A GOVERNMENT official once told me : ” You people (doctors) should do as we say; after all we pay your salaries”.

And a colleague once said to me: “They (government) should just give us what we want.”
Both are wrong; and herein lies the locus of persistent conflict.

THE politics of Delta State has always been relatively complex and intriguing compared to that of other states in Nigeria. Even though the next elections would hold in 2015 many politicians in Delta started getting positioned for the plum office of governor as far back as 2011 when the incumbent Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan was sworn in for his second term.

Obarisi Ovie Omo Agege ventured into the politics of Delta State in 2002 during the countdown to the 2003 general elections and it was not lost on the Delta landscape, the air, the rivers and the people that a political trojan had arrived the turf.

The dark days of military oppression are back! The Black Era has returned! Soldiers took over a major street in Lagos for five hours and we were helpless to stop them. They slapped some; beat some senseless; destroyed public and personal property, all without fear of retribution.

ALTHOUGH the Pension Reform Act 2014 has been widely hailed by Nigerians, especially the labour and pensioners as a bold step in the right direction, one of the worries expressed by virtually everybody has been the question of implementation.

The Presidency and the ruling PDP forcefully had their way in Adamawa. Governor Nyako has been impeached. Nigeria’s constitution suffers violence. Democracy has been setback.

THE growth and development of any modern economy depends on the industrial sector, but particularly the automotive industry. From America to Japan, China, Germany and host of other developed countries, the impact of the automotive industry in catalyzing development of the overall economy of a nation cannot be over-emphasized. It is in the light of the above that many Nigerians today are gratified at the pioneering effort the INNOSON vehicles manufacturing Co. Ltd. has made in the manufacture of the first made-in-Nigeria vehicles.

SPECULATIONS over the fate and future of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State finally came to a halt Tuesday, July 15, 2014, with his impeachment by the State House of Assembly.

WITH the national confab in progress, the subject of this article is so ‘on-time’ that I intend, before the process concludes, to launch straight into the heart of it without the essayist’s introductory niceties and elegant phrase-making.

More than twelve years after the US terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the security versus privacy debate has once again been thrust into the limelight.

The use of facial recognition within surveillance systems is gaining a lot of traction locally, especially in secure environments such as border posts, as well as platinum- and gold mines where these systems protect employees against illegal miners and the mines themselves from product theft.

THE first time we met was sometime in 1988 soon after his youth service under the National Youth Service Corps’ compulsory programme for young graduates, which prepares them for the challenges of our society away from the infatuations of the academic environment where dreams are generated and views of the reality of society are mostly in conflict with the facts of the decadence of our own society.

I NEVER gave a thought to the idea that I could be a teacher. But teach I did when I could not secure a job years after completing my national service. For five years, I did the little I could in preparing young minds for post-tertiary institution examinations. Until journalism took me away from the classroom, I derived great pleasure in seeing those young faces look up to me almost in awe as I impacted knowledge on them.

As Africans in America, no one can tell our own stories like we live it. Other people may read about Africa, visit Africa or do business in Africa, but no one can represent us like ourselves. Although there are huge different ethnic groups, cultures and countries, Africa has unique values that have not yet been told in a balanced perspective by the Western media, thus the birth of the Yaba TV Show.

I JOIN in the tributes to Professor Wole Soyinka at 80, not necessarily because he is a genius. It is more because like Nelson Mandela, he is a courageous humanist with a compassion for the weak who wields enormous moral authority. Unlike Mandela, but like Mahatma Ghandi, he earned this without holding formal political office.