways flight that took me to Kinshasha en route Nairobi also had on board, Alhassan Yakmut, Deputy Director in the National Sports Commission, part of a Nigerian team to Maputo, for a pre All Africa Games meeting.