THE nation was placed on another keg of gunpowder by those who do not wish it well when the nomination of Governor Namadi Sambo as the Vice-President of Nigeria automatically occasioned the emergence of his Deputy, Mr. Patrick Yakowa, as the new Governor Kaduna State.

Nigeria is still a country where foreigners, such as Chinese, Indians, Lebanese, people of the Sahara and Sahelian region and even Ghanaians freely come and settle and carry on their economic activities without much regulation. In fact, in some parts of the country, Lebanese and other Arabs are far more welcome and are more at home than Nigerians from other parts of Nigeria.

Hardly does a week pass these days without one sad or near-tragic incident or the other being reported about our airports and aviation industry

Failing to get the Party’s ticket for the February governorship polls, Hon Ekwunife went to the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA), secured its ticket to run against the PDP and other parties, and when she failed to get elected, she returned to her seat in the House of Reps as a PDP elected member. She never resigned to contest on PPA platform, and she never re-registered in the PDP when she returned. The same thing is true of Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

THE just concluded general elections in the United Kingdom were of great interest because Britain is one of the fountain wells of liberal democracy. However, when the results showed a hung parliament, the first time it was happening since 1974, it became even more interesting.

AT about 10am on Thursday, May 6th 2010, barely thirteen hours after late President Umaru Yar’ Adua exited from this mortal plane, former Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn_in as the fourteenth President of Nigeria.

ONCE again, Nigeria ’s name has surfaced in another alleged age cheating in international sports events. This time, it was in South Africa where the Nigeria ’s female Under-17 soccer representatives, the Flamingoes, are being accused of fielding a number of over aged players.

IN April this year, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sent four of its correspondents to film about life in the Lagos slums. The group, led by Will Anderson, believed “everyone thinks of (Lagos) as a noisy, dirty, dangerous city, probably because all we ever hear about it on the news is the corruption, religious violence, and dodgy email scams.”

Finally, on Wednesday, May 5th at about 9.pm, late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua gave up the ghost after a brave, five-month battle against acute pericarditis. This brought to a close a long history of poor health which the 58 year-old president had suffered but was strong enough to bear throughout his eleven years of service as the Chief Executive of his native Katsina State and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

ON Monday, May 3rd 2010 , the world celebrated this year’s World Press Freedom Day. The Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, declared that the focus of the celebrations was the public’s right to be informed. At the Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy, a seminar was, as usual, staged to mark the day.

At last, the chaos that followed in the wake of the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) set up by the federal government under the President Olusegun Obasanjo regime is set to come to an end as the turbines for the generation of electric power, have started being evacuated to sites.

THIS year’s May Day anniversary were dominated by agitations over pay rise by organized Labour nationwide. This was unlike 2009 when the deregulation issue was on the front burner.

THE prisons and prison system in Nigeria have been in the news of recent. About a week ago, an aborted jailbreak in Kaduna led to the death of three inmates and the injury of many others.

AT a time it was not expected, the Acting President Dr, Goodluck Jonathan peremptorily punctuated Prof. Maurice Iwu’s tenure as Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

IN 1989, the then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Jibril Aminu, displeased at the virtual lack of Nigerian presence in the upstream sector of the oil industry, invited a number of wealthy Nigerians from all parts of the country to come forward and take oil prospecting licences.