The leadership of the All Peoples Congress (APC) did not quite see it coming: while the party was still bickering over party choices for the leadership of the National Assembly, Dr. Olubukola Saraki and Mr.Yakubu Dogara, engineered something of a legislative coup. In swift, and adroit political moves, they formed a convenient legislative coalition with the rump of the parliamentary opposition, the PDP, and were elected as President of the Senate and Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives respectively, securing victories over Party favorites, Lawan and Gbajabimiala, and thus throwing their party’s legislative plan into free fall. As a trade-off, PDP’s Ike Ekweremadu was returned as Deputy President of the Senate. In actual fact, the position of the Deputy President of the senate has little political weight or significance, and is at best given only for the ride; but it does have just one important dimension: it guarantees the opposition presence in the room where important Assembly matters are to be discussed in a final caucus.

In the final year of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, hardly was anyone not fed up with his lackluster performance. When therefore the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) smartly designed the catchy phrase ‘change’ the wind blew us all in its favour. The few people who purportedly remained with the government of the day were its own appointees and other lucky gainers of the spoils of office. Every other person including many members of the then ruling party wanted change by all means. Thank God those who promised change are now in control of the nation. While expecting change from them, the rest of us who earnestly yearned for change must ourselves be ready for change and its implications because change by leaders cannot make appreciable impact without commensurate support by followers. Accordingly, our civil society groups must change their ways. Among such groups, media organs stand out as they aggressively agitated for change through editorials and reports and helped to effectively publicize the views of other people demanding change. Therefore, the media itself must not only change, it must lead the change process. It must do so by changing its own ways which in the past encouraged the poor performance of government. The media must change from serving personal and sectional interests to serving the over-all public good

Apologies are in order, for a start. The office of Femi Adesina, veteran journalist and newly appointed spokesman for President Muhamadu Buhari, was merged with that of Akinwumi Adesina, newly elected President of the African Development Bank, on this page last week. The error is regretted.

It is difficult to know what the military means by ‘concocted’.
But since ‘tactical withdrawal’ can mean soldiers turning their backs on the scrawny rabid dogs of Boko Haram and fleeing to ‘refugee’ camps in Cameroun , ‘concocted’ must have some other ‘military’ meaning.

Last Saturday was the kind of day you’d want to stay at home.
Apart from the fact that it was wet, cool and therefore cosy, there were two major sporting events lined up for the day, not to mention the Canadian Grand Prix for the growing number of Formula One fans.