The recent Sunday Vanguard carried a rather sad story of our oil industry and in the story, was a strong indictment of leadership both in Government and in the communities. The article stated very bluntly, the poignant facts that more gas is flared in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. According to the article, 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas is wasted annually which is 40% of all of Africa’s natural gas consumption

I was at the celebration that ushered Prof. JP Clark into the Octogenarian circle. I was told, and so many in my generation also, that JP was a lecturer in the Department of English, University of Lagos, where I later came to study and teach. I have imaginative (text) knowledge of JP but a visual knowledge of Ebun Clark. Not long after was another, similar celebration: Soyinka at eighty. I quickly want to make few comments on JP Clark’s, of course, which is belated.

My mother was 82 years two Saturdays ago, but like many of her previous birthdays, except the 70th and 75th, it passed by like a ship in the night: unheralded. Not that she would have celebrated if we wanted to. The appetite is not just there, not after the loss of two sons within 19 months.

As we continue our discourse on subsidy from last week, let us examine the international geopolitics of subsidies. The greatest subsidisers of energy are the greatest consumers; the United States and China. They both spend about $3 trillion annually on subsidies for their people.

BRITAIN has within a week, set three new records. Wayne Roonney by scoring his fiftieth international goal for England in the Euro 2016 qualification match against Switzerland, set the record as the country’s highest goal scorer.