Long ago in our early school years, when teachers had a good knowledge of their subjects before they delivered their lessons, it was constantly drummed into our heads that ‘ignorance is a disease’. Thus, we were encouraged to take much interest in everything and read widely so that we wouldn’t have the disease. Many children complied then, so, at siesta in the boarding school, you would find most pupils secretly reading novels, foreign magazines and journals which were educative.

Sometime last year, President Goodluck Jonathan launched the “Bring Back the Book” project, an initiative that seeks to encourage the reading culture in Nigerians. Probably in a future essay, I will dissect the negative consequences of dwindling reading culture even among the so-called educated class.

It is an old English adage that everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything bout it. That is not true. Since the Wright brothers pointed the way to the stars, around the beginning of the second decade in the last century, air travel, at least, has made the weather a compulsory topic in many ways.

STANDARDS are almost impossible to keep in Nigeria. In the instances that we opted for low standards, we are still unable to keep the marks that we have so lowly set for ourselves. The National Sports Festival is suffering the same affliction.

ESTHER SALAMI, a beautician, came to my house last Sunday to do a pedicure for a member of my family. When she had finished, I handed her a small wad of folded naira bills and she dropped it into her handbag without counting it.

LAST week, I recalled an article written in 2002 from my book entitled THE AGENDA. The conclusion was that any government wishing to pursue a policy of FULL EMPLOYMENT should embark on massive public works – activities which would stimulate effective demand. The mechanism would be through a budget deficit that is, spending more than the normal income generated during the period.

AS morning shows the day, it has virtually become the tradition of this column to review its injunctions to elected officials at the beginning of each new government.

IN my column of Thursday, June 24, 2011, entitled “Boko Haram: Even with the bombings, there is no alternative to dialogue”, I had criticised Ochereome Nnanna’s call for an “iron fist” to deal with the problem of Boko Haram. He was “petrified” that government opted for a ‘carrot and stick’ approach to the problem.

AFTER many months of costly hesitancy and apparent confusion, the Federal Government has deployed the military forces against the Boko Haram insurgents troubling the nation’s north eastern frontier. The expedition, codenamed Operation Restore Order, ORO, being conducted by the usual Joint Task Force, JTF, has swung into action in Maiduguri, and Army sources have promised to quickly crush the Islamic terrorists.

My father was, however, not a uniform wearing police officer or, rather he did wear the police uniform for a relatively short period. Most times he wore uniform but only to be photographed on attainment of a new rank. In the three decades or so he spent in the Force he worked in the inner sanctum of the investigative arm of the Nigeria Police at Alagbon Close in Ikoyi, Lagos.