FRIDAY, May 24, 2013, 35 governors gathered to vote for the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF. With the initial postponement and intrigues that surrounded it, it was going to be a night of long knives.

THE Osun election is about to commence in the next few days. The preparation has long been undertaken by various political parties and various interest groups. Attention is now shifted to Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, a body assigned to conduct elections in the country.

A COLLEAGUE asked me recently while discussing the subject if I believed in the existence and powers of witches and wizards.

ALMOST all the post-mortem analyses conducted after the woeful defeat of Governor Kayode Fayemi of EKiti State at the governorship election of June 21, 2014, agreed in common that teachers in the State contributed majorly to the outcome.

WHILE appreciating God for saving General Muhammadu Buhari’s life last week, it occurred to me that Nigerians have been too bothered about what would or wouldn’t have happened if the worst had occurred.

AS reported by Vanguard, of July 21, there is already a plot to kill the report of CONFAB 2014, which is only awaiting some finishing touches on it. The plot to kill the report includes lobbying senators and lawmakers to kill it after it must have been submitted.

I AM not a politician but a ‘political animal’. I am also not a card-carrying member of All Progressives Party, APC, but a Rauf Aregbesola sympathiser; and an unrepentant one at that! If I am therefore tagged a politician because of my belief in the progressive credentials of Aregbesola, so be it! In the same vein, if I am labelled an ‘Aregbe wrapper’ as a result of my love for this great man of honour, I owe nobody any apology!

THE recent attack on the convoy of General Muhammadu Buhari, former Head of State and a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, by a suicide bomber in Kaduna is a wakeup call to all politicians that the time has come to close ranks and stop playing politics with the issue of terrorism.

Unarguably, the provision of stable and uninterrupted power supply is key for accelerated economic and industrial development of any country.

THERE comes a time in the developmental process of every society when the desired opportunity or quest for true and indelible growth and development beckons like a shining light with insurmountable illumination and transparency in the face of the deep. By this, the dark cloud and delicate interface ravaging a society or nation gives way for new hopes, yearnings and aspirations for a better and brighter tomorrow.

PERHAPS, if there is any sector of the Nigerian economy that requires urgent attention, the aviation industry should top the list even though there is hardly any facet of our national life that is not in comatose and critically distressed. This is the burden the new helmsman in the Aviation Ministry should be ready to bear.

NIGERIAN politicians and their apologists prefer to describe the country’s democratic evolution as nascent. In their view, it is inappropriate for anyone to upbraid its many ugly sides or describe it as a sham compared to its American model.

STUDYING Nigeria over the years, it has become easy to identify a pattern of behaviour; that is to say: you will be able to identify a Nigerian anywhere in the world through his or her behaviour. The question therefore is: can the way we are – our culture and way of life – be the cause of our stagnated and slow growth?

THE appointment of educationist and former Governor of Kano state, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, as the new minister of education has no doubt made immediate impact. Thumbs up should be given to the new minister as his first assignment of meeting the striking Polytechnic lecturers led to the immediate suspension of the 11 months old strike.

OBY Ezekwesili and her gang have shouted themselves hoarse, yet have been unable to get anywhere near President Goodluck Jonathan. However, a Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan visited and, within 48 hours, met with the most powerful president in Black Africa. Why should the President ignore the former director of the World Bank, Mrs. Ezekwesili, and meet a teenager from a country in the middle of nowhere but terrorism?