The view is popularly held that he who has never failed has never really succeeded because, properly used, that which people look upon as failure could provide a major springboard to bigger successes.

WERE the law of comparative advantage to be fully operational, Nigeria would have benefited tremendously from an arrangement where its criminal cases would have been firmed out to Britain and America.

ONE theme that runs across the entire spectrum of public administration is that leaders should say less than necessary because power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words. Essentially, the more you speak, the more likely you are to make mistakes. And words are like the toothpaste – once you press it out of the tube, it cannot be put back. In the words of Cardinal de Retz (1613-1679), “It is even more damaging for a Minister to say foolish things than to do them”.

FROM the rural frying pan to the urban fire, the average Nigerian has been virtually an endangered specie. His life has been characterised by continuous struggle – he has to struggle even for those things that citizens of other countries take for granted and, which they get as basic rights.
If a man must struggle through school and finally graduate into unemployment; if the system is such that enables the few lucky ones who are said to be working to be owed backlogs of salaries, sometimes for upwards of 24 months; and meanwhile retirement has become a death sentence as many pensioners have perished, “waiting for the dead-man’s shoes”, as it were, then, there is something fundamentally wrong. And in our type of situation, every window of opportunity should be explored to the limits.

IT would be uncharitable to say that Nigeria has made no progress since independence. That would be wishing away all the massive expansions to our highways, airports and seaports; plus the fact that at independence, we had only a single university but we now have a multiplicity of universities and other tertiary institutions. We also built a befitting National Capital, which is now far removed from the susceptibility of enemy attacks from the sea, air and land.

ONE disturbing trend is developing in Nigeria: We are caught in the claws of over-registration, thus reducing every Nigerian to a number. He is a number on the assembly-line; on the pay-roll; on the school register; in the tax office; on the voters’ register; in the banking hall; in his political party; and, indeed, he is a number everywhere!

CORRUPTION in Nigeria today is so pervasive that our current war against it may not be capturing its total catchment portfolio. Yet, people are calling for capital punishment to address the problem. But, shall we scratch the body with the intensity of the itching, at the risk of being totally bruised?

OUR Justice System as currently structured is patently unjust and leaves much to be desired. The thought of any change here must begin with a critical examination of the relationship between society, the criminal and the victim. For now, Nigeria is one country where the victim counts for nothing. Elsewhere, people have realised that society has no justification whatsoever to keep taking from the victim without giving back to him.

IF only we knew that the entire world was watching us, we would have realised that it is too early to begin to derail the anti-graft war, which we all agreed upon a few months back.

THOU shall not steal”. As expressed in the telling chapters of the Bible, this is the eighth Commandment of God, the disobedience of which has, from early times, been visited with grave consequences as happened when King Ahab of Israel and his wife, Jezebel, caused Naboth the Jezreelite to be stoned to death so that they could take his land (I Kings 21:1-19). By God’s decree, Ahab and Jezebel were paid back in their own exact coins.