WHEN I was growing up in Lagos, almost all the non- Nigerian Catholic priests I knew were Irish. They built and ran some of the best schools and were the embodiment of moral authority. It seemed that the primary profession of the Irish was priesthood. It is therefore shocking to learn that the Irish youth today has his attention turned to other calling

RETIRED Brigadier-General David Mark’s Senate will be three years old early in June this year. Looking back at its track record of performance (especially in the area of representation) it is difficult to compare it with the Senate that Chief Ken Nnamani led and bowed out of in 2007.

My attention in the last fortnight has not been on the ministerial list or the passage of the 2010 Budget. As important as these and other national matters may seem, I was more preoccupied with the whirlwind of violence that is sweeping the country and threatening its very existence.

LAST week, my wife and I received text messages warning us of the possibility of acid rain in Abuja, Nigeria. The message was said to have originated from NASA in the United States, thus lending it the required weight and authority.

BY the time you are reading this the Senate would have commenced its screening of nominees for ministerial positions into the cabinet being constituted by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan. With the face of the new Executive Council of the Federation out in broad outline, it is now possible for Nigerians to have a general impression of the direction Nigeria is likely to follow in the next 12 months.

TRANSITIONAL elections are thus only one of several ways of effecting reform of the political order. Separatist movements are another way of achieving the same result. Revolutions are another way of effecting change of political order.

Hi readers! The gals went back to their food while Seb went to meet his dame at the gate. We had hardly settled back into our chairs when he returned, took his place beside Peace and asked me if he could proceed to having the dessert ahead of the rest of us.

WAY back in the middle of March 2010, talk of replacing the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu at the end of his tenure in June this was not one of the hot issues in the news.

Last week, I started with Jos and ended with Warri; this week let me reverse the approach. In the end we are looking at the same impending catastrophe from two different ends of a prism.

Colonel Muamar Ghadaffi, the leader of Libya, is a well-known figure in Africa and the world. He is one of the world’s longest reigning heads of state, having ruled his country for over three decades.

Violence against women the globe over, is real, alive and thriving in all societies, though in varying degrees and intensity, depending on how enlightened the society is about human, and how much respect they have for their female folk.

I was at Benin on March 18 to speak at the 8th triennial conference of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria. I was asked to speak on Nigeria at 50 – Issues and Challenges. I likened the mystery that is Nigeria to an elephant that three blind men encountered and reported authoritatively o

Why Senator Joy Emodi was dubbed the Joy of the Senate by the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark has never been revealed. But the woman who was removed from the Senate last Thursday by the Court of Appeal was an accomplished legislator who left a memorable legacy in her legislative and personal conducts that inspired joy in the gloomiest days of the Senate.

As expected by most Nigerians, we are beginning to feel some movements in the polity. For those who know, all movement has a melody that could either irritate or please. It all depends on where you are coming from, different movements could evoke different responses that is what the two critical moves from the seat of power in Abuja this week have done.

SOME cruel jokes have emerged in the light of the departure of the Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. They became jobless on March 17. There was even a debate whether they had any job in the first place.