PALPABLE frenzy gripped the nation’s media last week. Among the country’s newspapers it all looked like a competition, a race to be the first to report that the country had slipped into recession. The front pages of these newspapers reported the news with muted glee it seemed. We had finally made a remarkable achievement, maybe a dubious one.

Nigeria’s journey from fraternal hostility to national integration was on course (at least with no major or visible bumps) for nearly a quarter of a century after the civil war ended. But from the mid- 1990s onward the country entered a new and sustained phase of ethnic tension following a long period of military rule led by Nigerians from the North of the country.

Now the Rio Olympics is over it may be time to take stock of Nigeria’s participation at the games. After what were clearly shoddy preparations or in fact non-preparation for the games, the result of our participation is now out for all to see. A bronze medal in football couldn’t possibly be all we spent the last four years preceding the games preparing for. It was clear that nothing good could or would come out of Rio for Nigeria in the light of how we programmed ourselves to fail.

There are actually very concrete ways to measure the increasing cost of living in Nigeria which in turn explains why Nigerians are increasingly disenchanted with the Muhammadu Buhari administration. A simple way to go about this is to measure how the cost of common household goods and foodstuffs have either tripled or quadrupled in the last six months or thereabout.

The 2016 Rio Olympic Games took off to a slow start last week, precisely August 5. I didn’t watch the opening ceremony although I had looked forward to it. There was less to see by way of recorded broadcast of the opening activities even after the events.