In all of my thirty years as a football official at the national level, I never got to know Goodluck Jonathan as a football expert. His knowledge of the rules and regulations of FIFA would be hardly more than modest, in my estimate.

So no African team did better than Africa had done before now at the World Cup final, the first one on the continent? Ghana really came close but for a hand robber called Suarez.

Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State was the first to shock us about the goings-on in the PPA, sponsored by Orji Uzor Kalu at the height of his problems with Obasanjo in the heady days of the face-off between Atiku and his boss at Aso Rock. He (Ohakim) had not long before dumped the PDP for the PPA to win in Imo State, and within two years had bolted back to the PDP on grounds that the PPA was not a party but a family business.

Let us learn from history. When GENOCIDE was being committed in Rwanda in 1994, US-led United Nations did not want to intervene and so tried to deny that genocide was taking place.

ACCORDING to a recent report in ThisDay newspaper, Alhaji Mukhtari Shehu Shagari, the Deputy Governor of Sokoto State and former Minister of Water Resources, has advised his fellow Northerners to stop emphasising the zoning issue, acknowledge the support they have received from the South-South for the past 50 years and accept his view that President Jonathan can deliver impressive results and has every right to contest for the presidency next year.

With the confirmation of Professor Attahiru Jega as INEC Chairman by the Senate and the appointment of Professor Bert. Nnaji as the Adviser on Power, President Jonathan could not but feel happy that the solution to some of the nation‘s problems is nearer.

Edwin Eze, a senior colleague had sent this text: “Dagama, that was a masterpiece. If we had listened to our analysts in picking local coaches like Siasia, Keshi and Okpala before the World Cup, the tragedy of Lars Lagerback would have been avoided.”

THE first and only time I met Mahfoud Ali Beiba a veteran of the continent’s liberation wars was in December 2009. As a twenty-year old in 1973, he and some youths led by his friend, El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed had founded the Popular Front For The Liberation Of Saguia El Hamra And Rio de Oro (POLISARIO) to fight for the independence of their country, Western Sahara from the colonial grip of Spain. Sayed was the General Secretary of the movement and Beiba his deputy.

THE present crop of governors in charge of the affairs of states of the South East zone has represented the Igbo heartland extremely well. They have demonstrated an admirable degree of collective purpose, which was not there between 1999 and 2007, when each of the previous governors behaved like crazy political buccaneers.

Last week, the Digital Bridge Institute; an international centre for communication studies running currently in the country in conjunction with Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Georgia Tech University and the MacArthur Foundation presented a 3-day workshop on the Enhancement of Civil Society use of ICTs in Nigeria.

Global hardware makers and printing solution providers, HP has unveiled a new category of web enabled printing solutions designed for the cloud that will, for the first time, allow people to Print from any email device to any new ePrint-enabled printer from anywhere in the world through the new HP ePrint technology ( as well as s tore documents or files in the cloud and print direct when needed.

These are the best of times for Nigeria football. I swear.At times like this all you need to do is,wake up in the morning, send someone to buy you the dailies and digest them with glee.

THE Federal Government’s hosting in London last week of the two-day summit on our 50th independence anniversary continues to draw fire from critics. The summit which saw an impressive outing by ministers, state governors, National Assembly members and leaders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is being characterised as a waste of federal and state government resources; a needless depletion of our foreign exchange paying for travels, upkeep and generous foreign travel allowances.

Though, even back in the olden days, the act is usually received with mixed feelings among diverse people. However, with the era of male supremacy gradually fading out, and more women gaining financial and educational leverage, many, including men, now see wife battering as an attack and abuse of the supposedly weaker sex. Add to this is the enactment of laws by at various levels of government in the country against domestic violence, some of which attract stiff penalties if found guilty of.

AFTER many nail-biting years of wondering what to do with the national football team, the Super Eagles or Super Chickens as some derisively call them, a Nigerian government finally seems set to begin the process of returning football from an agonizing and disappointing exercise of nerves to a game that has been the source of both personal and collective joy to hundreds of millions of Nigerians.