THE last time I checked which was about ten hours before I started writing this on the night of Thursday September 11, the news out there was that the Federal Government had decided to stick to its decision to move the resumption date of schools forward.

AT what point is it safe to declare a place and a people safe from the menace of a dangerous disease? When can a potential plague of devastating proportions be viewed as under effective control?

THESE are dangerous times for Nigeria. They are times that try a nation’s soul and it is the choice of the country’s leaders what they make of the times. The choice we make or that those who lead us make for us have grave implications for the continued existence of Nigeria as it was formerly known. I described Nigeria in the past tense, in the manner I did in the preceding statement, advisedly.

TWO phenomena are currently playing out and defining the Nigerian political space. This is the politics of defection and impeachment. Politicians are either defecting, that is changing party affiliations with the sole aim of positioning themselves, literally, for personal aggrandizement. Or they are being impeached from one position or another by erstwhile friends turned foes- also for the same selfish reasons of personal elevation.

THE outbreak of Ebola virus in parts of West Africa, including Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, has rightly sent panic around the world. From Liberia it has found its way to Nigeria and is slowly spreading among health workers and others who had had direct and indirect contact with infected persons. The fear now is that it might continue its slow but steady spread if nothing or enough is done to stem it. Such a devastating killer should not be allowed to continue unchecked, especially since the mode of transmission could be as insidious as shaking hands with an infected person.

IT’S a very difficult thing to admit but it all looks now like murderous insurgency has become a routine part of existence in many parts of Northern Nigeria. And the new face of terror is female. But more of this later. What we should not forget is that there is a clear message the insurgents want Nigerians to understand by this precipitous steep in terror attacks.

MANY months before it finally came on Sunday July 13 many celebratory events had been lined up to mark the 80th birthday ceremony of the one famously called Kongi, after one of the more memorable characters of his highly fecund imagination, Wole Soyinka.

THE Nigerian Medical Association called out its members on yet another strike about two weeks ago. The NMA is, no doubt, one of the most strike-prone associations in the country.

IN a few days time it would be three full months since nearly 300 or perhaps more girls were brazenly abducted from their school in Chibok in Borno State. In the last three months a lot of tears have been shed. Homes have been ripped apart and sorrow has overtaken the hearts of many.

WHEN a couple of months ago the PDP came up with Ayodele Fayose as its candidate for the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State, the desperation that must have motivated their choice was not lost on informed observers.

I DON’T know if it was somebody’s idea of a sick joke or an attempt to test the waters to know Nigerians’ disposition to such an idea but the reported rumour of a coup some days ago could only have come from a diseased imagination. Quite frankly it was not a report that the Nigerian press appeared to know anything about.

DORA AKUNYILI first gained national attention after she was appointed Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has many political enemies. The irony of the President’s situation is that many of his very vocal supporters are among his most ardent enemies.

THE Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, only days ago told the world, including the insurgents that have made life impossible for his Commander-in-Chief, Goodluck Jonathan, that the military now knows where the school girls abducted from Chibok about 50 days ago are being held.

NIGERIA certainly now carries a terrible boil of anguish in the form of Islamic insurgency. Red and swollen with pus from long neglect and impunity, the boil must at this point either burst and bring relief or it becomes gangrenous and grows into something more terrible.