IT is clearly no longer a matter of intuition for any discerning mind to know that the presidency and the 8th National Assembly (NASS) are at daggers drawn, and, have booby traps set and waiting for unguided moments to take revenge. From the presidency’s bare-faced disdain for NASS and insistence that they confirm the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, despite what NASS says is a damning report by the Directorate of State Security, DSS, bothering on corruption, to NASS’s refusal to screen and confirm the Presidency’s 27 nominees for Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, ostensibly, as payback for the Magu affront, only the blind would wait for tables to start flying before acknowledging there is fire on the mountain.

A CALAMITY hit Africa late March. A conference, crucial to its immediate needs, was slated from March 23-28, 2017. It was primarily for African development, and involved all African Ministers for Finance, Planning and Economic Development as well as development partners and Civil society groups. Organised by the African Union, AU, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, it was to discuss the issues of ‘Growth, Inequality and Unemployment’ in the continent and what actions can be carried out.

GEORGE Lizos, a student at the Imperial Business School wrote of his journey to believing in the power of synergy as follows: “I was never a big fan of teamwork. Being a naturally-inclined leader, I always felt that I could do things best on my own, and dismissed collaboration as a sign of weakness”. In his book: Success Intelligence, Robert Holden refers to this compulsive urge for self-sufficiency as the ‘By Myself Syndrome.’ According to Holden, “people who suffer from ‘By Myself Syndrome’ are lousy at asking for help. They are blind to opportunities for support. They are blocked by their inability to get past themselves.”

HOUSE of Representatives, at its plenary on Thursday, 30th March, 2017 resolved to summon the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, and Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, to appear before it in plenary on Thursday 6th April, 2017 to tell the House and Nigerians how the Federal Government intends to defray and exit its multi-billion naira pension liabilities and give succour to pensioners.

It is almost impossible to imagine what the world would look like if the Industrial revolution which took place from the 18th to the 19th centuries in Britain and America, never happened. It was an era in which machines changed people’s way of life as well as their methods of manufacturing things. Just imagine a world without electric lights, telephones, television, radios, automobiles and airplanes. It would certainly be a still world.

HARRY Handcuffs Houdini was famed for his serial escape tricks. He toured Europe as a magician and challenged the police to lock his hands and legs up with handcuffs and watch him escape. He regularly beat the police at their own game by managing to slither away from any restraint the police or indeed any other willing participant designed for him.

THERE has never been a time as horrible as the present, in the history of Nigeria. I say that because I believe that this government rode to power on the faith that millions of eligible voters had in the incumbent president of the republic. For us to wake up and hear every day, tales of extra judicial killings by security agencies, Fulani terrorism and the segregating actions of a supposedly federal police is just too dangerous for a democracy.

IMMEDIATELY we returned from that journey, I wrote a report to Governor Ogbemudia, the indefatigable soldier, also requesting that mattresses, desks, tables, chairs, cutleries, etc, be bought and sent to them. This request was graciously and speedily granted by this very kind man. Less than a week after our visit, Lories loaded with these items were sent to the schools in the East. In addition, it was decided that some of our students should be taken from our schools and sent to the East to continue their education,

IT was the famous William Shakespeare who said all the world is a stage, and all men and women merely players. They have their entrances and their exits. And so for my Boss, my Oga, my Mentor, my Bosom Friend, the man whom God used to implement my destiny, he has acted his part and has exited the stage. The curtain is closed for him.

FRAYED nerves were soothed when rescue workers finally announced the recovery of the body of the late Dr. Allwell Orji, the medical doctor, who jumped into the lagoon from the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos State.