“For example, Nigeria has signed an MoU with the Democratic Republic of Congo for the importation of electricity from the Inga Dam Power Plant.” Professor Nebo, Minister of Power, PUNCH, March 25, 2014.

In 2003, Femi-Kevin’s headmaster sent me an email forecasting that he would fail his GCSE exams because he had done so badly in his mock exams. I wrote an angry response and asked him: “Are you God? How are you so sure he would fail? Is it because he is black?” After he took the exams, God did something strange. Before his results came out officially, he showed them to me in a dream; subject-by-subject and grade-by-grade. The results were excellent: Femi-Kevin got so many “A” grades.

Forgive me for breaking up the article IF I DON’T MAKE IT. The National Conference is far more important than anyone’s private life – including mine. Two weeks ago, I had written the first part of this piece with a definite bias which must again be declared up front. I want the 2014 CONFAB to succeed. As the publisher of THISDAY Newspapers, Mr Nduka Obiagbena, had pointed out, this CONFAB cannot solve all of our problems. No CONFAB can do that because previous military governments had endorsed constitutions which had led us into the dead end in which we find ourselves.

When I read that each of the mostly President Goodluck Jonathan’s handpicked delegates to the national conference going on in Abuja right now will collect N12million at the end of their three-month meeting, I was outraged. My reaction was based on the following considerations. First, as a very senior academic in one of the best universities in Nigeria, my emolument in a year after sundry deductions at source is less than N4million.

Where do you begin? They say, it does not rain but pours. In Nigeria, the misery keeps pouring down in buckets. And when you think that you have seen or heard the zenith of all the depravities meted by Nigerians to fellow Nigerians, then the mother of all depravity comes along and overshadows the last.