I READ with amusement Alhaji Lawal Kaita’s assertion in an interview, in which he said “we” have lost interest in zoning.

IT follows the usual pattern, a pattern of dragging former office holders straight from their executive mansions to jail. This pattern was set in the last eight years or thereabout since the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC, became the watchdog or, more appropriately, sharp-eyed eagle of our economic temple.

THE UN Secretary General has formally initiated his bid for a second term having made his intention known by due process to both the Security Council and the General Assembly.

Because I believe and strongly too, that we are not doing enough to project our youth on world stage, I want to write this week on some events of last week that touched my sports heart.

Hi Readers! This is Treena, at last! Are you breathing a sigh of relief that I’ve got my page back, or are you missing Tayo? Don’t make me jealous by feeling the former. I guard this page very jealously, you know, and I appreciate all those who read it; particularly those who have stayed loyal for over twenty years! Wao! It’s been running for more than 26 years now! Amazing!

WHEN some groups and individuals from Northern Nigeria suggested amnesty for the Boko Haram Islamic terrorist group ravaging the North East, it seemed like just another copycat idea that no serious person would pay attention to. You know, the Nigerian elite, especially those championing sectional interests, are often so lazy. Ideas are copied without evaluating whether or not they make sense or apply congruently. Just because it was used to solve a problem in one part of the country they want it for themselves. It becomes another “national cake”.

If your gen-set is off, it must have been turned off on account of overwork or because you can no longer afford the N170+ price of diesel – when you can find it. And if your wife is missing, have no fear. She has not abandoned the home. She is probably out there in search of elusive kerosene. Welcome to fresh air. We asked for it –including the NLC.

So far, so good. We’re saying the right things. From the highest in the land to the lowest, and with one voice, we’re all clamouring for a change in all areas of governance, and thus, in our lives.

The 1999 Constitution, on page 15, contains the blatant falsehood that “we, the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…do hereby make and give ourselves the following constitution.” It has many provisions that make Nigeria a distorted federation. For instance, it gives too much executive and legislative power and financial resources to the Federal Government. Again, the Presidential system it stipulates is very expensive to operate.

By the last count, Mr. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal had garnered more than enough votes to emerge the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Tambuwal had polled 252 of the 360 votes to beat the party’s favourite, Mulikat Akande-Adeola. Ms. Akande-Adeola had gone into the chambers of the House that morning with the firm backing of the PDP leadership which had zoned the Speaker’s job to the South-West in line with the party’s zoning policy.

When I first heard the news of the arrest of Dimeji Bankole, immediate past speaker of the House of Representatives, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), I had the feeling that it was only for a chat that would last some minutes. My mind went back to 1993 when as Director of Public Affairs at the defunct National Electoral Commission; I was invited for a chat by the State Security Service (SSS) in the heat of the controversial June 12 Presidential election.

By the way, the directive was not even to bring Osama ‘dead, not alive’! It was to cast him ‘dead, at sea’! What civilized way to actuate a ‘suspect’! Ironically by the ‘most democratic’, most ‘law-governed’ nation, America, that prides herself as the ‘conscience of humanity’. Clarence Darrow, America’s pre-eminent trial lawyer of his time said of the psychology behind state killers: “before you can get a trial to hang somebody… you must first hate him and then get a satisfaction over his death.”

Just a week ago, I sat down in the company of a few people to a robust argument about the nature of the new generation that we are parents to. In the past couple of weeks my mind has been fully focussed on the parenting skills of my generation and I would not be fair if I didn’t present another valid argument which I will admit makes me a lot more comfortable.

The Speakership of the Federal House of Representatives has finally been settled; Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State has clinched it. One had expected the contest to go the usual way. That is, to go to South-West. And, one has expected Mulikat Akande-Adeola to have won it.

Communication is the most distinctive difference between the nature of man and that of animals. It truly separates human beings from other creatures. It is ideally based on a two-way system in which more than one party express their opinion or authority.