Prince Abubakar Audu stood on the verge of history. He had been twice governor of Kogi State, and the electoral results showed that he would be elected a third time.

The on-going protests in the South-East requires creative handling by the federal government, governors of states that comprise the zone and Igbo leaders of thought to avoid unnecessary escalation of the situation. But the arrogant, insensitive, and threatening comments by a few military officers and cowardly hasty condemnation by some prominent Ndigbo are disingenuous, because both sides are trivialising the key issues of marginalisation, exclusion and alienation raised by the Biafran agitators, which lie at the heart of the troublesome unresolved “national question”.

Dr. Chu S. P. Okongwu in his 2004 tributes to Ukpabi Asika, took an aside in his eulogies to emphasize the following: “The generation born after the civil war will not know that the former Eastern region, comprising East-Central State, South-Eastern state, and Rivers state, enjoyed a highly developed road network, with probably the highest quality road density in sub-Saharan Africa. These had been damaged or neglected during the war. Ukpabi Asika planned to reconstruct and modernize these.

In January 2014, former President Goodluck Jonathan in his own wisdom, decided to appoint Air Marshal Alex S. Badeh as the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). Almost immediately, a United States-based Nigerian journalist Abiodun Ladepo circulated an opinion on the web suggesting that Badeh was too fat to head our military. I thought my colleague’s opinion particularly his assertion that Badeh was “the most out of shape officer” he had ever seen was rather harsh and uncharitable. When Badeh assumed office, he spent ample time pointing accusing fingers at a section of the press for being anti-government.

May I seize this opportunity to congratulate you on your success at the last General Elections in which you won convincingly. Pardon me this is coming late.