IN Nigeria, we cannot say that we are a bad people or corrupt people because we all greeted the government of Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon in the late 1980s. Nigerians started queuing up for things and waiting for their turn.

SANUSI Lamido Sanusi realised how gullible Nigerians can be and that we love to bay blood. After alerting bank customers that banks are about to collapse and they would lose their monies if nothing is urgently done, he carried out a stress test on banks to determine those that will collapse if nothing is urgently done, and pronounce some bank CEOs guilty of stealing depositors funds.

In the early hours of Sunday, March 30, 2014, while going through twitter for usual updates, the news of gunshots at the Department of State Services, DSS, headquarters close to the state house went viral. Even though the news of gunshots and bombing are now usual in the country, attacking the headquarters of the state security service is awkwardly audacious. The news immediately gained ground, leading to unease in and around the city of Abuja, as people scampered for safety.

WE live in volatile times. With economies all around the world caving in on them, causing ripple effects that spread throughout our increasingly global planet, investors and governments alike are frantically searching for signs of hope. And many are finding that hope in a region with its own share of rocky histories and failed economies.

THESE are times for concern in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The emergence of All Progressives Congress, APC has enriched political space. The PDP that emerged from Abacha’s draconian rule project unity and cuts across ethnic and political divides.

ANYONE with an ear to the ground probably would have heard quite a bit about the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke. If the minister has not heard, there has been quite a groundswell of murmuring around town about how she sits atop the wealth of the nation and not allowing others a piece of the action, whatever that means. If you think that the complaints against the minister are coming from the opposition camps alone, then you are mistaken. Even from her native Bayelsa, there is a creeping opposition against their daughter. It really baffles.

All the clever rationalizations and justifications in the world for presenting a Muslim/Muslim ticket will not enable us to escape this ugly tag. As a matter of fact they will simply confirm it. We have a lot of work to do in this respect and permit me to share just one of the things that we ought to do very quickly if we wish to avoid the consequences of our own folly. We must go out of our way to redress the religious imbalance in our Interim National Executive where you have virtually ALL the KEY positions in the hands of Muslims and where it is only the lesser positions that the Christians enjoy.

SINCE the uprisings and violent protests that have rocked some Arab nations 2011, some people had feared that such would be replicated in Nigeria, with the level of corruption across the country and the impunity with which our politicians loot the treasury.

THERE is the direct killing, like the one happening in the Boko Haram-ravaged states. Some human beings have to be eliminated for the country to move forward. So, for anyone Boko Haram gunned down, it is one less of the bad guys in our society; such people are not fit to co-habit with decent individuals.

THE Nigerian centenary celebration was to honour hundred persons, some, post-hummus. The number of the award recipients was deliberately pegged at one hundred so that it will conform exactly to the number of years of Nigeria’s existence. A number of questions ran through my mind.

IN a famous major musical hit by the Black American female singer Roberta Flack, she described a man as “killing her softly, with his song”.

THE ramming of two planes into the New York Twin Towers and co-ordinated attacks on other selected targets in the United States by suicidal Al-Qaeda agents on September 9, 2011, changed the face of terrorism in the world.

BEFORE the discovery of oil, Nigeria had made great advancements in textile, agricultural, solid minerals and manufacturing sectors.

ONLY the politically naive can fail to see that President Goodluck Jonathan will contest the 2015 presidential election. Even if his now famous body language is the only signal we can read, the signs are evident that the man will stand for re-election. Naturally, his supporters see nothing wrong in that. And, expectedly, his detractors do. But what do the rest of us who are neither his supporters nor detractors think about the issue?

I KNOW these are no easy times for the President so I will skip the details and present the facts unedited. About 1508 Nigerian citizens are dying needlessly in China detention camps and prison facilities for travel offences.