AN immigrant friend of mine gloomily described it as a “sense of elsewhere”.
Not everyone who resides outside the land of their forefathers has this problem, but quite a few do. What a “sense of elsewhere” boils down to is a nagging, ever-present feeling that there is another often distant place to which you truly belong and should probably make strenuous efforts to connect with.

IF there is anything that Nigeria has contributed to the growth of Democracy anywhere, it could be the concept of ‘zoning‘ as a panacea to all ethnic or tribal politics. In its raw form, the distribution of powerful political offices among the recognized areas or zones within the country is being regarded as an attempt to get everybody involved in the administration.

ISRAELI President, Shimon Peres is expectedly denying romance with Apartheid South Africa under which his country agreed to sell the latter nuclear weapons. Like a thief caught in the act, Peres’ denials are weak.

EXPECTATIONS of our World Cup performance run on the same emotional flux that conforms to our national conduct. We are becoming experts in expecting everything from nothing.

I was the first to find my tongue, and so I told him it would depend on him and the company. So, he said he has discovered a way to help him make up his mind. That he would need us to help him out. Since whoever gets the job depends on him, and both of us were qualified, the one willing to sleep with him will get the job!

NIGERIA is a unitary system with a federal constitution. That is why the race to control the centre, and thereby, the country’s resources is so intense that the political elites are ready to employ any means necessary to get to power or cling to it even on their death bed. Lots of calculations and progressions are made not for the country or good governance, but how to attain and retain power.

IT took 13 years before the army produced its first statesman. The man, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, successfully ended military adventurism into Nigerian politics (for a while) in 1979 when he handed over power to a civilian regime. He thereafter retired to a farm at Ota, but what a farm it turned out to be!

This is the task for President Goodluck Jonathan who is well-advised to resist the attempt in certain quarters to see him as the candidate of the Niger-Delta. No, Jonathan is not and cannot be the ‘messiah’ of the Niger-Delta. Neither time nor history will favour such impertinence on his part.

THE importance of this issue will now be apparent as in retrospect we appreciate the fact of one party rule in Africa’s first two decades of independence. Similar conditions produce the supplanting of these one-party rule systems by military rule.

Before now, I had heard rumours concerning her exploits with young men, and I did my best to be careful. So I guarded against being a prey to her whenever the time arose. I prayed also and believed God was in control.

Inadequate power supply has chocked 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. That editorial specifically notes that “Poor power supply has been at the heart of the nation’s wobbly manufacturing sector whose capacity utilization has today plunged to 29 per cent.

It was on these pages that I wrote about the avalanche of mails and phone calls I receive on daily basis regarding the Super Eagles. I mentioned the special interest of the Swedish press and the disappointment of the Argentine journalist who could not get anything from me.

Mr. Bello Adoke had challenged a pressure group of transparency and anti-corruption advocates who are pushing for the prosecution of former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida over allegations of corrupt handling of the said $12.4 oil windfall. Last week, the Attorney-General pledged, in a letter to the group that he would set up a committee to ascertain the veracity of the report, review the allegation, and if there’s any meat in it possibly commence a criminal charge of the former military dictator.

Believe me when I tell you that I did not think of mines when I set out to comment on the increasing unacceptable targeting of journalists outside due process, and the new dimension it took at a venue where justice is to be accessed by those who complain about the absence of due process.

This column could easily have been entitled HOPE RENEWED IN JOS and it would have been just as apt. For three days last week, I was back again in Jos because it is an enduring story and it represents one of the many puzzles we must solve as a nation for unity and peace to prevail.