George Santayana, American poet and philosopher it was who said that “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Africans in general did not start to write their own history until the bottom half of the last century.

The Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally moved, last week, to fix new dates for the myriads of pending re-run elections earlier declared inconclusive by it in two states of the Federation – Lagos and Rivers States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Nothing, however, was said about the pending re-run for Anambra Central Senatorial District.

THE increasing clashes between the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN or the Shi’ites) and other Muslim groups in the North is threatening to replace the Boko Haram terrorism which is gradually winding down, raising the possibility that the nation might simply slide from one religious conflict to another with no respite in-between.

IT is a well-documented fact that the Nigerian state does not truly care for the most vulnerable among its citizens.

From the President to paupers, every Nigerian now utters with conviction that a major road out of recession into future prosperity lies in the promotion of agriculture. Experts have repeated it so often that it has become shopworn.

We view with grave concern, the emerging scenario which suggests that some African countries are increasingly tempted to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague over allegations that the Court appears to target African and Third World leaders for sanctions while playing blind, deaf and dumb to their colleagues from the developed world who have allegedly committed similar or worse offences.

The Senate arm of the National Assembly took an important step towards checking the long-standing menace of sexual harassment, especially in higher institutions recently, when it passed the Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Institutions Bill into law.

LAST week, President Muhammadu Buhari shocked a lot of economic and financial experts by asking the National Assembly (NASS) to approve $29.96bn worth of loans to cover budgetary deficits for the years 2016 to 2018.

The current frenzy about promoting Made-In-Nigeria goods is the third attempt in living memory. It invariably occurs when we run out of petrodollars accumulated during years of oil boom in our external reserves, only to abandon it once crude oil prices start rising again.

Political parties are defining institutions in a democracy. They provide the platforms for engaging the electorate on the different perspectives of politics and governance. They serve as the channels for citizen participation in choosing those that govern them.