There is no innocent literary prize just as no writing is innocent and free of value. Every piece of writing is a political act, and every prize made to a writer is an act of validation and an expression of a given value – the specific and subjective value of the awarding institution. It has very little universal meaning.

This past week, a group from the South-South political zone of Nigeria made public its endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan for re-election in 2015. It is all in the larger scheme of things of course, but not unexpectedly, various reactions, some subtle, some more blatant, have accompanied the endorsement from this group purporting to be speaking for the South-South.

Last week I drew attention to this question of the loss of mission and the diminution of the enterprise of the Nigerian university. I pointed to the dire implications of “privatized” universities and university education, particularly in inadequate environments and limited structures, factors which lead to the production of ill-equipped, half-educated, and in fact dysfunctional university graduates.

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail last week, and his question in his mail was both amusing and troubling. He asked me to confirm that “our children in America are planning to build a university in our village.” Of course, “our children in America” are planning no such thing.

Unease continues to trail the Jonathan administration’s decision to cede the control of Nigeria’s strategic waterways to Global West Vessel Specialist Agency, a private company owned by Government Ekpemukpolo, known more generally as Tompolo.

The House Committee Chair on the Capital Market – and I do not know if this is not a duplication of functions that should normally be under the Financial Services committee or if it’s a sub-committee under the general rule, but nonetheless – Herman Iorwase Hembe, is looking to be L’Homme fatale and nothing more, in the drama playing out at the chambers of the House this past week.

It’s been long in the making, but it does seem finally that the future has arrived for oil. Crude oil as the world’s most important source of energy is on the decline. Last Wednesday, the US president, Barack Obama, declared oil so last century that it’s future as a source of energy is now a matter of time ticking: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

Niger State governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu unleashed the bag of storms in his statements recently calling for a more equitable or balanced revenue formula. In his assertion, there is great injustice in the current revenue structure and sharing formula in Nigeria.

Two weeks ago, the political leaders of the South-West and the South-South geo-political zones met with the president and demanded even more emphatically for the conveying of the Sovereign National Conference. It does seem that the president allied himself with that call. And that is a good thing.

Boko Haram issued an ultimatum to all Christians and Southerners to leave the North or face attack and death. This threat came with a backdrop already dimmed with blood.

The great masquerade begins his final journey homeward towards the now open door of the rising sun. This is what it looks like from this past week, as Nigerians – particularly the Igbo commence the final funeral ceremonies across the globe, wherever they are to be found, in honour of their great war leader, General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

The United States of America gets it most of the time. As a federal state, it has developed a highly organized and systematic administrative federalism that permits it to function like a smooth, well-oiled machine. I have always said that Nigeria could learn and incorporate some of the finest attributes of the US system, while of course learning from its equally deep flaws, and thus not re-invent the wheel either way.

A great and impenetrable pall has fallen of Nigeria. It is the pall of violence and division. Nigerians have known for a long time that its soul is broken into many disparate fragments; as many in fact as the number of ethnicities in this country.

The president flew out to South Africa just as the streets became hot last week and not before he dropped a bombshell. In a church service at Abuja, Dr. Jonathan had declared that his cabinet, Nigeria’s National Assembly, the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Nigerian Intelligence Services have all been infiltrated by the terrorist group, the Boko Haram.

The Jonathan administration truly gave Nigerians a left-handed gift for the New Year. Still reeling from the Christmas day bombing, Nigerians were hardly prepared for the surreptitious and final withdrawal of the so-called oil subsidy.