Journalists are supposed to be formidably well-informed and are expected to know more than most about what is going around them, so let me hang my head in abject shame as I admit that I only recently became aware of the fact that state governments sometimes deport disabled, homeless or impoverished “non-indigenes” to their states of origin.

Chief Assam E. Assam is Nigeria’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation and Belarus.

UNDER normal circumstances, reasonable people would not expect to be pressurised to remit the money they have collected on behalf of others to their rightful owners.

The Lagos deportation saga degenerated into a free-for-all between Igbos and Yorubas. I am gratified to note that majority of the commentators on both sides have been sane, objective and committed to putting issues in their proper perspectives to minimise damage and learn useful lessons.

I THINK Femi Falana’s well-argued piece on the on-going hysteria in the face of the forced repatriation of 72 Nigerians of Anambra state origin, by the Babatunde Fashola administration in Lagos, has been the most informed analysis of the core issues so far.

SO Chief Tony Anenih, the BoT chair of the PDP, marked his eightieth birthday last week and provided President Goodluck Jonathan an opportunity he must have been craving to send some verbal missiles at those Nigerians he thought haven’t been particularly friendly to him and his administration.

In a recent interactive section with the House of Representatives Committee on Banking and Currency, the Governor of the Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi, noted that if the plan to redesign naira notes last year was successful, “it would have made it impossible for counterfeiters to cook”. He further noted that best practice currency management is that “Within a period of 5 – 8 years, you redesign the currency, after which counterfeiters tend to catch up with you”.

THE constitution of this country has established the prime value of the currency of Nigerian citizenry, and our politics instead of being the cultivation of the appreciation of Nigerian citizenry, has been and continues to be a process of a structured depreciation of the value of citizenry. The dictionary defines citizenry as citizens collectively.

Nigerians have been treated to a theatre of the absurd in which those close to the oil scene and those who should be the prime suspects for the incessant theft of crude are the same people complaining about it and passing the buck among themselves. Jonathan’s government is obviously powerless to stop the grand larceny or is unwilling to do so. Meanwhile, we face real fiscal catastrophe this year and next year if the theft is not checked. Who are the culprits? Take your choice from the list below.

THERE is no doubt about it – the registration of the All People’s Congress (APC) is very well received and acclaimed.