It is disturbing that in this day and age, people can work and not get paid and yet, it is expected, I mean, it is demanded that they continue to work and there is no promise of payment. Only in Nigeria! Nigerian mentality is oxymoronic.

If you cook a prophet his favourite meal and he prays for you, what kind of prayer is he likely to pray? He might pray that God should give you the desires of your heart. He might pray that God should prosper your business. He might pray that God should heal you of your infirmities. He might pray that God should give you your own husband; your own wife; or your own children.

It must have been moment of pride for the newly sworn in President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, as he took his place among selected leaders of the industrialised world last weekend. It was in far away Germany where they were meeting, under the auspices of the G-7 Summit, to discuss global economy as well as on key issues regarding foreign, security and development policy, among other topics.

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