ON Friday, June 13, 2014, a grand reception was held for the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank Plc, Dr Alex Otti, by the umbrella body of traditional rulers in his native Ngwa land, Abia State. Alex is widely believed to be warming up to contest the Abia governorship election on the platform of the PDP come 2015.

Nyako, a retired admiral of the Nigerian Navy and mainstreamer during the military era that lasted between 1984 and 1999, had retired to his large mango farm in his native Adamawa. It was not even clear if he was a card carrying member of any political party when, in August 2006, he was conscripted by then President Olusegun Obasanjo and his long time ally, Professor Jibril Aminu, to govern the state, which had just been snatched from the control of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Since 2011 when the Boko Haram Islamic sect transformed into a terrorist gang, targeting churches, crowded places and security establishments, I have always lived in dread of the day when they might be tempted to export their demonic activities to the South. Up till now, the Islamists have restricted their activities to their core native areas in the North East, Abuja and environs as well as selected targets in the North Central.

The Commissioner of Police in Imo, Mr. Abdulmajid Ali, said on Sunday in Owerri, that six persons had been arrested in connection with two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted at the Living Faith Church (a.k.a. Winners’Chapel).

ORDINARILY, the appointment of an emir should not draw comments from me. But the emir of Kano is not just another traditional ruler. Kano is touted as the second largest population centre in Nigeria after Lagos, though official figures insist it is the most populous state