MORE than 29,000 children are dead. Another 640,000 are malnourished enough that their death is a matter of time. The death toll increases from people scrambling for food or through gunmen who want to hijack food that relief organisations are distributing or stop it from reaching the people.

COMPARISONS between Boko Haram and the militants in the Niger Delta, as the explanation for the proposed talks between government and the group in Maiduguri are inevitable, though many would refuse to see the connection.

PROFESSOR Ben Nwabueze at his 80th birthday re-stated his idea of the Nigeria he wanted since his return to the country in 1962. He had thought Nigeria after independence would be the great nation that many foretold.

SENATOR Ahmed Makarfi was governor of Kaduna State for eight years. Thereafter, he was in the Senate for four years, but the people denied him a space when he sought re-election, though his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, returned him unopposed in the primaries.

LAST February when the tiff between Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, and President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, became public, Salami had predicted, “chained reactions.” In a February 4 letter, he warned Katsina-Alu not to create a “dangerous precedent which may give rise to chained reactions.”

THE best ploys in defence are to stick to your story and more importantly blame others. President Goodluck Jonathan is applying both in his comments on the proposal to hand the president and governors a six-year tenure. There is a sweetener that will sell the proposal – the legislature will also get a modified tenure.

SIRENS can be expensive as Mrs. Endurance Odubu, wife of the Deputy Governor of Edo State has discovered. A Federal High Court in Benin City ordered her to pay N12 million as damages to Captain Olorunduyilemi Stephen, an officer with the 4th Brigade of the Nigerian Army.

EVERYTHING sounds good if we find enough words to clothe them. Words are never in short supply. The new direction of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, that claims Nigeria’s foreign policy will henceforth be investment-driven, glowing, as it seems, fails woefully to show the smallest appreciation of actions that will attract investment.

IT always starts as a joke, grows into a yoke and finally the authorities jostle with the idea until it throws the country into a frenzy. Whether with the military or civilians, speculations about tenure elongation have unfortunately become part of our national life, a major distraction that holds the country hostage until either the promoters of the ideas are tired or defeated.

FLOOD, erosion, desert encroachment are among the commonest environmental disasters that Nigeria faces. The Ecological Fund was created in 1981 to be used to intervene in these areas.

Though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand. – A verse from the national anthem used 1960-1978.

IT is obvious that our governments think governance is theatrics. The ceaseless disputations over payment of the minimum wage show a set of people who think more of their offices, their comfort than what would benefit others.

THE power of the press (media) is over-stated as the demise of the 168-year-old News of the World, one of the world’s most famous newspapers, has proven. The paper closed because it was obvious that the scandal would result in business losses.

WE can count. One of the things we number well is promises. This may have something to do with the expectations politicians who made them would soon forget. President Goodluck Jonathan may have a different intention in saying he did not have a number of items in the agenda of his administration.

THE French have vast interests in Nigeria.
The range stretches from aviation, manufacturing, trading to oil and gas. The French proposal to assist Nigeria with her internal security can be seen in the context of protecting French investments in Nigeria and the ECOWAS region, but a more profound analysis would include strengthening of French influence in the sub-region — which it currently dominates — by capturing its most prized component, Nigeria.