Last Wednesday, chairman senate committee on electoral matters, Senator Andy Uba turned 53. For a man who has been buffeted by the vagaries of life, he had every cause to celebrate. From being the typical businessman in the United States, Andy by acting the Good Samaritan was catapulted by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to become one of the most powerful Presidential Assistants in Nigerian history.

With just two days to the planned commencement of tolls collection at Admiralty Circle plaza on the ever-busy Lekki –Eti-Osa Expressway, palpable anxiety is already being generated in the area as residents of Eti-Osa, Epe and Ibeju-Lekki have vowed to resist the move.

Just 28 months ago, guns… guns…guns everywhere in the core Niger Delta region of Nigeria . The country was on the precipice of economic bankruptcy. The cold realities stared the then President, Late Musa Yar’ Adua in the face as the hostilities in the Niger Delta, the nation’s cash cow, raged on…

“When you returned from the Ivory Coast, the crowds that received you at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, then at the Aba Stadium and at Nnewi have never been equaled in the political history of Nigeria. It was the return of the Peoples’ Great Hero, the return of their Eze, their King”.

WHEN British Prime Minister, David Cameron, at the last Commonwealth meeting in Perth, Australia, repeated his threat to English-speaking African nations that, henceforth, strings would be attached to aid that his government would offer to the affected countries, he said, “We want to see countries that receive our aid adhering to proper human rights, and that includes how people treat gay and lesbian people”.