Imagine dropping your children off to school in the morning, and watch them jump off the car, with their school bags strapped behind them. They wave you goodbye as they run along with their friends.

FOR 11 months in 2012, no fewer than 1,100 fire cases were recorded in Lagos state giving an average of 100 cases per month.

LAGOS State Governor, Mr.Babatunde Raji Fashola, has complained to the Federal Government about the worsening condition of the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, a major highway that links the nation’s busiest sea ports to other parts of the country. In separate letters to President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice President Nemadi Sambo, the Governor also drew attention to the horrific traffic congestion on the expressway and the need to take urgent steps to fix the ever-busy road.

After electricity and security, a major challenge on which many Nigerians have reached consensus is the need to fix our roads that are absolutely in utter state of neglect, disrepair, decay and rot. Nigerian roads have been described as “slaughter slabs” because of the incessant automobile accidents recorded in which thousands of people lost their lives yearly.

The new year is a time to reflect on the changes we want or need to make in our lives. CHARLES ADINGUPU writes on the many challenges that confront Nigerians while engaging in this near futile ritual in a society in transition.

HOWEVER, the state government, which expressed concern over the plight of the victims given the colossal loss incurred during the flooding, reiterated its commitment to ensuring their quick resettlement. The government, however, ruled out monetary compensation to the victims, saying it was more concerned about how they would start life all over again, especially those who lost farmlands, properties, livestock and other means of livelihood.

FOR a year that nearly did not start, 2012 had its high moments, like Nigerians waking up on January 1, only for their ululations of “Happy New Year” to be abbreviated on learning they might have to sell some of their kids if they wanted to fuel. If you think it was a joke, ask those who pawned their wards to raise the return fares from their villages to the cities after new fuel prices threw budgets – except governments’ – out of control. The more enthralling details of the year follow in order of their irreverent peripherals to the lives of Nigerians who learnt the important lesson that with government, almost anything is possible.

This is the untold story of the hardship faced by the abandoned families of the Hercules C-130 Crash of 1992 (some 20 years ago). Though they were promised quite a lot, most of the widows are still languishing in despair as the Federal Government their husbands served has abandoned them to their fate.

India is on fire and the anger on the streets is boiling over as protesters defy ban on demonstrations, water cannons and tear gas attacks from the Police, to register their disapproval of the gang-rape of a medical student last week in New Delhi, on a moving.

WITH the announcement by the Ministry of Finance two weeks ago of N22.6 billion bailout package for 84 stockbrokers that got involved in margin trading, some stakeholders who clamoured for the injection of funds into the capital market are already rolling out their drums to celebrate. However, some believe that the bailout may have been misapplied, and may not actually provide the reprieve as anticipated in some quarters, NKIRUKA NNOROM writes.

He was a Squadron Leader, SL, in the Nigerian Air Force.That fateful Saturday afternoon of September 26, 1992, he had driven in the company of his junior brother, from the Air Force Base, Ikeja, to the Military/VIP Wing of the local airport.
There, a Hercules C-130 air plane was waiting for its human cargo.

Last Thursday morning, President Jonathan Goodluck sat under a giant rotund canopy among some of Nigeria’s most important political leaders in the remote Fadadn Kagoma village, in Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State, as part of record breaking crowd in the history of the village, for a grim event as Kaduna State first and only Christian to be elected governor, Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, was being buried after 64 years on earth.

As the Christmas draws close, Nigerians cry out with a mighty voice from the abyss of their miseries to God over their dwindling fortune. CHARLES ADINGUPU writes, that a bleak Christmas celebration stares the people in the face.

IT was just a few minutes to 13.00hours and the service of songs was in session when our chartered Caverton helicopter landed in ancient breezy coastal community of Okoroba, hometown of Mr. Oronto Douglas, a senior aide to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

To truly understand the shame of the kidnap of Professor Mabel Kamene Okonjo, mother of Nigeria’s Finance Minister and Co-ordinating Minister in charge of the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, pick a copy of The Economists special edition, THE WORLD IN 2013.