AFTER playing key roles in laying the foundation for Nigeria’s post-independence education sector, former Education Minister, Prof. Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, yesterday, bade the living goodbye.

It followed the infamous Iraqi pattern. Two blasts. That was all that was needed to turn Nigeria’s 50th independence celebrations into ashes in the mouth of millions of Nigerians.
That was also all that was also needed to send the wrong and condemnable signal to the outside world that things have gotten so bad in Nigeria.
Still, the number of heads of state, diplomats, important dignitaries and political leaders just a few hundred metres from the site of the bomb blasts, could have as well been mortal victims of the twin blasts.
In fact, the African Union, AU, through its chairperson, Peace and Security Council, Dr. Monica Juma, pilloried the act, saying that for it to have happened on the day of the independence celebrations “showed how bad” the situation had become. She continued: “While we condemn the act in its totality, the AU Peace and Security Council wants the Nigerian government to thoroughly investigate the act, arrest and prosecute those behind the bombings so that such unfortunate incident will not occur again in Nigeria and other parts of Africa”.

Professor Chinwe Nora Obaji, in a stirring speech, lamented that in spite of the contributions of the Igbo people and the fact that Igbo ingenuity and professionals are in high demand across the globe, Nigeria continues to sidestep the aspirations of one of the nation’s largest ethnic groups to serve at the highest level, forty years after the civil war ended

Again if I am asked who to believe between Osoba and Alhaji MD Yusuf, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi and Alhaji Gambo Jimeta who are all seasoned policemen that were involved either directly or indirectly with the investigation into Tafawa Balewa’s death,

IT can be rightly claimed that the media, especially the print, is the foremost founding father of this
nation, not the least because those who fought for Nigeria’s independence were either journalists or used the instrument of the press rather than armed struggle as other decolonising entities like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria Mozambique and Angola.