The claim on Property Jonathan at the level of being on the driving seat at the centre seemingly has nothing to do with the fact that he is Izon from Bayelsa State. But because of what we have made of office-holding in Nigeria, it does have everything to do with where you come from.

Either way will without a doubt undermine the promise of credible elections that President Jonathan has given. Before we join the fray, let us look back to these schemes which we were all sold on only to discover that those who programmed them had other destinations in mind.

The Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, electronic media owners, was not a party to the suit. Other media bodies, as members of the Nigerian Press Organisation, were also not there. Those who initiated the suit in 1999 were not officers of the Nigerian Press Organisation (that is, the NPAN, the Nigerian Guild of Editors, and the Nigeria Union of Journalists) outside of Ismaila Isa Funtua, publisher of the rested Democrat who was then president of the NPAN.

I was regarded as a disappointment to many of my media colleagues when I was Minister of Information because of what they thought was a betrayal on my part. I had championed the promulgation of the Nigerian Media Council Decree of 1989 which was one of the bodies, along with the National Broadcasting Commission, recommended in the Mass Communication Policy that I midwifed.

Let’s not deceive ourselves. The kidnappers of four journalists are known.
They are not ghosts, not spirits as the radio jingle tells us.

Let’s not deceive ourselves. The kidnappers of four journalists are known.
They are not ghosts, not spirits as the radio jingle tells us. But they are spirits because every human being’s core is spirit and that is why it beats the imagination that he has lost his sense of his cosmic brief, which is to give more than to take, to serve more than to be served.

The argument was reinforced and enforced by the population of the North which they claim they can move to decide who rules Nigeria. I am beginning to hear that the South South are saying that they have the oil which they can decide who takes control of! They say you must use what you have to get what you want. So, you see, the stakes are rising

Someone told me that it is what the country did to Amodu Shuaibu, displaced Super Eagles coach, that God rewarded us for in South Africa. Was it not clear that something mysterious was happening to us? Argentina scored a goal that was queried after the event! But it led us nowhere.

I have addressed this slotting before, and I must recall that ranking here because in the creation story, it is only this earth plane we are told, we have the good, the bad and the ugly, mixing freely, living together; not anywhere else in the whole of this thickly populated creation.

It is greed that must be at the back of those who want House Speaker Dimeji Bankole removed more because he refused to via the capital vote for allowances than that he had mismanaged the House funds. It is greed that is at play when our managers of the economy want our excess crude reserve shared now rather than save it for future use or build structures that would outlive present holders of public offices.

We have done nothing to address the danger those powers have posed. Then came Professor Okon Uya. His tenure lasted a few months. Abacha did not conduct any elections before he died, but he had packaged a programme which would have had him in power with Chief Sumner Dagogo-Jack as a willing instrument. From 1999 elections, through 2003 to 2007, we have had three electoral commission chairmen – Ephraim Akpata, Abel Guaobadia and Maurice Iwu

I am not the coiner of the word ignorancy. Bishop David Oyedepo is. Yes, I have come across the word ignorance, and have met hundreds and thousands who show how ignorant they are on issues of import. Democracy is one issue of import and millions of us in this country are ignorant of it.

I knew that one day the question of political parties would be addressed, but I least expected that it would come via a route that is undemocratic- the pronouncement by legislative fiat that Two (or Five) Political Parties should emerge and bang, they appeared! In fact, the number is not the point or the issue. That the number can be decreed by a lawmaking body is.

Believe me when I tell you that I did not think of mines when I set out to comment on the increasing unacceptable targeting of journalists outside due process, and the new dimension it took at a venue where justice is to be accessed by those who complain about the absence of due process.

The issue I want to raise here is sensitive, but I want to be able to sleep well after I have said my say. I did mention last week that the passing on of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was a relief to many because all the plots, the shenanigans that were engineered in his name had to end.