(ifekaokonkwo@yahoo.com) is the most vociferous reader of this column. Highly opinionated, unrepentantly blunt and almost gleefully unsychophantic, he takes his democratic and human rights very seriously indeed and flatly refuses to be as bovinely philosophical as most of us are about the multiple disappointments that the average Nigerian faces.

WHAT constitutes power and influence? The most powerful and most influential among us invariably becomes our leader or is made our leader. Information and the acquisition of which constitutes knowledge becomes the leader. Secrecy, the hoarding and guarding of knowledge, becomes the ‘sole preserve’ of the powerful. When we choose our leaders we have hand over the power we have to them. If that power is misused, we have the right to take back our power and give it to someone else. Until now, the Secrecy of the powerful and the consequent ignorance of the people have always made such processes of taking back the power from an erring leader virtually impossible.

WHEN I lived in the North (NigerState to be precise) I got to know the importance of Jama’atu Nasril Islam, (JNI).

THIS week, General Theophilus YakubuDanjuma’s 75th birthday ceremony occasioned an outpouring of generous tributes from many people and a harvest of advertisements for Nigerian newspapers.

FROM the outside, life in the legislature can be alluring. For the legislator, there is a sense of reward as an opportunity is created for him to assist his constituents and help fashion out better public policy.