THE wind of change is blowing everywhere. In Edo State, one major industry, the obituary, is currently undergoing some transformation. It is growing both in form and in content. At the beginning of each dance session, the Master of Ceremony (MC) is now required to announce that people should not place money on the celebrant’s head. Instead, people are now required to do their spraying into improvised offering bags.

IT is difficult to recall that this time last year, our nation was at major crossroads, and had a chance to sink deeper into decay and hopelessness, or rise above its limitations and challenges. So much has happened in the last one year to change the nature of our political system, that a visitor will hardly recognise the nation’s political terrain today.

I was trapped in the interface between hope and despair on New Year’s eve. I am in London, after spending the Christmas period in Dubai and watching on television outlets the horrific reportage of the tragic bombings on Christmas Day.

LIKE an evil odour, the fever of death caused by Boko haram is still grimly spreading across the country with death toll from its cowardly Christmas attack still rising…

President Goodluck Jonathan presented year 2012 budget proposals to the National Assembly barely a week before the Christmas recess! Incidentally, the 2012 budget is the first budget crafted on the foundation of the transformation agenda “which spells out the strategic direction of Jonathan’s Administration”.