The modern nation is characterized by border crossings and intermingling, by a necessarily mobile, overt and covert copulation of beings in its domain of reality which must subvert traditional affiliations if a nation must grow.

Frequently, a certain segment of Nigerians, particularly those from the Southern flank raise the flag of progressive politics, and claim to represent the sum of all practices of progressive ideas in Nigeria. The North of Nigeria is also thus frequently cast as providing the antithesis of progressive politics, and therefore becomes the veritable face of Nigeria’s antinomy in the consciousness of the South.

T oday, I celebrate the life of a great man, Mr. James Emeziem Nworgu, Classicist and Justice of Peace. News reached me that Mr. Nworgu passed, this past week into immortality. I felt an immediate twinge of regret for I had missed one last opportunity to see him last June when I buried my own father.

The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria may now officially be said to be under hostage to a foreign power – namely Saudi Arabia- and her local collaborators – namely, those within the Nigerian presidency who have conspired to hide the person of the president, Umaru Yar Adua, to prevent a full accounting to the government and people of Nigeria.

Nigerian parents are very busy making money and thinking that that is all it takes to provide a great life for the kids. Many create cocoons of privilege that isolate their children from a larger community of peers, and they live in that bubble of a small, closed society, and become very easy targets, as I am sure the young Mutallab became, of those who give them meaning and tempt them with purpose beyond themselves.