I watched the punctured imageries of the so-called government induced debate at the Muson Centre in Lagos penultimate week, and I could see how difficult it was for the protagonists of subsidy removal to sell their unpopular motive.

I always knew that I was set for international acclaim; I just always assumed that it would come via my prowess as an actor. That’s not far from the truth today; I just didn’t realise that it would take this long and that so many other things would happen along the way.

The Boko Haram sect has become bolder than ever. They can now confidently announce a locality that they have marked down for an attack, and proceed to launch the assault almost at will. They warned about the mayhem they were going to visit on several areas of Christmas Day, and almost made good their word. And now they have announced their intention of repeating that performance tomorrow.

As 2011 draws to a close, it seems appropriate to look back in anger or approval at some of the people who have, individually or as part of groups, made the past l2 months better or worse in various ways and in various parts of the world.

HAPPILY, “Unemployment” was a major theme in President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Budget address, which he recently delivered to a Joint Session of both houses of the National Assembly.

I HAVE reflected very much on diversity and the essential unity of our humanity in the past 24 four hours. Television images from home have been very disturbing. The tragic and unacceptable killings of people worshipping during this season of goodwill have triggered my stroll on the shores of hindsight.

ANNUAL budgets are important policy instruments which do more than just inform citizens of the priorities and plans of an administration, and the resources which it plans to mobilise towards achieving them. They reveal an administration’s basic philosophy, challenges and opportunities.

FOR the very first time since his political career assumed national dimension, Goodluck Jonathan is showing he could be a determined person if the need arose. For quite a long while, the President has shown himself as someone ready to capitulate before any determined opposition.

THIS is why the Democratic Project in Nigeria must begin with the political formation of the project. And the primary institution whose raison d’etre is service on behalf of the mass operating on enough and less than enough household budgets is supposed to be the Organised Labour.

Christmas is many things to many people. It’s the season to be jolly and I guess it would be if the true meaning of it was the reason behind all of the frantic activities that grip the world around the period. The season was not so jolly the past few years and I had to make a conscious effort to pray and ask God to break the cycle of drama that seemed to be all the present I got annually.