IN July, President Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia died in office, triggering off an election that attracted 25 candidates. Kais Saied, an austere 61-year-old law professor, stood out from this crowd because he had no political experience, had never been in government, had an absolutely pristine reputation and was not receiving substantial funding from any domestic or overseas source.

A FRIEND of mine has a medical condition that wouldn’t be regarded as unusual, complicated or incurable in a normal country. 

SOMETIMES, other writers highlight situations so succinctly or eloquently that I don’t feel that it is necessary to add many extra words of my own.

TIMIPRE Sylva, chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, is on a huge giddying roll at the moment because his candidate and protegee, David Lyon, has just became the Governor-Elect of Bayelsa State.

IBRAHIM Magu, the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, recently bemoaned the fact (during a Lagos press conference) that mothers of cyber fraudsters, known as “Yahoo Boys”, have organised themselves into an association and go out of their way to justify their sons’ criminal activities…on the grounds that such activities generate funds that support families that may not even have a responsible or surviving father figure.