From the Maitatsine riots of 1981 to the Boko Haram insurgency mostly in the North-East, the Igbo have been, disproportionately when compared with Nigerians from other ethnic groups, the greatest victims of wanton acts of destruction by their Northern compatriots for no good reason.

When one of Africa’s foremost storytellers, late Prof. Chinua Achebe, published his account of the civil war entitled There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra three years ago, agitation for the actualisation of a sovereign state of Biafra was in a state of suspended animation.

The on-going protests in the South-East requires creative handling by the federal government, governors of states that comprise the zone and Igbo leaders of thought to avoid unnecessary escalation of the situation. But the arrogant, insensitive, and threatening comments by a few military officers and cowardly hasty condemnation by some prominent Ndigbo are disingenuous, because both sides are trivialising the key issues of marginalisation, exclusion and alienation raised by the Biafran agitators, which lie at the heart of the troublesome unresolved “national question”.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly, the Judiciary, the Army, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, the Nigerian Communications Commission, the EFCC and several critical agencies of the federal government, are in the hands of Northerners also. Certainly, the President cannot dictate the leadership of the federal legislature and the judiciary.

The gullible average Nigerian conflates ‘change’ with ‘progress’ or ‘positive transformation,’ without realising that the objective processes which lead to change are dependent on the blending of several variables and that positive or progressive change is quite different from mere change. Ordinarily, change in itself is an inherent feature of reality at all levels of being. But progressive change, which is value-impregnated, is utilitarian and consequentialist in character, since it signposts a transition from one state of being to another judged to be beneficial for a certain purpose determined by an individual or group. Hence, there are different ways of perceiving and interpreting change, which means that any interpretation of change is an invitation for deliberation and possible disagreement.

In about three weeks from now, precisely on November 29, 2015, it would be six months since Muhammadu Buhari, flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last presidential election, assumed office as President. The fundamental slogan or catch phrase of his party during the electioneering campaigns was “change.”

Mr. Baruwa and especially the girl he allegedly raped deserve to be pitied because they might be, in different ways, victims of warped psychology and epistemology of sex from childhood which tend to obstruct cultivation of healthy sexual relationships between man and woman devoid of the mumbo-jumbo of religious superstition. Thus, there should be a paradigm-shift away from narrow-minded and obscurantist attitude towards sex to a more open, rational-scientific understanding of sexuality.

Mr. Baruwa, according to those who have met him personally, looks cool and calm, someone who cannot hurt a fly, not to talk of raping someone – if, indeed, he actually committed the crime. Of course, appearance can be deceptive; a wolf sometimes camouflages its true colour with sheep’s clothing. Interestingly, Baruwa is not a stranger to the family of the girl he allegedly raped: in fact, there is information that he brought her to campus that day from Iyana Ipaja.

As I argued last week, case against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, is an elaborate charade to hoodwink Nigerians into believing that the so-called war against corruption is no respecter of persons and party affiliation whereas the skewed system that breeds corruption is left relatively intact and untouched, it means that the more things change in Nigeria under APC, the more they will remain the same. But what is the skewed system that incubates and nourishes corruption in our country? The answer is: the mixed-up unitarist-federalist 1999 constitution imposed on Nigerians by the military regime of retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar.

Some of the acts of misconduct and corruption levelled against Saraki took place in 2003 when he was governor of Kwara state. Therefore, if it is proper to deal with a case of alleged corruption that occurred over twelve years ago, why should “time constraints” deter a leader keen on change and eradication of authority stealing from investigating corruption perpetrated between 1985 and 2009?