Thus eleven years of democratic rule have given Nigerians that unique advantage of shouting hoarse without being heard or of knocking without being answered. Afterall, it is our wish at all times that we prefer freedom with danger to servitude in tranquility. Many people might think that what we are getting at the moment might not resemble rich dividends we deserve or desire, but the opposite of what Nigerians (except the wealthy few) prefer.

A COUPLE of months ago – while Yar’Adua was still alive – an unknown person or group decided to paste “Jonathan For 2011” campaign posters all over Abuja.

Today, the greatest sports show on earth, with due respect to the Olympic Games, will kick off at the impressive 94,700 seating African Calabash Soccer City stadium that FIFA president Joseph Blatter has described as one of the best in the world. If the Fifa president himself can say that, then you better believe it .

SOMEONE once said that when nothing should be done about something, the best solution was a committee. This generalisation is unfair to committees that work, but captures the Nigeria Football Association’s 14 committees for the 2010 World Cup.

IT is now more than three years since the 2007 general elections were held. The Constitution and the Electoral Act empowered those who are not satisfied with the way elections are handled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and any of the other concerned parties to take a petition to the Election Tribunal and later to the Court of Appeal if necessary.

WHILE he shaved in the morning, the daughter of US president Barack Obama knocked on his door asking if Gulf of Mexico oil spills had ‘been plugged’. The speech-making genius that was her father jumped on that little, innocent and domestic event to drive home his point about how important the matter was.

OUR contemporary civil society movement grew from the late 1980s. In 1988, concerned by the near absence of the movement, the Nigeria Medical Association(NMA), the Nigeria Bar Association(NBA) and the Nigeria Union Of Journalists(NUJ) decided to raise consciousness by holding a joint national commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For a graduate of the Abacha School of Torture who by self-avowal had been through the valley of the shadow of death, it was both natural and not asking too much to expect that he would be different. True Obasanjo has not been shown to manage a killer squad, but his military past seems to have clung to him so much that he abhorred opposition, especially where such opposition displayed sufficient know-how that called into question Baba’s know-it-all tendencies.

THE present Board of the Nigeria Football Association, NFA, is famous for its greed and guile, but its unpatriotic bearing is the latest acquisition of a self-serving body.

Hi readers! Sometimes I’m glad I’m not into a second marriage. No kidding, and no bad belle!

Inadequate power supply has choked the development and growth of Nigeria’s economy, particularly in the last two decades. The Punch Newspapers editorial of 22/3/2010 explicitly paints this reality.

When I started this column Thursday morning the working topic was ‘On and off the field’
On and off the field, for me was a need to remind us that though performances on the field could be key, off the field bungling could cost a team dear.

THE issue of whether to continue the zoning arrangement of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) or to drop it became the subject of heated debates when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan assumed the presidency of Nigeria after the death of Alhaji Umaru Yar’ Adua.

The countryside in any part of the world is an area that is considered more relaxing, comfortable and quiet, compared to the bustling cities that have emerged in the cosmopolitan areas of the world. The countryside is the retiree’s haven, a place to escape the pollution, noise and crime of the major cities.

It is well known that National Assembly members have perfected the art of manipulating federal budgets to satisfy their deadly insatiable appetite for primitive accumulation. Smart Adeyemi, chairman senate committee on federal character and inter-governmental affairs, is so disappointed with the avarice of his colleagues that he has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate federal legislators for corruption.