I RETURNED to Abuja on an afternoon flight from Asaba, the Delta State capital, last Sunday. We had been attending the 9th Nigerian Editors’ Conference; an occasion which climaxed with a gala night of music, featuring D’Banj; Omawumi; the Delta State cultural troupe and some of the leading comedians that made Delta the capital of Nigerian stand up comedy.

WHEN I wrote those series I had no idea that two months down the line ASUU would embark on a paralysing strike that would do serious violence to the academic calendar. One doesn’t need to be prophetic, Godspower Oyewole-style, to see our public universities are headed for the rocks.

In January 1987, as a member of “Vice-President” Augustus Aikhomu’s delegation to the meeting of the Africa Fund Committee of the Non-aligned Countries, held in New Delhi, India, I engaged the “Vice-President” in a discussion on Nigerian politics.

JUST as the most stable form of the state is an empire so the most sustainable system of rulership for a people that have been enslaved or colonised is a republic and their most legitimate form of government is a democracy.

THERE is an old, simple way of defining the news for fresh journalism students. “When dog bites a man, it is not the news. But when man bites a dog, that is the news”. It is also held that bad news sells.