LIKE an evil odour, the fever of death caused by Boko haram is still grimly spreading across the country with death toll from its cowardly Christmas attack still rising…

FOR the very first time since his political career assumed national dimension, Goodluck Jonathan is showing he could be a determined person if the need arose. For quite a long while, the President has shown himself as someone ready to capitulate before any determined opposition.

A LOT of heat with little or no light has been generated by the gay rights bill before the National Assembly. The general impression if one is to go by media reports is that most Nigerians are against same sex relations to say nothing of same sex marriage.

I AM not a frequent visitor to Abuja and on the few occasions I’ve been to our capital city since General Ibrahim Babangida hurriedly jumpstarted the transfer of Nigeria’s administrative capital from Lagos following the June 12 troubles of the mid 1990s, memories of my visit have always been dim.

THE last couple of weeks have been period of obituaries in Nigeria. Two prominent Nigerians who had in their different ways transformed the political and professional landscape of the country passed on.

ALTHOUGH much like an overdue prophesy but when it finally came, the ouster of Farida Waziri still happened rather suddenly.

TALKING Point this week features a piece which, I hope, would present a welcome diversion from the often-depressing focus on Boko Haram and other aggravating excesses of our politicians. It is from one of the more devoted followers of the column and it throws light on an important aspect of the financial sector.

AT this stage even the most starry-eyed Nigerian must admit that the Nigerian state represented by the government of President Goodluck Jonathan is at the point of capitulating before the terror tactics of the fringe Boko-Haram group.

AS is the custom in parts of Nigeria where the book on a deceased person is not considered closed until what is called the ‘final’ or ‘second’ burial is done, victory at an election is not complete until it has been declared at the relevant election petition tribunal.

THE kwata between former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, and the Code of Conduct Bureau appears to be taking a messy turn with the reported snubbing of the VP, Namadi Sambo, who had been on official visit to Osun by Rauf Aregbesola over the PDP’s alleged failure to allow Tinubu’s supporters into the venue of his trial last week. It’s a big fight the ACN insists the PDP is stage-managing for purely political reasons.

IT’S all ending not with the promised bang but a whimper. After 42 years of what started as a patriotic attempt to return power to the people of Libya from the ruling monarchy of King Mohammed Idris, Muhammar Gaddafi, the one who bore the rank of a colonel but exercised powers beyond those of a Field Marshall was chased away with a $1.4 million prize placed on his head- dead or alive.

IT’S all ending not with the promised bang but a whimper. After 42 years of what started as a patriotic attempt to return power to the people of Libya from the ruling monarchy of King Mohammed Idris, Muhammar Gaddafi, the one who bore the rank of a colonel but exercised powers beyond those of a Field Marshall was chased away with a $1.4 million prize placed on his head- dead or alive.

IT’S been five months, May to October, since baton changed hands among elected Nigerian leaders; for one group of their ‘excellencies’ to vacate office for another. And that’s how long it’s taken the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to ‘perfect’ its case against some past governors suspected to have abused their positions while in office.

WHILE writing on the UK riots last August, I had, here, traced some of the impulses that gave rise to the riots to certain economic and social inequities within the British society. I did not stop at that. I had extended my reading of the developments in the British society with regard to the riots to what I saw as related developments in other parts of Europe and America.

THE last few years have been transformative for Nigerian banks. Beginning from the period under Charles Soludo to the last three years when Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has practically gripped the banking sector by the neck and shaken it out of slumber, Nigerian banks have not remained the same.