Some 30 years ago, a military president told the country that it needed to make investments and sacrifices that would benefit the coming generation. And he said it in such a quaint, catchy and colourful phrase that it resonated with the rank and file in the country. ‘For their tomorrow, we gave our today’ were more or less, the unforgettable words he used. Unfortunately, they are now words that will haunt him—because he is still alive, his generation and indeed, the rest of the country.

Next week, Muslims all over the world, celebrate one of their major annual festivals, the Eid-el-Kabir which commemorates the great faith of Ibrahim who willingly submitted himself to the commandment of God to offer his son as a sacrifice to God. Christians also subscribe to this account of the great faith of Ibrahim, who is Abraham to them. It is one of several points of convergence between Christianity and Islam, the two main religions in our country.

The Niger Delta militants were not cowards. They operated clandestinely but didn’t need masks. The morality of their enterprise before amnesty was their pride. But the Avengers are ghosts. Troubled by the glare of the unrighteousness of their present endeavor , they took to the protective shield of anonymity . Anonymity, paints the picture of cowardice.

American Philosopher, journalist and poet, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) a transcendentalist in his book Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Economy published in 1854 wrote ‘’I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors’’. Would that be the situation of the Group Managing Director, GMD of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC Dr. Maikanti Baru who sought the counsel of former petroleum resources superintendents on the present state of the industry?

Last week on this page, I wrote a heartfelt tribute to my friend, Mr Babs Omotowa, the outgoing MD of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, which was established in