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.

Chief Alphonsus Igbeke who obtained a court judgment penultimate Thursday to remove Senator Joy Emodi from the Senate may have perfected a way upstaging legislators from his native Anambra State in the courts

I HAVE just read a fine, thought-provoking article in Time, the American current affairs magazine. It was composed by a brilliant writer called Joe Klein, shortly after President Barack Obama achieved an epic victory by successfully pushing a radical healthcare sector reform bill he initiated through Congress (the US equivalent of our National Assembly).

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.