In his essay entitled “The God Who Does Not Exist”, published in Sunday Vanguard of March 31st, Pastor Femi Aribisala responded to an article I wrote several months ago in which I declared arguments for the existence of an intelligent divine creator or First Cause invalid. More pointedly, I defended my conviction that God does not exist, and cited briefly the views of some philosophers and scientists to back my claim. I would have ignored Aribisala’s opinionated response, but doing so might create the erroneous impression in the minds of readers that probably he is right or that I find his arguments (insofar as he marshalled any) so compelling that I decided, as the old idiom says, “to let the sleeping dogs lie”.

Having concluded the discourse on “The trouble with Nigerians,” it is time to pay tribute to the recently-departed icon of African literature, Prof. Chinualumogu Albert Achebe. Of course, the heading of that discourse was cloned from the title of Achebe’s pamphlet, The trouble with Nigeria, and a few of his views were used to buttress some major points made therein. Achebe was an accomplished intellectual, Africanist, humanist and teacher.

This means that the President will make more decisions that, in his own calculations and those of his ardent supporters who are benefiting from the present situation, will bolster his reelectability inspite of how Nigerians will vote in 2015. Now, if the promises President Jonathan made to Nigerians when he was campaigning for election in 2011 are compared with his actual performance, campaigning for a second term would be suspect because he has not delivered on most of those promises.

Therefore, in my opinion, the most important challenge for Jonathan is not ethnic inequality per se in the distribution of key positions, but to justify his choices on the criteria of excellence and performance in spite of ethnicity.

In his thought-provoking riposte on Nigeria entitled The Trouble with Nigeria, Prof. Chinua Achebe explained that the principal reason for the horrible state of affairs in the country has nothing to do with geography or climate or the kind of food Nigerians eat. Rather, he says, the trouble with Nigeria is the recurrent blizzard of mediocre and corrupt leadership.

Yesterday, March 16, 2013, was precisely the seventh year that Campbell Shittu Momoh, Professor of African Philosophy, University of Lagos died. To members of his immediate family and those of us he influenced positively one way or another, the psychological wound his sad exit left in our hearts is yet to heal completely. I still remember the discussion I had with him the very night he died, and his demise reminds me of the utter transitoriness of human life here on earth.

I know that the temptation to have a big bank account and other trappings of material comfort may be very difficult to resist, especially if such benefits can be had easily just by associating with people that have the necessary financial wherewithal and “right connections.” Yet the Igbo saying that ezigbo aha ka ego (good name is superior to riches) captures a powerful existential insight about life which should guide individual conduct at every level.

When one of world’s foremost storytellers, Prof. Chinua Achebe, declined for the second time a national award conferred on him this time around by the current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, most so-called eminent Nigerians failed to learn the simple but powerful lesson embedded in Achebe’s refusal to “join the bandwagon.”

When in April 19, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was crowned Pope Benedict XVI after the death of much-beloved Pope John Paul II, observant followers of events in Vatican City knew that the new pontiff had a lot on his plate. To start with, the Pope himself was well aware that he had to work extra hard to match, and if possible surpass, the achievements of his predecessor who was selected despite criticism from some disgruntled highly-placed Italian Catholics opposed to the election of a non-Italian Pope.

Most Nigerians would agree that although a few of the VIPs that address our man-made problems from time to time are sincere and genuinely concerned, others are just grandstanding to create the impression that they really do care about the country and millions of suffering compatriots.

Last week we argued, among other things, that the present ruling elite who constitute less than one percent of the Nigerian population are unwilling and incapable of moving the country from the precarious position it is at the moment to a better place in the future. Keep in mind that this group, which includes top key players in politics, the military and business, controls over ninety percent of the country’s wealth.

To give you an idea of the level of official corruption in the country, some estimates suggest that about half a trillion dollars have been stolen from the public treasury by corrupt government officials and unscrupulous business tycoons since 1960. So you can imagine the level of economic development and industrialisation the country would have attained if the money was wisely invested for the benefit of the Nigerian people.

That Nigeria is facing a huge crisis of leadership at the moment is beyond dispute. It is also beyond question that an increasing number of Nigerians are entertaining extreme (some might say weird) ideas about the best way to deal with the problem.

Of what use is free education when the quality of teaching and learning is severely compromised by poor funding and haphazard planning? Instead of free-education-in-the-ocean-of decay, Okorocha should have invested heavily in upgrading educational infrastructure and provision of better welfare packages and on-the-job training for teachers.

The New Year,2013, has finally arrived with the usual challenges, hopes and expectations that characterise such occasions. Those of us that traveled to our different villages saw firsthand clear evidence that government is on holidays, so to speak.