The groundswell of comments trailing the discharge and acquittal of Al-Mustapha and Lateef Shofolahan does not seem to be letting up, as Director of Social Communications, Catholic Arch diocese of Lagos, Very Rev. Msgr. Gabriel Osu, has described the verdict as ‘an act of God.

WHEN the Court of Appeal overturned the death sentence passed on Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan, setting two of them free, the nation was gripped by shock and disbelief.

HE knows PW2, Barnabas Jabila a.k.a. Sergeant Rogers. PW2 was serving in Jaji infanty centre and school, worked with the former head of state, Brigadier General Abdulsalam Abubakar closely, and this informed his nomination, that brought him to be a member of strike force into the Presidency.

Last Friday, the Court of Appeal, Lagos quashed the death sentence which Justice Mojisola Dada of the Lagos High Court handed Major Hamza Al-Mustapha and Alhaji Lateef Shofolahan over the death of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola. The appellate court said that the court below convicted the duo at all cost despite the prosecution’s failure to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Below is the judgment as delivered by the appellate court.

KILL-AND-GO! That was the catch-phrase when the mobile police unit was first introduced in Nigeria about four decades ago. Because of the fiesty mien of the officers and men of that unit, they earned for themselves a reputation of no-nonsense.

Worse still, Nigerians were conditioned to believe that whenever the unit was deployed to quell riots, their rules of engagement differed from the civil, gentle and persuasive approach of the regular police. Indeed, people were left to go with the impression that whatever the officers and men of the unit did was not to be questioned. There was also the belief – for effect at that time – that if an officer of the mobile unit killed in the course of his duty, he would not be held accountable. And so they were named KILL-AND-GO.

HOW many maces surfaced in the Rivers State House of Assembly on Tuesday? Two or three as being alleged in some quarters? Will the judgement of a tiny minority of five overrule over that of 26? These and many more are some of the questions that have continued to agitate the minds of keen observers of political developments in the Assembly after the drama on Tuesday.

On July 7, 1998, they brought Chief Moshood Abiola home in a body bag. That was not what we expected, but that was what we got. The they was the military junta led by General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Abubakar had become head of the junta following the sudden death of his boss, General Sani Abacha, on June 7, 1998.

On Tuesday, the political quagmire in Rivers States reached the climax.
The dramatis personae in the crisis shifted the battle to the state House of Assembly where there was a free-for-all following an attempt to impeach the Speaker, Hon. Otelemaba Amachree.

THE mayhem on the floor of the House of Assembly in Rivers State last Tuesday had been brewing since April, following the shock displacement and replacement at the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Executive Council.

Hon. Samson Osagie represents Orhiomwon/Uhunmwode Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. Last Tuesday, he moved the motion which led to the House summoning the Minister of Finance, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, over the alarm she allegedly raised that the nation could be shut down by September if the National Assembly refused to pass President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2013 Budget Amendment Proposal. In this telephone interview, Osagie throws light on how the issue of constituency projects remains the bone of contention in the current face-off between the National Assembly and the Presidency.

What can be termed a testy relationship between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Senate came to the open on Tuesday when senators got provoked.

Opposition to Egypt’s military ouster of the Islamist backed government in Cairo heralds a journey to political and economic uncertainty for the country that holds the balance of power in the politics of the Arab world.

Ambivalence! That is the most common of the failings of men.When points of view clash, in equal proportion and quantum, the human mind suffers. That is why there is temptation, sin and repentance – but we can leave repentance out of this.

What an eventful and exciting week. Last week, US President Barack Obama came to Africa, the Bolivian President was ‘kidnapped’ and the most damaging revelations about the American state spying on some of her own most trusted allies was brought to the public realm. I will touch on all three of these events in this contribution.

CERTAINLY, when an American philosopher, George Santayana, noted that ‘’those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,” the ancient and modern Egyptian leaders were not his reference point. But with a recurring history of a presidency that had always ended ignominiously, the country could easily pass for the focal point of that historical quote.