WOMEN in America have recorded phenomenal achievements and left indelible marks in U.S. history. Take a look at the U.S. Supreme Court. There, three women sit on the bench with six men. This is a statement that women have paid their dues so to speak alongside men in this country that consistently boasts of equal opportunity based on ability, and uses every chance it gets to preach the same message to the rest of the world.

I am the Chairman of Financial Nigeria International Limited. As chairmanships go, it is an honorary position. All the work is actually done by the Managing Editor, Jide Akintunde, who is really my employer; and his able assistant, Martins Hile. The company publishes Financial Nigeria magazine; a development and finance journal that provides an in-depth digest of the Nigerian economy and other frontier economies in sub Saharan Africa every month. I write a column in this on “Nigeria and the World.”

ENtwistle, the ebullient and dynamic Chief Envoy of America here reportedly made this assertion in a media briefing at a private university in Yola, Adamawa State, when asked why his country was blocking efforts by Nigeria to procure arms and ammunition to tackle the Islamist insurgency in the North East. He also alleged that his country’s reluctance to sell crucial military equipment to Nigeria was based on what he described as “human rights violations” by the Nigerian military personnel.

In a newspaper report titled “Nigeria rejects EPA over $1.3tn Revenue Loss” (Daily Independent Newspaper of 15/8/2014, Pg. 30), the Director General of Manufacturer’s Association, Mr. Remi Ogunmefun commended the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Olusegun Aganga for “reiterating government’s commitment to pursue the implementation of the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan” which accommodates “local content policies and transformation in the agricultural sector among others.”

There are some days in the calendar that we should all be made to wear danger signals. Days when we have moods as dark as the stormy clouds and are like bombs just waiting for the right trigger to go off.