Soft-spoken and amiable, Ekwueme did not cut the picture of a political firebrand. But he never failed to seize the political limelight whenever he ascended the political stage. Like a bolt from the blue, he emerged as the country’s first Vice-President, having been elected to that position along with President Shehu Aliyu Shagari in 1979 on the platform of the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN.

THE Nigeria Football Federation, NFF, President, Mr. Amaju Pinnick, recently showed what it means to be one’s brother’s keeper. Unlike others, he chose to be more than a mere sympathiser in the pathetic situation of Nigeria’s international football star, Wilson Oruma.

THE appropriateness or otherwise of the age-old “culture” of meting out corporal punishment such as flogging of erring students in schools by teachers or senior students has been the subject of debates for ages.

Obasanjo, who enrolled in the university with Matriculation Number 146058901, successfully defended his thesis entitled: Resolving the Unfinished Agenda in Liberation Theology: Leadership, Poverty and Underdevelopment in North Eastern Nigeria. He was praised by Dr Samaila Mande, the Dean of Postgraduate School of NOUN, for being a pace-setter in the course which he manages.

To say that this and other gestures of empathy and goodwill by the EU and other humanitarian bodies are welcome is putting it mildly. It is a huge relief, especially for a state whose government has bravely but with determination carried the grim burden of the carnage while spending much of its lean resources in caring for the displaced persons and rebuilding devastated communities.