Military governors sent to the East, including those who were Igbo military officers, often thought their assignments to the East was a continuation of the civil war by other means. Their mandates, it seemed, was not to develop the East, but to slow it down.

I WAS home to Imo State this past May to bury my father who died on May 3 at the Federal Medical Centre in Umuahia and was buried on June 6, 2009 in his home at Mbaise. Just as an aside, I wish to thank all those who through their messages, gifts, prayers and presence supported and stood by my family throughout the period of the funeral rites.

I should concede upfront that I have personally not read this bill and cannot talk with facility or insight about its content and form, and thus particularly, its implication in the evolution of the oil industry in Nigeria.

The police alert was quite significant given that the theft of that material marked two possible scenarios: the vulnerability of Nigeria with the increase of insecurity in that region, and secondly, the fact that the loss of this material which could in fact be weaponized happened without a trace.

“The truth is” said Onyefuru, “I was his only troop!” in response to my question about the failures of troop mobilization that night. “I returned with him to the Ikeja barracks that morning. We had walked across the front of Colonel Njoku’s home.