THAT the country is in recession and the economic crisis in which we’ve found ourselves is biting hard is now old news. Yes, we are in recession and Nigerians are presently preoccupied with finding solutions to our economic troubles.

THE best period to know an individual’s true character is in times of crisis. Anybody can lay claim to being anything when all is well but when the tide turns only then is true character reflected. It is for this reason I wonder what it would be like to conduct a patriotism test on Nigerians in this time of economic crisis, the worst in about three decades.

SOMETHING doesn’t look right about the decision to postpone the Edo State governorship election slated for last week. This is regardless of whatever reason or reasons informed the decision for the postponement by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. But even on this there is nothing to fix the decision on. Conflicting reasons have been adduced for the postponement and the fact that no consensus can be reached on this apparently simple matter only raises suspicion about INEC’s motive for tinkering with the electoral calendar.

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.