Recently at Bende headquarters of Bende council area in Abia State, the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji in continuation of his government’s youth empowerment programme gave out 200 vehicles to unemployed youths, and N2 million each to 13 unemployed graduates.

I woke up to that fateful midnight SMS: “So Sad. We lost Bamidele Aturu.” At first I thoughtfully concluded it was a bad dream, an ugly night mare. So I waved it away and tried to continue from where I left off my sleep.

WHEN the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, came into office in 2009, people hoped that funding for agriculture, manufacturing and the real sector will be enhanced and thereby build on the foundations already made by his predecessor in office. But instead he had began by tearing down everything his predecessor built.

IN recent weeks, the major political parties have accused each other of hiring the services of foreign media advisers to launder their images and make them eligible for election in next year’s presidential ballot. Reports claim that each of the foreign media firms in question is to receive in excess of $3 million for their troubles.

WHEN the mouth of the former Central Bank Governor, and now Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was running riot, and the ever busy bees of the opposition trumpeted his lies about missing oil funds, many Nigerians, so used to the corruption of top government officials in times past and present, were aghast and lent their voice to the debate for and against the bogus claim.

HAS it ever occurred to us, how beautiful and peaceful the world will be, if everyone will learn to apologise, when he/she is on the wrong or at fault? Because, people want to take what is not theirs, the world is assailed with different forms of crises.

If President Jonathan wins the 2015 Presidential election, as widely predicted, it wouldn’t be because he is the only person eligible to be President, rather it would largely be because there is no credible alternative. Nigerians would love to have a robust debate before the elections. Nigerians want a healthy contest. At the moment the opposition is inadvertently helping Mr. Jonathan to win. Nigerians want a credible opposition against the PDP, not a poorer version of it as an alternative.

AMONG the literary creatures of Ilorin emirate, my brother, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu stands tall in the contemporary generation and he has never hidden that fact and the privileges it attracts. I think one of such privileges was the opportunity he had to speak to some members of the PDP as he recalled in his latest literary production in the Vanguard newspaper.

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.