TIME was about 10:30 pm Nigerian time and the BBC’s Hard Talk was on the screen on this dark night of December 5, 2013. I had only minutes before finished writing my original copy for the column this week.

IT’S by no means certain many Nigerians saw the bottle breaking event that took place in Kano last week as a form of the kind of intolerance the terror insurgents that have taken over many parts of Northern Nigeria are notorious for. But, however, insidious it may seem, what happened in Kano is but a variant of religious intolerance.

Nobody with some knowledge of Nigerian politics would be surprised by the outcome of the so-called election that took place in Anambra on November 16. The result of the charade which has been declared inconclusive by INEC was always going to end up as such.

It all looks and sounds so surreal that Festus Iyayi is dead, victim of yet another case of executive lawlessness. By executive lawlessness I’m not just referring to the irresponsible and rampaging conduct of Idris Wada, one of the sorry cases now functioning as state governors in a Nigeria supposedly under the rule of law.

These are political times in AnambraState and any comments critical of politicians and the parties they belong in are likely to be controversial and read from partisan standpoints. There is, however, nothing inevitable about such readings which are in fact no more than a reflection of the dismal nature of our politics.