Let it never be said of our public servants that they are not working. Neither can you accuse them of lacking in long-term vision. I also dare anyone to say they lack that intrinsic intuition necessary for inspiring leadership.

PRESIDENT Jonathan has attracted near-universal condemnation, both in Nigeria and internationally, for pardoning Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, under whom he once served as a Deputy.

It can be safely assumed that democracy returned to Nigeria after the death of that military dictator, General Sanni Abacha. The return of democracy started in 1999 after the often forgotten character named General Abdusallam Abubakar terminated the 16 army rule that featured General Buhari, General Babangida and General Abacha. Thus, the Nigerian democratic experiment started in 1999 under the 1999 Constitution (as now amended).

OUR quotation above was taken from the impromptu speech made at the weekend, by Godswill Akpabio, the Akwa Ibom governor, during the South-South leg of the PDP’s reconciliation tour. As newspapers all reported last Monday, the six South-South PDP chairmen all chorused that they were truly “hungry”, and before anyone could spell Uyo, Akpabio gave a total of N6 million to the “hungry” chairmen for “lunch”.

CERTAINLY, there is something the Northern Governors Forum and Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto, know about the Boko Haram which the rest of us do not know. That’s how it should be, though. It is not everything they know about their people that we should know.

GODSWILL Obot Akpabio is something else. When you are around him there are no dull moments.

The US will become a net oil exporter late this year as domestic crude production surpasses imports for the first time in 18 years, the Energy Information Administration said Wednesday.

Helped by a surge in shale-based output in North Dakota and Texas, monthly crude production has pushed past seven million barrels a day and could reach eight million barrels a day by the beginning of 2014.

ON Wednesday March 13, 2013, Rebekah Havrilla, a former sergeant and bomb disposal expert in the US Army appeared before the US Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel investigating sexual offences.

Something is seriously wrong at the highest decision-making levels of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. A number of elementary but expensive errors of judgement are being made which, cumulatively, will cost the nation very dearly.

PRESUMABLY, President Goodluck Jonathan and the members of the National Council of State who granted a state pardon for the convicted former governor of Bayelsa State, D. S. P. Alamieyeseigha, are aware of Section 14 (2) of the Constitution which states that “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice,” and accordingly “sovereignty belongs to the people … from whom government … derives all its powers and authority.”