THIS past week couldn’t have been a particularly pleasant one for Ahmed Yerima, former governor of Zamfara State and now PDP senator representing Zamfara at the National Assembly. The Senate Minority Whip was definitely in the minority when four female colleagues of his decided to take him to task on allegations that he recently married a 13 year old Egyptian girl.

FOLLOWING the coup d’ etat of July 23, 1952 which replaced King Farouk with General Neguib, Amer was appointed director of the New Head of State’s office. He became a Major-General the following year and from then on until 1958 was Commander-in-Chief of Egypt’s armed forces. Promoted Field Marshal in 1957, he served from 1958 to 1962 as Commander-in-Chief of the United Arab Republic Forces.

I do not know for how long Hon Ibrahim Bio was minister of Transport. What I do know is that for the few days that he has been Chairman of the National Sports Commission and Minister of Sports, he has known no peace.

NOBODY can sack me,” he boasted, when about a year ago, when pressure mounted on the National Assembly and the Presidency to remove Professor Maurice Iwu as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Hi readers! It’s at a time like this that I wish I were endowed with some flesh on my frame so that my body wouldn’t reflect the stress I’m going through.

SIX years after scrapping toll gates on major high ways, the Federal Government is to reintroduce them to raise funds for road maintenance in the country”. The preceding is the opening paragraph of a report titled “FG to Reintroduce Toll Gates, Fuel Tax” on page 15 in the Punch edition of 30/3/2010.

It is not enough for a book to claim that its contents were divinely inspired: there must be independent evidence confirming that such inspiration actually took place and that what was written down is a faithful reproduction of the inspired message. Apart from the claims contained in scriptures, how can Olatunji and other believers differentiate between divine inspiration and other psychological processes that can be justifiably labelled ‘inspiration’?TO BE

Now, if the incident of a taxi cab being driven under the belly of a fully-loaded plane which took place the other week at Margaret Ekpo airport in Calabar, had taken place in Lagos or Abuja, I’m sure its full horror would have been communicated to most Nigerians. There would have been a huge outcry on the lapse in security which allowed the incident to take place.

In the pit of Nigerian politics lies the soul of philistines. A nation cursed with a political leadership without the subtle refinements of culture is doomed to crassness. We see this truth as a matter of fact, reflected in the utter disregard to which the political establishment places culture and matters of cultural policy.

Even as I write, there is an attempt to accommodate those who have criminal records to access office as long as they are declared winners of elections that may not have been held. So who is afraid of generals or men in uniform? Having discovered that going to the farm is less paying than accessing power through the vote, our men in uniform opted for the latter.

The issue is no longer Iwu. He is gone for good. Our controvertial professor chairman of INEC has lost his spirited battle to stay on his lucrative job. Now, that man is part of our blighted history.

It’s going to be a long ,long year. I can see it coming. From this point to election time next year, we shall surely have exciting times. The handwriting is on the wall, and on the ground, and even in the sky. A merry time is sure to be had by all.

THERE were attacks from last week at the border areas of southern and northern Sudan, Africa’s largest country. The clashes were between the south-based Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and Arab marauders from Darfur (the Janjawid) aided by the northern army (SAF) Raids by the latter group are not new. In fact, their murderous raids against the people of Darfur which resulted in about 400,000 killed and 2.5 million displaced, has been classified by the international community as genocide.

I DON’T know what to tell sports minister, Ibrahim Isa Bio. But I will prefer that he talks less especially on technical matters.

As my esteemed media colleague, Simon Kolawole of ThisDay newspaper pointed out in his column last Sunday: “The PDP crisis…is not about food on the table for ordinary Nigerians. It is not about roads and water and electricity and schools and hospitals. It is just about intrigues and self-interest. We have seen this before. Those who benefitted extensively from the ‘impunity’ in the PDP become reformers when things don’t go their way.”.