The selection of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu former Governor of Bauchi State as Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) no doubt opens a new chapter in the affairs of the party. Mu’azu means different things to many people. To this writer, he is a large-hearted philanthropist and consummate development activist. No one should blame me for being so charitable to him because my impression is the product of an unforgettable personal encounter with the man some years back. It happened early in 2006 when my goal of achieving 2 projects for my organization – the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) – ran into a critical cash-flow challenge. The projects were the establishment of NTA International and the conversion of the NTA TV College Jos into a degree awarding institution.

Phil Graham, late Publisher of the Washington Post, who committed suicide by shooting himself, once described journalism as “the first draft of history”. I am neither a journalist nor historian but it is my hope that some time in the future, historians, if history which Obasanjo banished from our schools is restored, will read this. It will reveal to them how miraculous it was that after the 2014-2015 political upheavals there was a country called Nigeria left for them to call their own. It was all well and good for General Buhari in 1983, as the military Head of State to state that: “This is the only country we have”. Most Nigerians, in 2014, are apprehensive, more than at any other time that good old Chinua Achebe might have left a curse with the title of his last and extremely controversial book – THERE WAS A COUNTRY. In 2014, everything which could lead a fragile federation to disintegrate is happening without any countervailing forces to reassure the citizenry that all will be well.

Emotions were high, there was the anticipation that at least the era of the Peoples Democratic Party’s, PDP, sitting at the driver’s seat and dishing out instructions at the National Assembly was about to come to an end at the resumption of plenary on Tuesday, following the gale of defections especially that rocked the House of Representatives.

On Friday, Vanguard reported that the National Executive Committee of the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) directed its members in the National Assembly to block the passing of the appropriation bill and the confirmation hearings of the president’s new cabinet nominees and service appointments to the Nigerian High Command “until the federal government halts the escalating violence in Rivers State.”

My aunt regularly raises a particular point in prayer and the first time I heard it, I was intrigued. She prays to God in a dialogue form and during one of such prayers she asked for blessings and gave thanks that God is not man; if He was she didn’t believe her prayers would be heard, after all man does little else than judge his fellow man. Blessings would undoubtedly pass most of us over if men were God. We would be judged and weighed and mercy may not count for much at all. I totally agreed; it takes a highly elevated mind to get off the seat of judgement and let mercy prevail. Judgement is the bane of humanity and it is often based on emotions that are irrational and illogical; where it is sound; it still fails to deliver any satisfaction, since no man is perfect. When we judge one, we judge all.

What is the student-teacher ratio in state schools? Can the meal subsidy buy a decent meal for the children? We have already noted that the roads constructed by the state government are substandard, which means that, ultimately, the money spent in constructing them is wasted. To worsen matters, the poor quality of governance at the executive level is replicated in the Imo state House of Assembly.

In a bid to sustain the 2011 House project that produced the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Tambuwal, and his deputy, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, innermost members of the House, during the Yuletide break, in a meeting, resolved to retain Ihedioha as Deputy Speaker in case Tambuwal decamps from the PDP to APC.
Based on this arrangement, Ihedioha remains in PDP, but holds unto his position as DS.

I thought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth is murdering sleep.” Innocent sleep. Sleep that soothes away all our worries. Sleep that puts each day to rest. Sleep that relieves the weary labourer and heals hurt minds. Sleep, the main course in life’s feast, and the most nourishing—William Shakespeare.

I confess to looking away in embarrassment and disgust the first time I saw adult men kiss and fondle on TV. It was in a UK based soap opera. Today, years after my first encounter, I still feel uncomfortable— squeamish even— when I see two grown men tongue kiss. I suppose these things need getting used to because I don’t feel that squeamish about lesbians kissing and fondling on TV since I had seen the female version of same sex relationship at least a decade before the male version.

Tomorrow, January 26, is Spouse day. Spouse day is a day set aside to celebrate and honour our spouses. It is a day we should not only tell our spouses we appreciate them, but show them we do. If there is one major complaint married people have against their spouses, it is being taken for granted and unappreciated by spouses. Spouse day offers us the opportunity to prove to our spouses that we treasure them.