THE unitarist mind that is brought to the operationalisation of Nigeria’s federal structure is the reason why there would continue to be disagreement between the constituent states and whoever are the centrists running the “federal” government of Nigeria at any point in time.

HAPPY New Year Nigeria! It is my hope and prayer that this year will be the best we have so far known under the Muhammadu Buhari regime.

ONE of the immediate gains of the pro-democracy fight against military rule was the shift of power from the north to the south. At the time Olusegun Obasanjo was inaugurated as an elected president in 1999, the country had been under northern leadership for about thirty-five years!

AISHA Buhari, wife of the president, aka Nigeria’s First Lady, has always been in the news. The only difference now is that since she returned from her last extended vacation in the United Kingdom, she has dominated the news more than has been customary with her predecessors as first ladies.

THAT a grievous act, bordering on the criminal, was committed by the Department of State Services, DSS, when it invaded a courtroom of the Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, is now beyond contention.

EARLIER this year, Aisha Buhari, Wife of the President or First Lady as she now wants to be known, revealed that she was planning to set up a university in the name of her husband, Muhammadu Buhari. Even though the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, thought of Aisha’s plan as some kind of joke, the woman seemed in earnest.

SPECULATIONS are increasing that President Muhammadu Buhari might be interested in running for a third term as president. Femi Falana, the human rights campaigner and lawyer, may not be the lone voice in the wilderness calling attention to this.

THE much-anticipated governorship elections of Kogi and Bayelsa states have been won and lost. It has now been three days since both states were called for the governing All Progressives Congress. Their candidates were declared winners in the charade that played out as an election before local and international observers.

AT his last appearance at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Abdulrasheed Maina, former chair of the Pension Reform Task Team, PRTT, was in a wheelchair.

NIGERIA’s Niger-Delta has had a long history of struggle, being one region populated by some of the so-called minority ethnic groups in the country. It has always been a struggle for self-recognition from the larger ethnic groups either individually or as a collective.