Some say having a girl is like tending a neighbours’ garden. This is narrow minded and condescending perspective of low sense of value placed on females in our society. This is borne out of the way people react to the arrival of the birth of a baby boy: that of jubilation and in contrast,the arrival of a baby girl is often greeted with muted commiserations from friends and family. If the truth be told, the mother is often made to feel a failure if she does not provide the family with a male and a heir.

Last week, Dr Christopher Kolade, the Pro Chancellor of Pan African University, turned 80. About a month ago, I had asked him what his birthday plans were. I really was not surprised when he said he wanted to make it as low key as possible.

THE impression of the year 2012 by many Nigerians is that, though the Government of President Goodluck Jonathan has tried to transform the economic and political scenes, the efforts have been less edifying. Many commentators and analysts believe that the country has got much less than it desired in the past years, considering the opportunities afforded by immense material and human resources.

I RECENTLY told you that a friend recently told me that when he attended a school reunion dinner in Lagos, 80 percent of the ex-classmates on his table said that they were so unhappy with the status quo that they would gladly flee to foreign climes if they could get their hands on foreign work permits.

IT is a New Year. We all renew hope and make resolutions. I have never been particularly conformist about many things in life. From childhood, I have asked uncomfortable questions and thrown pebbles at orthodoxies. The conventional wisdom has never satisfied my search for answers about our often mysterious but lovely world, either the natural world that conditions us and which we are very much part of or the social canons of existence. So resolutions at the beginning of a new year often resembled for me, an admission of human weakness. If there is a thing to change, why wait till the beginning of a new year? But just for once, I fell into line and made a resolution which I have never betrayed.

IS it really necessary to remind ourselves that in government, what people intend is often different from what they bring about? In trying to evaluate a governmental action, one ought to consider likely, even if unintended, consequences.

Quite often, governments do the same thing, the same old way, while expecting different results. We have been at a loss to understand why, back to Governor Peter Odili’s years in Rivers State, a large cache of sophisticated arms and ammunitions was recovered from militants of that era who were beating a retreat from militancy and the weapons were set ablaze.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan says 2013 will be the year of his greatest impact. Most Nigerians will hope so. Leaders of the opposition and skeptics who hope he will disappoint again will pay for their hostility with higher costs for diesel for their generators, higher costs to protect and secure life and limbs, and uncertainties over whether a President who performs badly all through his four year s will allow a free and fair election to determine his fate in 2015. If 2013 will be the year President Jonathan will affect our lives most, what factors will be in play in shaping it?

THIS, no doubt, is the appropriate note to begin the new year- with prayers for our own country. Not just because of the claim by many that the past year, 2012, was a terrible one. One can’t be sure if there would ever be a year when the whole country, to say nothing of the whole world, would be in agreement that a year has been so good nobody has something to cry about. One cannot deny last year was a hard year for Nigerians. Evidence abound that it was a tough year and up to the last few days, many could still point to incidents that brought tears to their eyes. There were still terrorist killings, unprovoked cowardly attacks that have been the hallmark of life in many parts of the country.

TODAY, New Year day, is supposed to be a happy one. Last week was Christmas which was expected to be merry. But many of our countrymen were weary and in excruciating grief as we celebrated Christmas. Many went to Church—if they did—with their hearts in their mouths because of terror bombers. And for sure, the demons with who we share a country sent many to their graves and their relations into mourning. Instead of singing soul lifting carols, many sang elegies to loved ones. Many donned black cloths as they lowered to mother earth loved ones who should have been sitting at lunch and dinner tables with them. Instead of passing the salt across lunch tables, many passed shovels of sand for the dust-to-dust rites!

OCHEREOME Nnanna in his Vanguard, Monday November 26, 2012 View Point explains why the planned Alliance between Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu “Action Congress of Nigeria (CAN) and General Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) may not work. In the course of his explanation he brings to the fore the larger problem of the fate of opposition parties and the apparent futility of opposition politics in Nigeria. It is this latter problem that is addressed in this version of the Tuesday Platform.