LESS than 48 hours from now, Nigerians will elect a new president. There is, understandably, both excitement and anxiety in the air. Whichever way the election goes, its outcome will be consequential.

I waited this long before weighing in on the Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano’s contrived face-off with the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Nnia Nwodo, because I thought the story was a classic case of fake news. Obiano was alleged to have called Nwodo an idiot.

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a Nigerian not to be despondent these days. Unless he does not care that the country is in dire straits.

Today is exactly 30 days to the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 16, the first in a two-legged ballot that will end with the governorship and Houses of Assembly elections on March 2.

Watching the otherwise boisterous Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, make his heartrending plea to President Muhammadu Buhari to come to the aid of his people in their insufferable predicament, I couldn’t help but also drop a tear. How are the mighty fallen!

IN his epic novel, Things Fall Apart, the late Chinua Achebe brought the essence of Igbo adages into very sharp focus. “Among the Igbo, the art of conversation is regarded very highly,” he wrote. “And proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten.”

AFTER three years and six months of showboating and the prospects of the consequential 2019 elections looming large, last week became a period of grand confessions by the high and mighty. Mr. Babatunde Fashola, the three-in-one Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, was the first to kick the ball down the road.

FOR many political gladiators, the fear of the 2018 Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, is the beginning of wisdom. That is what the intrigues and hoopla are all about. Politicians who afraid of the possible outcome of free and fair elections are on overdrive, misinforming the populace. It is a game of disinformation, subterfuge and obfuscation. Everything is being thrown into the mix all in an attempt to squelch the bill.

REV. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, the spiritual director of the Adoration Catholic Prayer Ministry, in Emene, Enugu State, is in the news again.

On Thursday, November 22, the Nigerian Election Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) announced schedules for the 2019 presidential election debates.

THE statement was loud and clear; the move audacious, even unprecedented, in a country where political correctness is the credo of the game.

As the national chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Chief Bisi Akande made a very telling comment in 2011, which grassed the mindset of the average Nigerian politician.

Seven years after Nigeria’s fratricidal war, the bucolic Obohia community in Ahiazu-Mbaise local government area, Imo State, came alive, rediscovering its soul, literally, with education as the tonic.

As he did in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is seeking re-election, has again failed to hand in his academic credentials to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as required by law.