I am writing this week’s column from a hotel room to which I had to flee in utter, tearful frustration today because I’ve had almost no electricity in my home for the past few days.

When President Umaru Yar’ Adua suddenly took ill and was flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment, the refrain was: “Pray for Yar’ Adua”. Hardly did the Information Minister, Professor Dora Akunyili finish any sentence without telling Nigerians that the President was recovering and would return to his work “soon”.

BERNARD LONGE as Managing Director of the First Bank was to the employees what Saul was to the early Christians.Where Saul put the believers to the sword, Longe killed the dreams of many workers; sacking them, imposing unholy policies, violating their fundamental and constitutional rights.

MO IBRAHIM is one of Africa’s global leaders who has not merely stayed at the sidelines wringing his hands in despair about Africa’s travails. Through his foundation he has set out to provide a platform for encouraging good leaders in and out office.

NIGERIA is a land of the unimaginable and this is once more manifesting in the utterly reckless campaign by Maurice Iwu, the unlovable chair of our so-called Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and supporters bent on keeping him in office after years of organising what many see as some of the worst heist of the will of the Nigerian people via elections that had been designed to fail right from the moment of conception.

About two years ago, the USA intelligence watch, opined that within the next fifteen years or so, Nigeria would most likey slide into a failed state.There were cries of indignation from Nigerians all over the world.

Hi readers! As soon as Seb left with Peace, the gals crowded round me; wanting to know the contents of my conversation with him. Like me, they too had been surprised to see him back in the room so soon after he was called out to meet Belinda at my gates.

I will begin this week’s article with a reference and excerpt from veteran journalist, Bisi Lawrence’s piece titled “Oh to spray again” in Saturday Vanguard edition of 10/10/09 . The indefatigable Bizlaw had failed after several attempts to take value for his naira coins at various locations, from exquisite shopping malls to your regular petrol attendants and pepper sellers!

Nigeria got her independence in 1960. Since then, the ruling elite has failed to harness the abundant human and natural resources in the country for the welfare of the citizens.

I don’t trust these people, whichever way you serve them up to the public,” observed a friend when I asked her opinion of the Acting President’s nominees for ministerial appointments.

PRESIDENTIAL QUALITIES
“Men of ordinary physique and discretion cannot be Presidents and live, if the strains be not somehow relieved. We shall be obliged always to be picking our chief magistrates [presidents] from among wise and prudent athletes – a small class”.
President Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United States, New York: Columbia University Press, 1908, pp 79-80.

Far more incisive things have been said by those who knew Dr. Stanley N. Macebuh far more closely than I. I should in fact rather say that I did not work with Dr. Macebuh; I came into journalism at the moment of his dramatic ouster. I met only his tails at the door. By the time I arrived the Guardian as a cub, a sea-change had occurred; Macebuh and the great denizens with whom he made the paper tick had exited.

My point of departure today is the Niger State Governor, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu. He is at present the Chairman of the 19-member Northern Governors’ Forum. I am relieved at his concern for the falling status of our country in the direction of failed states.

From all indications what we fear most is what our eventual reality is. My closest friend and I share one thing in common and it is the realisation that most of our fears have all become reality; in the process of disappointments, failures and countless heartbreak, we both agree that we seem to have inadvertently attracted all that we dreaded.

As at the last count, the new cabinet list from the presidency has reached 38, and perhaps still counting. Names are moving back and forth and causing ripples all over the place. Well, that is to be expected especially in a party like the PDP where influence peddling is the norm for sharing political jobs.