PROF. Akinyemi’s treatment of nationality as the unit of Nigerian federalist statecraft is his strategic framework as affirmed in the following: “Nigeria, made up of 250-300/350 nationalities (depending on which 1 study one consults) of disparate population sizes, was obviously a candidate for federalism”.

THE high and mighty are under siege in Nigeria. Under siege too are those who are not so high and mighty. The mere fact that you own a decent-looking air-conditioned car could put you in danger of being attacked by highway Area Boys in Lagos.

The other day, a friend narrated a story, which I found stranger than fiction; the story related to the travails of a family who lost a successful and illustrious breadwinner, who, incidentally, died without a Will. The family’s elders were consequently entrusted with the responsibility of efficiently managing the estate of the deceased.

Ask any Nigerian if we have airlines in Nigeria and he would probably answer “yes”. And for good measure, he will list the names of existing airlines – Arik, Aero Contractor, IRS, DANA (it is still in business and we need DANA more than it needs us; believe me), Overland, Medview (which started operations in November this year) and that is almost the entire list – for a nation of 167 million people and suffering from delusions of grandeur by aspiring to become one of the top twenty economies in the world by the year 2020.

Ask a Nigerian Christian how to improve the life of Nigerians, and he will give you a party-political manifesto. He will tell you about the need for non-stop electricity. He will talk about the need to curtail armed robbery and kidnapping. He will talk about the need to improve the medical facilities. But would such developments improve the life of Nigerians? Certainly not!

I was present last weekend at the Achebe Colloquium in Providence, Rhode Island, and I was struck once more by the irony of the situation, and the incongruity of Nigeria’s neo-colonial situation.

“We salute the men and women who kept our nation together, especially those who paid the supreme price…The only way we can honour their memory is not to re-open old wounds but to resolve that never again will our people’s blood be shed by their own people. We must harness our diversity to make our union perfect”. Governor Babatunde Fashola, at Colloquium Fair, held at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA by Professor Chinua Achebe.

In November 2009, the Nigerian Senate, speaking through Senator Ayogu Eze, suggested that most of the projects earmarked in the budget were not implemented “because Civil Servants in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) lack the capacity to implement the budgets and appropriations they ask for every year”.

“We will not enjoy security without development, we will not enjoy development without security, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.”-Kofi Annan

Right from the early times, being female meant being a zero-class human being with no rights whatsoever, in any area of life. Maybe it was punishment for mother Eve, who not only disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit, but added to her sin by giving the fruit to her husband Adam to eat.