THE Igbonla kidnap saga came to a rather abrupt end on Friday July 28 after the abducted school boys were released at a creek in Ondo State. The six boys spent 64 days in captivity. The travail of the school boys, all of Lagos State Model College, Igbonla in Epe, began on 25th May, 2017 after ten of them were abducted right in the premises of their school by criminals who would now like to be seen as belonging among militants of the Niger-Delta.

THIS week’s column should be seen as one piece with last week’s talking point entitled, ‘Some thoughts for the Nigerian child’. In other words, today’s discussion is, for me, a continuation of last week’s discourse which aimed to take a stand for the younger elements of our society, especially school-age children and the trained youth without much prospect in a Nigeria that is programmed against them.

But for now very little is being done to secure the future of the young or give them a sense that they have any stake in the society we deceive ourselves belongs to all of us

Given its status as Nigeria’s major and most metropolitan state, Lagos deserves special consideration

What type of example of probity or transparency does this government pretend to when it engages in this kind of profligacy?

The point is that championing ethnic calls in the name of fighting for self-determination has, like kidnapping for ransom and armed robbery, become a very lucrative shortcut to wealth

There is an increasing culture of celebrating corruption in the country. Everyone, especially the country’s leaders, is out looking for how best they can be corruptly served by the system

We should be able to freely express our inner thoughts and deep feelings without fear of attack physical or otherwise from those who do not agree with us

Were Igbo intellectuals and people of acumen not part of the Obasanjo administration? What did this do for the Igbo as a people?

Trump thought the burden of Euro-American relations weighed too heavily against America