On a cool Friday evening, a few days after President Goodluck Jonathan had unilaterally proposed a name-change for the University of Lagos, I went to the Senior Staff Club to relax a little after spending over six hours working on a research paper I was writing.

Last week, Sam Momoh a reader of the “orbit,” posed a number of questions to me in reaction to my column. The most poignant of his four posers speaks directly to the rest, and in summary, to the so-called “national question.” Sam Momoh asked, “Which other country in the world has been created by a colonial authority that contains more than 200 nations having their own languages and cultures?” I think I owe him some answers as a foreground to my thoughts today.

Permit me, if you would, to start with the words of late Segun Olusola: “It is unfortunate that many people have missed opportunities to make peace.

Nothing has of recent given Nigerians more anxiety than the unprecedented high level of insecurity in the nation. Any one who watched the 2012 ministerial platform where the Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade (rtd), reeled out incredibly high figures of such crimes as robbery and kidnapping adding that 766 firearms and 31,175 ammunitions were recovered from suspects in year 2011 must have become apprehensive especially with the spate of bombings in parts of the country.

“Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed”. I.F Stone. US Journalist, 1929. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS p 80).