In today’s Nigeria, Rotimi Amaechi the current Governor of Rivers State is likely to emerge as one of the great personalities that shaped the Nigerian political history of his time. From 2007 till date, he has been a dogged fighter. First, he fought his former political party – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – over the latter’s breach of internal democracy.

Life is like a revolving door, people seem to be passing through all the time. There are some who believe I have been hardened by a lot of sorrow early on in life and they could be right. What they observe is my calm acceptance and almost indifference to tragedy. I have found that I cant fight reality, so I tend to just roll with it.

Ordinarily, I would not have tried to offer any explanations to those asking this question, except that last week, the matter was raised by the Publisher of VANGUARD, our dear Uncle Sam, in Abuja. We had gone to the nation’s capital for different reasons and accidentally met at the VANGUARD office. On our way to lunch (for me a free lunch which no ajeru Area Boy would turn down) Uncle Sam informed me that he was with some friends who were “disappointed” that Dele Sobowale, who writes mostly philosophical articles, would descend so low as to start introducing religion into politics.

Penultimate Friday, the Federal Government inaugurated a new board for the Nigeria National Merit Awards, NNMA, with Professor Francis Idachaba as Chairman. The Board is saddled with the responsiblity of ensuring that the right people are nominated and honoured by the Goodluck Jonathan administration which pursues promotion of merit, hardwork and intellectuallism in the nation’s quest for sustainable development.

Some developments in the continuing saga of uncontained terror visited on Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorists are becoming frightening. They indeed need to be carefully evaluated as their implication may call for a better apprehension of our predicament, and thus the ordering of a more adequate responsibility in our conduct.