For the third time in as many years the national Independence Day celebrations usually marked with pomp and ceremony were held in the relatively safe confines of Aso Rock Villa. Eagles Square, venue of the event in Abuja since the movement to the Federal Capital, is now a no-go area for such matters even though the states still manage to hold relatively public celebrations at parade grounds and parks.

By March next year it would have been two years since the Inspector General, M.D. Abubakar first unveiled the new camouflage uniform of the Nigeria police to the public.

Even though it was tucked away in the middle of other highlights in the online edition of the Vanguard of August 19, the headline seemed sensational enough to draw attention.

It’s been many weeks in speculation that President Goodluck Jonathan intended to effect a change in the roll call of his ministers. During these weeks of speculation every other meeting of the ministers with the President presented the press another opportunity to speculate on which of the ministers would not make it back into the President’s cabinet.

The house of cards that is the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, seems to have finally fallen apart. From the beginning, the PDP like the typical Nigerian party was a marriage of convenience among persons and groups united by no greater purpose than the desire to share in the Nigerian national cake that everyone is loathe to bake.

THERE are very practical but undesirable consequences to the terrible situation in our universities. The wrong people, staff and students, find their way into our universities, the very space in which we expect to train and provide leadership for the country’s quest for scientific and cultural rebirth and development.

GENERAL T. Y. Danjuma’s observation that there is yet to be a government in Nigeria that the people can defend is the thesis addressed in that Presidential Address.

WHEN I wrote those series I had no idea that two months down the line ASUU would embark on a paralysing strike that would do serious violence to the academic calendar. One doesn’t need to be prophetic, Godspower Oyewole-style, to see our public universities are headed for the rocks.

NGOZI Okonjo-Iweala has two designations. She is Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy. Without intending to be perverse, I wonder what the differences are between both titles. What would a Finance Minister of a country such as ours be doing if she is not responsible (call it coordinating, managing, overseeing or whatever) for the entire economy?

SO Chief Tony Anenih, the BoT chair of the PDP, marked his eightieth birthday last week and provided President Goodluck Jonathan an opportunity he must have been craving to send some verbal missiles at those Nigerians he thought haven’t been particularly friendly to him and his administration.

THERE are yet no accurately verifiable figures on the number of casualties from last week’s terror attack by Islamic terrorists in Sabon Gari area of Kano.

YOU only get to see one even if there are many more living out of public glare in semi-retirement. We are talking here of executive wives, women married to men of means and ways- inflated balloons turned power houses by virtue of straying into the corridors of power either by the imposition of powerful brigands misnamed godfathers or rigged elections.

EVIDENTLY President Goodluck Jonathan, as the Yoruba proverb goes, has eating his fill of his food and is now actively looking for what will deflate his round belly.

THE Eastern Cape Province is the birth place of Nelson Mandela, the 94 years old ailing father of South Africa’s multi-racial society. It is the natal home of the Xhosa and arrival point of the 1820 settlers.

ONE wouldn’t know if the Jonathan administration has made any official pronouncement on the matter but the issue seems serious enough to warrant a response from senior members of the Obama administration.