THE Ministry of Defence will be holding at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre a two-day International Seminar on Peace Operation, August 2-3, 2010. The subject matter is intriguing because as it is phrased the topic of the seminar pertains to a matter in the portfolio of the Ministry of External Affairs.

I have some fears. The fear that by the time you get to read this column, some of the view points canvassed therein may have been overtaken by events. That is how dynamic the issue is so much that situations change by the minute, by the day. I wish I could hand over this column this week to Alhaji Gara Gombe that incurable critic of the Lulu administration and a crusader for a better football culture.

WHEN Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji finally decided to dump the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) he was widely expected to return straight to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He chose instead to embrace the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He obviously did not reckon with the surprising return of Chief Orji Kalu to the PDP. His calculation was probably that in a three-cornered fight between a factionalised PDP, an emptied-out PPA and incumbent APGA, he would have the upper hand.

They are not about to give up but to see that they win again. If they win, then, their fortunes will turn..
Of course, those who oppose them (no-zoning) are shouting at the top of their voice and the slogan has been “democracy”, whatever that means now. Of course, they conveniently forget “quota”, Federal Character and all other things. They mean to play their game to the hilt.

Yet, that does not mean that all socio-political revolutions are useless or that reform is always the best option. In a decadent country like Nigeria, if members of the ruling elite are impervious to the yearnings and aspirations of the people and continue to behave as if the entire country belongs to them, the case for radical change becomes more compelling. Now, has the ruling elite in Nigeria been sensitive and responsive to the welfare of Nigerians?

We’ve been advised not to act on every forwarded mail we get on the internet, as our responses are closely monitored by the initiators, so that they can add more e-mail addresses to their mailing list for SPAM mail, which in most cases is commercial.

They view the North from the prism that shows us its indolent elite or rulers. There are many truths in the broad canvas of images, but there are also many norths as there are many souths. Nigeria is made of people – complex and varied: kind, cruel, greedy, industrious; the zealot and the one of measured faith.

As usual, his supporters wanted to know if there was something personal in my remarks. They could not, of course, accuse me of tribalism that time. Yar’Adua/Jonathan followed with the unwieldy seven-point agenda; I counseled three – power, roads and resolution of the Niger Delta conflict for the first term and others for the second –if ever there was a second.

The Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, electronic media owners, was not a party to the suit. Other media bodies, as members of the Nigerian Press Organisation, were also not there. Those who initiated the suit in 1999 were not officers of the Nigerian Press Organisation (that is, the NPAN, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists) outside of Ismaila Isa Funtua, publisher of the rested Democrat who was then president of the NPAN.

The world is in a very terrible state. Tune in your radio, all you hear is disaster, crisis and conflict everywhere. Mankind is gasping, and the fear is palpable that this world may no longer be saved. We are well into the grips of the end-times prophetic collapse.