The floods, which devastated many parts of Nigeria in 2012, should not have caught us by surprise – but they did. For more than a generation, scientists have been warning a deaf world and its leaders about the imminent catastrophe which would follow relentless global warming as mankind heats up his own “home” – the earth. Furthermore, we knew for centuries that the year starts in January and moves inexorably to December.

A while ago, my wife and I were invited to a thanksgiving service. Most of us in attendance were filthy rich. Jesus says God blesses with poverty and not with riches. (Luke 6:20-25). But we were there to celebrate the “blessed” riches of a particular family. We were all gorgeously dressed, celebrating their riches and ours in song, dance, and prayers; presuming that since ours is the kingdom of men, the kingdom of God would also be ours.

“They came forth to war, but they always fell”. James Macpherson, 1736-1796.
James Macpherson was the grandfather of Sir John Macpherson the second to the last Governor General of Nigeria under colonial rule. Governor Macpherson handed over to Sir James Robertson who eventually became our last British ruler. As the saying went in those days, “the British established the empire in a fit of absent-mindedness but it took the Scottish people, like Macpherson and Robertson, to make it work”. That was while it lasted.

In his essay entitled “The God Who Does Not Exist”, published in Sunday Vanguard of March 31st, Pastor Femi Aribisala responded to an article I wrote several months ago in which I declared arguments for the existence of an intelligent divine creator or First Cause invalid. More pointedly, I defended my conviction that God does not exist, and cited briefly the views of some philosophers and scientists to back my claim. I would have ignored Aribisala’s opinionated response, but doing so might create the erroneous impression in the minds of readers that probably he is right or that I find his arguments (insofar as he marshalled any) so compelling that I decided, as the old idiom says, “to let the sleeping dogs lie”.

There are 2 main enviable professions in Nigeria – Law and Medicine. It is only a lawyer for instance, that can serve as Attorney General and Minister of Justice. The same is true of the position of Commissioner for Justice in a State. However, lawyers can be Ministers and Commissioners of other sectors – Education, Foreign Affairs and Commerce etc.

She passed away in the early hours of March 27th, 2013, in San Francisco, USA, at the age of 83. That drew a curtain on our over sixty-year-old friendship! Christy Stallings (nee Tugele) was from Warri but was born in Kaduna.

And so, they killed Chudi. What a bloody waste. Dr. Chudi Nwike was my friend. I did not always keep in touch, but I knew, somehow that he was out there; in the great grip of things, bold and idealistic; dreaming of great and worthy political battles. I was introduced to him when he became the Deputy governor of Anambra state, and I found him, among many things, voluble, thoughtful, idealistic, and certainly a man with some political ideas.

A quick disclaimer: I am a Muslim and no, I am not a terrorist and I do not have, never will have or harbour terrorist tendency and I wholeheartedly condemn any act of violence, killing and segregation in the name of Islam. Good, so that we are clear, very clear from the word go. The Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu, put it so well that Boko Haram “does not represent Islam and that it is not a Muslim organisation.”

I am in one of my dull moments again when simple situations that are as clear as daylight fail to emerge from the depths of confusion for me to grasp and comprehend like all others around seem to do. Why can’t I understand what is going on? Just when I think I am on top of the unfolding events, something that leaves me panting turns up again.

The way and manner a government treats persons with disabilities shows how responsive or irresponsive that government is.