WHEN will our hearts stop bleeding for Africa? Where is the big pot that is calling the kettle black? The other day, a friend of ours in Ivory Coast overheard Laurent Gbagbo complaining to another friend in Gold Coast that he was already planning to step aside peacefully when he suddenly noticed that the loudest voices on his plight were from the Oil Coast and they were a lot guiltier than him.

IN this season of politics and bountiful harvests, many political giants are becoming political orphans who are in need of shelter. Better put, they are becoming political nomads wandering the landscape in search of better pastures.

THERE is no doubt that the political career of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has been one of the longest and most successful in Nigeria. Right from when he first entered national consciousness as the soldier who received the instrument of surrender from the defeated Biafran forces at the end of Nigeria’s Civil War, his rise within the polity has never waned.

BY every measure of publicized and institutional Abrahamic religiosity, Africa stands out and Nigeria is a leader. This
is one face of Africa and Nigeria, its professed religiosity. The other face is corruption a result of power unrestrained by conscience and fear of God. How can this be? The question is itself its answer.

This is a popular English cliché that says “
…Those who fail to plan, plan to fail …..” this is the idea that came to mind Friday morning when colleagues Olu Amadasun and Felix Okugbe woke me up to seek my view on the state of Nigerian sports in 2011, given THE MANY COMPETITIONS THAT ARE LINED UP FOR THE YEAR (Okugbe’s words)

Hi Readers! On the drive down to Jos, I debated in my mind whether or not, to scold Seb for keeping Heather’s registry wedding a secret from me. I wouldn’t have done that to him. I wouldn’t dare! What stressful times could he have been going through that he could conveniently forget to tell me?

“I think we are getting to a stage when he (Obasanjo) gets back from his overseas tour, we shall approach him to accept the presidency.”

The New Year is as good a time as any to make sweeping changes and while I really don’t have a resolution as such, there are noticeable changes that seem to be emerging from me rather involuntarily. I found myself changing in my attitude and disposition last year and it seems inevitable to embrace that change.

Despite the fact that he was a missionary, he was bold enough to aver that: “The Jesus who came forward publicly as the messiah, who preached the ethic of the kingdom of God, who founded the kingdom of heaven on earth, and died to give his work final consecration, never had any existence.

Many patriots have of recent drawn attention to the need to trim down the cost of governance in Nigeria. We need to do so now because ours is probably the highest in the world, especially with the scandalous cost of legislation in the country.

In our march through time, we move from one life’s station to another. We acknowledge these movements in many ways.

Dora Akunyili turned a low profile job at the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) to a high profile one. She also went on to hold her own at the Federal Ministry of Information. She was one of the best known ministers of the realm. Before that, she had wanted to be a Vice-President of Nigeria.

Two five-year-old kids who had been quietly playing with their toys in the garden of a block of flats began to struggle for possession of a toy computer set. One of the boys was a cousin’s son, and we were sitting on a bench nearby, watching them.

IN the old Western movies, there were usually the ‘good men’ who were on the side of the law or justice. On the other hand were the ‘bad men’ who were usually outlaws.

NOW that the latest election season is fully underway, I’m reminded of a very perceptive comment that my ex-husband (Dominic Midgley, an English journalist) made about the Nigerian political scene when he lived in Abuja some years ago.