NIGERIA’S foremost airport, the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, in Lagos has been in the news of late for a reason that leaves you wondering when we would start getting things right in this country. By the way, the airport is often in the news- usually for not very edifying reasons.

NIGERIA was again in the news last week for the wrong reasons following the murder of two hostages, Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara who had been held by Boko Haram for nearly a year.

THERE might have been other reasons but one important if not the VERY reason for the British amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria, was the need to make the South support the North which the colonialists thought was not economically viable.

IN the last two years or thereabout during which the Action Congress of Nigeria succeeded in chasing the Peoples Democratic Party out of most parts of the South-West, talks of integrating the economy and politics of the region have assumed an upward swing.

THE head of Nigeria’s Central Bank, the equivalent of the US’s Federal Reserve or the UK’s Bank of England is designated, governor. Despite his immense powers over the country’s financial sector, the Governor of the Central Bank is perhaps the only Nigerian official called governor but whose responsibilities are limited to the financial sector.

SENEGALESE President, Abdoulaye Wade, is an old man by any standard. You only need to look at him to know. While according to official records he was born in 1926, street lore has it that he might be much older given poor record keeping in those days. Which means the president might be entirely blameless in the mix-up in his age.

IN the last two weeks or thereabout I have been compelled to address a matter that I’m sure columnists and others who frequently write have to face: the question of what subject to write on. In the early hours of Wednesday 25th of January, I had woken up to see the live broadcast of President Barack Obama’s third State of the Union address.

THE job of appointing public officers in Nigeria is by no means an easy task. More often than not what comes into consideration are factors other than merit. A situation Goodluck Jonathan might have found himself in the man he finally settled upon to replace Afiz Ringim as the Inspector General of Police.

THESE are desperate times for the Jonathan Administration and the government might do worse than seeking desperate solutions. Although the streets might be free of protesting Nigerians, the smoke from the bonfires made by them to register their opposition to the careless increase in the pump price of petrol is nowhere near being cleared.

DID President Jonathan play Nero last week, fiddled while Rome burned? Was he at anytime in South Africa to celebrate the centenary of the African National Congress when Nigeria was held in the throes of a paralysing strike to restore oil subsidy?