“I want to use this opportunity to say that we have heard in the news that Mr. President will be visiting Maiduguri in a couple of days. We want to use this opportunity to call on the government, especially Mr. President, to see how he can declare total amnesty to all combatants without thinking twice.

Even a fool, in Nigeria,now knows that the last thing anyone should believe is anything announced by the Federal Government of Nigeria, its Ministers, agencies and especially the President’s Special Advisers on Media and Publicity. When Abati or Okupe appear on television, people switch to other channels.

“The only battle that counts is the last battle”. Richard Neustadt, in POWER AND PRESIDENTS.
Nigerians, of course, deserve President Jonathan; you voted for him overwhelmingly. Even Obasanjo, who, last week, was at his hypocritical best, when delivering a lecture, in which he decried Nigeria’s lack of good leadership, should accept most of the blame for GEJ.

I wish I had been there as a fly on the wall at the time of Jesus. You had to be there to understand the excitement; the pandemonium Jesus caused among the pastors, bishops and popes of the day. You can cause no greater excitement than by doing the impossible. That is precisely what Jesus did.

I know that the temptation to have a big bank account and other trappings of material comfort may be very difficult to resist, especially if such benefits can be had easily just by associating with people that have the necessary financial wherewithal and “right connections.” Yet the Igbo saying that ezigbo aha ka ego (good name is superior to riches) captures a powerful existential insight about life which should guide individual conduct at every level.