A FEW weeks ago, I received a call from ex-International football star, Segun Odegbami. We had not spoken for a while, but it turned out to be a very long discussion. Odegbami informed me of an audacious bid to run for presidency of the international football body, FIFA! It appeared such a daunting proposition and one would have thought that he was joking but clearly he was not!

ONE theme that runs across the entire spectrum of public administration is that leaders should say less than necessary because power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words. Essentially, the more you speak, the more likely you are to make mistakes. And words are like the toothpaste – once you press it out of the tube, it cannot be put back. In the words of Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), “It is even more damaging for a Minister to say foolish things than to do them”.

HOW did corruption become a way of life in Nigeria? This question should be of the utmost importance to the Presidency and of course to the future minister of information whose role, if not for the “job for the boys syndrome” should have remained combined with that of the minister of culture (and by extension tourism). Nigeria’s national orientation, our inability to unanimously condemn wrongdoing, is perhaps our country’s greatest problem.

IN a piece entitled ‘Buhari’s dilemma: Nigerians’ anxiety’ that appeared here a fortnight ago, this column commented on the dilemma in which President Muhammadu Buhari seemed to have found himself naming his ministers.

THINGS have not been going according to plan for President Buhari. For the last four months since his famous victory, the president has been engaged with a battle royal with the very people who put him in power. In order to win the election, Buhari had to form an alliance with wily politicians of the old-school; men seasoned at getting their hands dirty and adept at manipulating the system to power-political advantage.