A lot was said last week about Aisha Buhari’s book launch, intended as a means to raise funds for the families of the Chibok girls, Buni Yadi boys and other victims of insurgency.

The template for public expectation from President Muhammed Buhari’s recent visit to China was formally defined by Femi Adesina, in the President’s Media Adviser’s press release, which was published a day before Nigeria’s star-studded delegation departed Abuja in April. However, the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun had told Reuters and London’s Financial Times, just before the China trip that Nigeria was actually in negotiation for a $2.5bn World Bank loan to partly fund the 2016 budget, because of the more favourable terms.

THIS, in Nigeria, is the season of denials and other market stories. There is hardly any main event or issue that has not become controversial or denied. One of the latest occurred in the Office of the Senate Deputy President, Ike Ekweremadu.

From Agatu to Akure to Aba the story is the same. For that matter from Abia to Zamfara states and the Federal Capital Territory, the Federal government and its security agencies have apparently created two classes of Nigerians – herdsmen and the rest of us. Notice, please that I did not add Fulani because they are not all Fulani or even all Nigerians. The reason is simple, I was once a cattle owner and several of the nomads engaged by the later supervisor, Yinusa Idi, who lived in a settlement near Gezawa in Kano State, were Fulani or Nigeriens.

A prominent Lagos pastor made it compulsory for all members of his church to contribute a minimum of N10,000 each to his church’s multi-billion naira building project. Surely it must have occurred to him that some of his members do not have that kind of money. But he would not be deterred. He was determined that his mustard-seed church must become a tree.