WE still remember the old prayer point: When we were born, we cried and people rejoiced. Our lives should be such that at the point of departure, people should cry while we rejoice into eternity.

TIME was about 10:30 pm Nigerian time and the BBC’s Hard Talk was on the screen on this dark night of December 5, 2013. I had only minutes before finished writing my original copy for the column this week.

Following the meeting with party leaders and PDP governors as well as two former PDP governors who re-affirmed their full and final defection, President Goodluck Jonathan was reported to have summoned an emergency meeting of top guns of the party on Monday night.

TWENTY years ago, on 26th December, 1993, I was cornered by armed-robbers on the way from Murtala Mohammed airport in Lagos. When I slammed into a lamppost trying to escape from them, I heard a “still, small voice” which said: “Femi, nothing is going to happen to you here.” Thereafter, I was shot in the leg. Nevertheless, the voice insisted: “There is nothing wrong with your leg.”

My colleague and I had to forcefully dispossess our wallets of some $64.95 to watch the fight between pound-for-pound pugilist, Floyd Mayweather and Mexican boxing icon, Canelo Alvarez on the night of September 14, 2013.