Well, to be honest, the only problem we are having with the forthcoming elections is the personal ambition of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. It is this single ambition that is heating up the polity because it is a violation of the PDP programme on rotation and also it’s trying to create a dichotomy of North/South divide in a way we have never experienced before.

IF you are looking for miracles, there is one that refuses to cease. If you doubt miracles, you most likely have not heard about Nigeria, a country that has defied all predictions about her, plodding on to 50 to the consternation of its tenuous tenders and certified critics who ruled it dead decades ago and continue to reel out the dreadful forecasts ever so often.

They argued that several litigations could follow the conduct of elections and these litigations are meant to be concluded before the swearing-in of the President and governors and shifting the conduct of elections could affect the handover date and so, may require constitutional amendment which could cost more time. But Chekwas Okorie, Godswill Nnaji and Bashir Tofa think otherwise.

For a start, some of the aspirants, it was learnt will send emissaries on Monday to Owerri, the Imo State Capital. Their mission: To convince the Igbo to back their aspiration.

Very careful watchers of Imo politics, after the July 16, 2010, landmark judgment of the Supreme Court, predicted that the political pendulum had finally tilted in favour of the State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim.

THE test of strength between rival groupings within the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and how it ended during the party’s last national congress at Abuja may have pointed to the direction the crisis-ridden party’s primaries would go.

The time has come for people of our generation to take a plunge and liberate Nigeria from the woods. Those who ruled us in the past and disappointed us should not be given a chance to come back because they had their chance and failed. Our generation should be given the chance to lead Nigeria and this is the change that we desire and we believe we can

When you talk about age, it is really the opposite in some of the countries where they won’t elect somebody that is below 70, and that also reflects in investing in the human capital; so, the people prefer experienced hands who can deal with people who are in their upper 60s and lower 70s and higher 70s as their leaders.

The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the Northern Union (UN) are racing against time: they have just two weeks to produce the consensus candidate for the primaries, which will hold across the nation between September 11 and October 30th.

TOMORROW, Saturday 18 September, 2011 will mark another watershed in Nigeria’s political development when Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikwe Jonathan formally declares his intention to contest for the Peoples Democratic Party presidential ticket for the 2011 general election. The declaration will lay to rest the endless speculations on the political future of the president, whose rise in politics has been by default.

IT appears there are unseen hands somewhere that are hell -bent on frustrating the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) from having its National Convention. For now the convention of the party- which is scheduled to begin today after it had been dramatically postponed twice earlier- hangs in the balance. The initial date for the convention was last July 17, but it had to be shifted to July 31 due to what the party officially called “unforeseen circumstances.

KADUNA State governor, Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa recently marked his 100 days in office. He spoke with reporters on some of the activities of his government within the period. Excerpts:

THE sleepy political activities that had enveloped Delta suddenly came alive with the inauguration of the Uduaghan
Campaign headquarters office in Asaba , last Monday. The group’s Director General, Professor G.G.Darah, a
professor of English Literature at Delta State University, (DELSU) Abraka, held court during it first expanded executive meeting.

SINCE his retirement as the Group General Manager of the Public Affairs Department of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation more than a decade ago, Chief Edem Duke has dedicated himself to making Calabar a preferred destination for tourists.

I don’t see any problem with Jonathan declaring his presidential bid on the platform of PDP; there is no cause for alarm; he has our support.