AT a time of need for more continental integration, the growing immigration row between Nigeria and South Africa is needless, unless it achieves the important objective of helping both countries to understand and respect each other.

SENATE President David Bonaventure Achelenu Mark states his convictions emphatically. He can be hyperbolic sometimes, yet he means his words.

ABDOULAYE Wade, 85, once symbolised Senegal’s early efforts at democratic governance. Now he is the single biggest opposition to his country’s survival as a democracy. His failure to win the required 50 per cent of the votes in the presidential election was a protest against his third term bid after he fiddled with the constitution 15 times in his 12-year presidency.

ALMOST after 40 years of its introduction, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, is yearly going through challenges that make people question its relevance. In the past, the major issue was many NYSC members not finding places for their secondary assignments after their discharge from the orientation camps.

EULOGIES have been pouring since his departure last November 26. Everyone finally has a chance to state an impression of the man many describe as an enigma. Nigerians have been on their feet applauding a man who dared to be different.

MORE than five years after the last of the series of air crashes that claimed 380 lives, a report on the crashes has blamed “pilot error” for the accidents. It named “flight rustiness, negligence on the part of regulatory agency” among the main reasons for the incidents.

SEVERAL things are incredible about the series of armed robberies on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. None of them would justify the authorities ceding a section of the highway to marauders, who make a point, whenever they choose, of reminding the public it is their uncontested territory.

SUPPOSE Syria was Libya, would the United States have waited for the death of more than 10,000 people since January 2011, before feeble attempts to apply pressure on the Bashar al Assad regime that is slaughtering Syrians, most of them unarmed civilians?

A SENATE Committee’s rejection of the accounts of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as “illegal and unacceptable” will cost the public millions of Naira, but it is a strong point about obeying the Constitution, a matter more important than mere economics.

LAST week, I said that President Jonathan should avoid caving in to demands for a Sovereign National Conference, SNC, largely because I believe that a massive talking shop at which religious and ethnic grievances are aired will generate more heat than light and possibly lead to the complete collapse of Nigeria.