On Sunday, November 10, 2013, the former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, Prof. Maurice Iwu, hosted a kindred meeting of a select group of leaders in Okigwe zone in his country home in Umukabia, Ehime-Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State.

A LOOK at Diezani Alison- Madueke, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, would naturally provoke either a sense of admiration or that of envy. Before she came into public service, Diezani was as comely as she is today. She has a verifiable pedigree.

There is no doubt that Cross Riverians from all walks of life and indeed fans of CrossRiverState are eagerly looking forward to this year’s Calabar Festival, which usually begins and ends within 32 days in the month of December.

African Independent Television, AIT, made life-broadcasts of the zonal sittings of Nigeria’s Constitution Advisory Committee. I did not know they did that until callers drew my attention to it. I had just made, on behalf of the Obowu Development Association, a presentation to the Committee sitting at Umuahia. It was on Obowu people’s thoughts on the agenda and modalities for the conference.

ON a hot, sweaty May 1958 afternoon, two adults and one adolescent stood in front of a room on the balcony at Tedder Hall in UniversityCollege, Ibadan. Posted on the door was the bold notice in capital letters: “OPERATION LONDON, 33 DAYS”. Silence and bewilderment; then solemnity.

The media calls it breaking news. The news is that the Federal Government has given the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, one week ultimatum to call off the ongoing strike. The acting Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, stated this while briefing journalists in Abuja.

The Education Rights Campaign, ERC, considers the threat by the Federal Government to sack striking academic staff of public universities unless they resume duties on or before December 4 as the height of Dr Goodluck Jonathan presidency’s creeping dictatorship.

The issue of AnambraState is a classical case study of a paradox. A state with so much potentials in both human and material resources struggling to find a headway. A state that has produced great leaders for Nigeria -Azikiwes, Okigbos, Ekwensis, Ekwuemes, Anyaokus, Ojukwus and many others, finding it difficult to get leadership to pilot its affairs.

Private sector champions who have forayed into Nigeria’s politics would attest to the fact that their lives have never remained the same since their arrival in the jungle.

In the 70s when we were very young one of my brothers used to recount how he overheard a man telling another that if spouses do not quarrel in their marriage, it means one is being cheated. As time went on this statement became a recurring decimal…

Mike and I met at the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) as young cadets in 1967, and we became inseparable course mates, friends and confidants. Together, we confronted the challenges of those days with determination to make success of our lives.

TO some people, mere mention of Hell fills them with grief or relief depending on which side of the divide you belong. While to some, there is nothing like Hell not to mention Heaven. This also depends on one’s faith.

The mass media have been described as the Fourth Estate of the Realm in a democratic society. This is because of its importance in educating, informing and enlightening the populace about the goings on in the other three arms – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary.

The reason for the Christmas season is the commemoration of the glorious birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus the Christ. Although, the exact date of His birth remains an issue of great scholastic saber-rattling, one infallible truth that stands with unshakeable firmness is that Christ is the immaculate quintessence of love.

The central bank is an institution that manages a nation’s currency, money supply and interest rates. It also usually oversees the commercial banking system of this country. In contrast to a commercial bank, the central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the amount of money in the nation, and usually also prints the national currency.