THIS time last week, the nation held its breath in anticipation of the final episode in the four months old saga that was the National Conference. The key actors themselves did not have the final pages of the script. Or, to put it another way, there were many versions of the final scenes of a melodrama that threatened to either tear the nation apart, or facilitate massive distortions in political power and resource mobilisation and allocation.

BY all sober reckoning, Professor Attahiru Jega has done quite well in his last two outings as Nigeria’s chief electoral officer and, so, democracy’s chief midwife in our turbulent country. If Ekiti broke the hearts of progressives, of those who believe that “man does not live alone by bread” — in other words, that the gospel of “Man shall live alone for his stomach,” according to Saints Adedibu and Fayose, is perversion itself — Osun offered them consolation. With the hard-fought but clear victory of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in the August 9 election, Jega gave hope to a nation pining, panting even, for a sign of change in the still uninspiring effort of governing ourselves sensibly. If against the seemingly unstoppable electoral machine of the ruling party, oiled by its ability to dispense power and privilege, a harried governor from a new collation party still getting to know all of its new members could win re-election, then 2015 might not be all the predicted gloom and doom. Electorally speaking, only, I must be quick to add, for the forces that tear at corporate Nigeria are legion!

The Northern Elders Forum, the apostles of “the North is born to rule,” finally played their joker. They maintained that if the government does not #Bring Back Our Girls by the end of October, 2014, Jonathan should forget about running for re-election.

THE Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has spoken – again. The NEF has become the most garrulous elders forum in the country. In a statement issued on its behalf by Barrister Solomon Dalung and Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, but which had the overtones of the usual venom of Prof. Ango Abdullahi and Alhaji Lawal Kaita (Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s political loudmouths) the NEF told President Goodluck Jonathan that if by the end of October 2014 the Chibok college girls abducted by Boko Haram had not been rescued he should forget the 2015 presidential race.

Our parlous economic state has been attributed by some observers to our heavy dependence on increasing oil revenue and our inability to stimulate the performance of our industrial and agricultural subsectors, particularly the small and medium enterprises and thereby, also diversify the productive sectors of our economy