THE most unusual political figures of this era include Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State. His uniqueness is not surprising, considering his political background, the Mallam Aminu Kano model which not many outside the old Kano axis really understood.

Nigerians may rightly feel shortchanged by the shenanigans in the banking sub sector in the last two years or so. In the wake of the global meltdown, the eloquent Professor at the helm of our Central Bank assured Nigerians, including the Federal Legislature, over and over again that Nigerian banks were insulated from the global crisis as a result of astute regulation of the commercial banks and adoption of best practices in monetary policy and management.

Former Vice-President, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, has declared very recently that he paid $1 million monthly to the “American lecturers” at his university, and that it was investment made, and without return yet.

He must avoid the usual mistakes of Nigerian politicians who feel that they must change immediately all the appointments made, and uproot all the structures created, by their predecessors, thereby wasting valuable resources and time.

A couple of years ago, I lis-tened to a friend of mine complain about her mother, they just could not seem to get along and since we had grown up together, I had told her she was being the unreasonable party. Her mother like all moms was particularly fond of raking up past issues to buttress her point at any and every opportunity.

These days, it is difficult to believe what you read; not to believe what you hear. Take for example: Farida Waziri of EFCC issued a list of those with what the Yoruba would say had ‘comma’ in their characters; in other words, some Nigerians, who had to answer for some charges.

“Security is a challenge to any government. Before this time we never had any kidnapping in Nigeria. We never had the problem of car bomb in Nigeria…The first kidnapping we had was in 2006 when I was a Deputy Governor..If anything happens and government does not handle it on time, selfish people exploit it for commercial purposes”.

It was heart warming some two weeks back when in far away Vienna, Mrs Deziani Alison-Madueke was celebrated as Nigeria’s first female oil minister. Lucky woman!

In 2001 after the Presidential Adviser’s Office on NASS had nudged the Ghali Assembly to pass the controversial Anti-Corruption Bill, it’s House Committee wrote the Special Adviser, Aminu Wali requesting him to, in recognition of his S. A.’s ‘commendable’ liaison role, release me to join its members to attend that year’s 10th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Prague Czechs Republic.

Hello Auntie! This is Susan.
I’m in town,” said a friend’s daughter over the telephone. She is studying in the United Kingdom and her mother had told me that she would be here for Christmas.

The body language of our people cannot be fully relayed in words. When they tell you something you ought to have done and you fail or refuse to do it and the come later comes to become, they look you in the face, put both hands on their faces with two fingers ready to produce a message, run the fingers from under the eyes to the chin. Some times they will mouth the invective “iyo” (pronounced i-yaw). No other sound follows, but the message is clear.

We all know that the year 2010 is moving fast towards the end. We all started in January, and we all started with high hopes inspite of the predictions by many renowned economists that things would be tough.

In the foaming maelstrom of unrelenting jostle for political advantage on every issue, by which Nigeria is consumed at the moment, no one may be adjudged to have got it right at any point in any endeavor. You are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

THERE is a general observation among our clubs and associations. When celebrating their anniversaries, they would buy a bag of rice, a bag of toilet tissues and 10 yam tubers, all costing some N10,000, as gift items meant for an orphanage.

TODAY, I want to address the hot media exchanges between officials of the Abia and Rivers State governments over the rescued school children from the den of kidnappers about a month ago.