In the noble exercise of attempting to plan for the future greatness of Nigeria, perhaps it would be necessary to peep into the past and examine the present. Before the peculiar amalgamation of 1914, British military forces had already prepared ground for Lord Lugard who gave the country the name, Nigeria.

WHAT is the population of Nigeria at any given time? We do not know. In terms of actual figures, we may never know because as we write now, there are numerous missing links; and between the idea and the reality, there are many shadows.

LAST week, Olusegun Obasanjo, addressed the Board of Trustees of the ruling PDP and made the startling request that Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and other PDP principal officers in the House of Representatives, resign from office in two years “to allow the rectification of the party’s zoning policy truncated by the present set of officers.”

THE terms in which we discuss what is generally called ‘the fight against corruption’ gives one the impression that that fight itself has become a project in its own right.

AFTER we have noted the following events reported in just one day’s coverage in the Friday July 22, 2011 Vanguard, we may see why Nigeria, typical of Africa’s post-colonial societies is portrayed as a polity of government without states and a society without government.

IN the ’80s, the decade of Nigeria’s brightest journalism, Ado’b Obe of West Africa Magazine popularised the phrase, “legitimacy engineering”.

A FEW days ago, I got a call from a lady, a “veteran mother” as she described herself. She spoke in melancholic – even tearful – tones. Her point of bother: President Goodluck Jonathan’s (then) rumoured tenure elongation bid.

The Kenya Airways flight that took me to Kinshasha en route Nairobi also had on board, Alhassan Yakmut, Deputy Director in the National Sports Commission, part of a Nigerian team to Maputo, for a pre All Africa Games meeting.

A dangerous dimension hasbeen introduced into commentaries, in the wake of the controversial suspension of Justice Isa Ayo Salami. A coalition of Odua groups last week railed against their faceless but eternal bête noir, the “Hausa-Fulani oligarchy”, as being behind Justice Salami’s travails.

A FEW days ago, I got a call from a lady, a “veteran mother” as she described herself. She spoke in melancholic – even tearful – tones. Her point of bother: President Goodluck Jonathan’s (then) rumoured tenure elongation bid.