BEFORE I discuss Happy New Year from President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) let me start this write-up from the appropriate beginning by wishing you Happy New Year 2012, late as it may seem. My people say whenever a man wakes up is his morning. Mine comes without pains.

IN a way, Professor Chinua Achebe was right. When he was offered the Commander of the Federal Republic, CFR, national honour for the year 2011 by the President Goodluck Jonathan regime he turned it down on the ground that the problems that prompted his rejection of same offer in 2004 still exist in the country.

NIGERIA is a country ruled by mindless, myopic and opportunistic selfish pursuits by individuals and groups. Few are willing to stand up for the truth and justice irrespective of the cost. One of such few was His Excellency, Lt Col Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, the late first Military Governor of Western Region, who opted to pay the supreme price rather than betray his visiting boss, General Aguiyi-Ironsi, who was in Ibadan as part of his nationwide “pacification” tour.

We knew the day would come. It would have happened this time last year when he was hit by a catatonic stroke. But, just like the great warrior that he was, he fought death for another year and bowed as all mortals eventually must.

I KNEW Alhaji Modu Sheriff was not fit for exalted public office when I watched him acting up in December 2006. The event was the flag-off of the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, presidential campaign at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu. The former Borno State Governor was very central in the campaign activities.

IT was a throwback to the Olusegun Obasanjo days as President of Nigeria and “life leader” of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. That was when the strategy of working a political process to suit the declared fancies of the leader or few oligarchs of the party was perfected.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan seems dead serious about reforming our body politic. Less than six months after he was sworn in as elected president, he has made a second attempt to show this.

PROFESSOR Chinua Achebe was not the first prominent Nigerian (nor the only one) to reject the now controversial National Honours.

THE latest gruesome harvest by the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, had the exact outlines of the opening gambit deployed by Front de Liberation Nationale, FNL, to snatch independence from colonial powers, France . Just as in our case where Friday, November 4, 2011 was chosen by our local terrorists, the FNL opted for November 1, 1954 , a day usually set aside by the French colonial establishment to celebrate their All Saints Day.

HAVING spoken my mind on the award of the highest National Honour ever bestowed on a non-governmental functionary (Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, GCON) to Nigeria’s richest man and industrialist, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, I offer the reading public a chance to say theirs today.