THE Fiscal Responsibility Act, FRA, a 2007 law that expects prudent management of public finances from governments and their agencies is observed mostly in breach as cases of outright malfeasance show.

SOME say that not everything that is counted that counts, but the it may be important to count how Governor Isa Yuguda has tempered his stand on the 10 members of the National Youth Service Corps killed in election-related crisis in Bauchi State.

CHANGE, no matter its dimensions, can fundamentally alter the way we do things. We believe that change is on its way to the National Assembly, which has undergone its most profound makeover, in composition in the past 12 years.

AFTER the swearing in of the President and Governors, attention has shifted to the legislature, especially the National Assembly, which will be inaugurated next week. Shortly after, the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives will be decided.

IS it possible government has decided to allow Nigerians to live with the bombs that have been flying in different parts of the country since last year? There are reasons to be worried about the attitude of government to the insecurity that have been pinned to the elections.

ENTHUSIASM that the media will have more access to information with the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill remains muted. Silence has greeted the bill from the President. Expectations of a passage of the bill “soon” have withered.

THE events of the last fortnight, precisely of April 16, 2011 cannot pass unrecorded for history and posterity. I am one of those who will not take the risk of allowing that day to pass like any other day because it is not. I will thus proceed to put the Goodluck Jonathan victory in the presidential polls of April 16, 2011 in its proper perspective and in its proper historical context.

AS the children march today to mark Children’s Day, more profound matters are being settled all over the country. Governments are being formed; politicians are doing their best to remain the circle that decides others’ future.

Time is what keeps everything from happening at once — Ray Cummings, Science fiction writer, 1922.

DAYS to his being sworn in we think President Goodluck Jonathan should remember the stirring speech he made last September while declaring his intention to run for office. In his speech, he cut the image of the President for the poor, or what others may call the peoples’ President.

WITH weeks to the end of the life of this National Assembly, there are no apologies to Nigerians about how men and women elected to make laws for the good of the people dedicated themselves to self-serving causes.

OUR children are assuming less importance daily. We are not ashamed to lament the growing poverty among children – apparently forgetting that poor parents will raise poorer children.

UGANDAN President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has won another six-year term to add to the 24 years he has been the country’s maximum ruler. Rioters are resisting him, but he lives above reality, boasting of new laws that will chain the opposition and deny bails to rioters. He claims he will not be forced out of office.

DR. Magnus Kpakol, Senior Special Assistant to the President and National Coordinator of National Poverty Eradication Programme, NAPEP, says 80 million Nigerians live below the poverty line.

CEMENT has been expensive for more than three years. The recent interests in the cost of cement is just the same type of fleeting attention that enduring challenges receive from our leaders. Distributors, bad roads, high cost of electricity, taxes, multiple levies, insufficient supply, and panic buying are the combined causes of persistent high price of cement.