TONYE Harry, the distinguished, smart and immensely likeable former Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, and Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Tennis Federation, died last week in an air ambulance.

You can lose to a weaker team when you underrate them. With all your finesse and techniques, a fighting team, with guts and stupendous will, overpowers you. A team endowed with technical prowess can lose to a team full of determination. A hungrier team can shock a team with superior skills.

Even before the Nigerian civil war, my father had always advised that if anyone offended us, we should resist the temptation to invite a soldier to fight for us, maintaining that if we invited a soldier to fight for us, he would beat up all those we wanted beaten up but when there were no more people to beat, he would pounce on us.

I am a strong advocate of a national conference to redefine the foundation of Nigeria. That much is evident through my humble efforts on these pages. So, how come I am being skeptical when President Goodluck Jonathan grants an opportunity for a conference?

EXPECTEDLY, Dr. Femi Okurounmu, chairman of the 13-person Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue, was especially effusive about the committee’s assignment.

Over lunch at the Ocean View restaurant on a humidJuly afternoon in Lagos, my good friend YinkaOdumakinsought to add a little spice to our dismal discussion of “Project Nigeria”: he had it on good authority, he said, that President Goodluck Jonathan would soon surprise and confound the forces arrayed against him by acceding to the call for a national conference.

For the third time in as many years the national Independence Day celebrations usually marked with pomp and ceremony were held in the relatively safe confines of Aso Rock Villa. Eagles Square, venue of the event in Abuja since the movement to the Federal Capital, is now a no-go area for such matters even though the states still manage to hold relatively public celebrations at parade grounds and parks.

IN the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte of France described Britain as “a nation of shopkeepers.” Such characterisation might also be applicable to Nigeria today. In every street-corner of our major cities are people selling all kinds of goods. Some display these in the middle of the streets.

During the celebration of Nigeria’s 53rd independence anniversary, Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, remarked about what he called “distortion” of Nigeria’s history, which I found interesting. He said he did not see the point in celebrating Nigeria’s centenary. Here are his words according to media reports:

Governor Uduaghan earned my respect during his first term when he boldly warned his people about preparing for a future Delta State without oil. It was almost sacrilegious. Who ever wanted to contemplate such a future with so much oil still in the ground to be lifted? Even the Governors Commissioners, who clapped with gusto, were skeptical about such a prospect. Nationally, the Governor might as well have been talking to cows – for all the attention he received. Nigerians have demonstrated that if there is anything they don’t want to think about, it is a future without oil – because it will require a vast amount of effort to build such a future.