IT is possibly only in Nigerian elections that opponents and proponents of candidates proudly offer threats and counter threats as the only selling points of their candidates. We see more threats as politicians jostle for relevance, ahead of elections.

WE delight in ceremonies. We also like the headlines. The vogue is support for the abducted school girls of Chibok. Once they are released, Nigerians would relapse to the child abuse mode the country runs on full time.

SECURITY challenges in the North-East are seen as threats to the 2015 elections. Another threat to elections, beginning with the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State, is the legal squabble between the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the Fresh Democratic Party, FDP.

THIS is not about Chibok girls. It is about Nigerian students, the unceasing uncertainties of concluding studies in Nigerian public schools, the scant attention the authorities pay to education, and our endangered future.

MERIAM Yahia Ibrahim Ishaq, until recently an unknown 27-year-old pregnant Sudanese mother, is on the death row, after a court in her country convicted her of adultery and apostasy. She was sentenced to 100 lashes of the cane and death by stoning.

THE Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has again confirmed through its promotion of the Advance Automatic Finger Identification System, AAFIS, that things are wrong with its operations. INEC states that more than four million fake names have been taken out of the voters’ roll.

WITH 62.15 per cent of the popular vote, the African National Congress, ANC, extended its 20-year hold on power, amid allegations of scandals and economic malaise afflicting South Africa. It was the first election after the death of iconic Nelson Mandela last December.

THE World Economic Forum for Africa, WEFA, in Abuja, the 24th in the series, was a success, even in the gloom of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, and the further security anxieties that surrounded the event.

WHEN 13-year-old Daniel Oikhena squeezed himself into the tyre compartment of an aircraft last year, believing he would end up in America, his action sent a strong message of desperate migration, driven by frustration.

THE longer the inconclusive journey of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, began in 2000 lasts, the more the concerns about more transparent management of the oil and gas sector result in the bill. The controversies are enough reasons to pass the bill.