“In every mess I find a friend’, Charles Dibdin, 1745-1814.Sometimes being prophetic and turning out to be right can cause as much anguish as being wrong – when catastrophe results. About five weeks ago, I wrote in an article titled” PRESIDENT JONATHAN: AMAECHI SHOULD NOT DIE, that given Governor Amaechi’s open feud with Jonathan and the alarm that somebody wants him (Amaechi) dead, then it is the President’s duty to ensure the governor does not die. The fingers of suspicion will point in one direction.

Notice was given earlier in the week that President Goodluck Jonathan would soon announce his interest in contesting the presidential ticket in 2015.

And so Major Hamza Al-Mustapha went home last week to a tumultuous welcome after 14 years of incarceration. His daughter who was five years old when he was locked up is now 19. That special father/daughter relationship that is usually forged in teenage years might be lost for ever.

A time will come when this too will become an entertaining anecdote round the dinner table and we’ll be like tee hee hee hee…. Remember when then mace was the political weapon of choice…hee hee…’.but for now, our very own theatre of the absurd moves on and is playing out to a packed house in the Garden City.

In order to present a simple analysis, the past will reflect only the period after Independence which was won on a ‘platter of gold‘ in 1960, covering the Civil War (1967 – 1970) and the end of the military rule in 1999 when democracy returned from captivity.