AS this year closes, one cannot but reflect more intensely that if Chief Festus Sam Okotie-Eboh were to still alive, he would have been one hundred years old, having been born in1912 which is one hundred years ago. He was assassinated in 1966 which was 46 years ago when he was only 54 years of age. By that age, the impact he had already made in the building of the nation had been monumental in each of the several sectors of his endeavours.

WHEN Mr. Mike Omeri took over the reins of leadership at the National Orientation Agency (NOA) on January 17, 2012, he made it very clear that one of his primary concerns or vision was “to transform the Agency along with its various units and organs into a proactive, knowledge based and activity driven organisation, able to rise up to evolving challenges in our national space”. Eleven months down the line, Nigerians continue to testify to the fact that the Agency under his watch has kept faith with this thrust.

FEW DAYS ago, the LASTMA patrol team caught me as I did an illegal U-turn in front of Glendora book store at Falomo roundabout; I had not seen the “No U-Turn” sign and for added measure the LASTMA officials had hidden themselves at the back of a concrete pillar and in front of the book store. It was roughly 4pm in the afternoon and I was ordered to pull over into the bus stop slot. I had left the house to get diesel, just 50 litres.

Jacob Balarabe pondered over the matter for a very long time before he decided to discuss it with his friends.

LIVING in a country where any critical observation attracts negative or sometimes shadow chasing responses, a less courageous person may be cowed from expressing his views when it comes to ecclesiastical matters. But, since Nigeria is a fundamental member of our interconnected world, I will like to share some of the contents of a story I read some years ago with my fellow compatriots.

WHEN I wrote in a recent short online piece that there is nothing like Christmas in Christianity, I did not realise it would generate the very pleasing response it got. There I said that Christmas is Roman Catholicism and that it came wholesale from Babylon and is it about Tammuz (also called Dumuzi) ‘demonized’ as Baal by Satan, and which Tammuz was born on 25th of December and celebrated same day in ancient Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian until Rome brought it to the ‘church’ masking it with ‘Jesus’ to lead many astray.

WE are in that special season once again, a season of joy, of peace, of great tidings. A season when we celebrate the birth of Christ the King, the redeemer of mankind! Jesus is the reason for the season.

ABOUT two weeks ago, I saw a well packaged television commercial announcing an impending chieftaincy title in honour of Alhaji Dr. Bamanga Tukur. For a self made man who had risen to prominence by hard work, UGO-ONE-NA-ONNE OF ANIOCHA (the unlimited feathers of achievement) is a fitting title for Tukur’s stature. The national Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP is indeed a man of many parts and I was happy that Anioma people chose such a respectable public figure to honour with a reputable title.

THE end is yet to come over the issue of which zone will produce the next governor of Anambra State come 2014. Since Governor Obi’s avowed interest to support any credible candidate from Anambra North for that office everything else has been in flux. Newspapers are awash with varied interpretations of the unambiguous statement. A mishmash of reactions, spawned on the on-line media, sought to portray the man as undemocratic and high-handed.

IN remaking our constitution, we may be excessively concerned with the nitty-gritty of the process, the details of what should be in and what should be out, in the political calculation of who has won or lost or the implied trade-off therein that we may lose the soul of the exercise, the over arching message of a constitution to the citizens and the underlying mindset that creates both the national dream and the goods. The constitution should represent our common aspiration, our dream of a glorious, just, equitable and peaceful nation in which everyone has a stake now and its future.

THE latest deregistration by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC of FRESH and 27 other parties, after seven others were delisted earlier in the year, point to the fact that the ruling party is already warming up for the big contest.

SINCE after the November 30, 2012 meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was adjourned to January 8, 2013, for the purpose of picking a new chairman of the Board, I have read a series of syndicated analyses in the newspapers in which the writers, all of whom are curiously Igbo stock, had attempted to drag the reputations of all those who have been mentioned as candidates for the position in the mud. The only exception is former Senate President in the fifth Senate, Kenechukwu Nnamani, who is their kinsman and hero.

THE menacing spate of insecurity which has ravaged Africa’s giant nation Nigeria expressed in youth militancy, armed robbery, kidnapping, smuggling, pipeline vandalisation, political violence and religious extremism may have gulped unjustifiable chunk of the annual budget only next to the ministry of defence budget of the 30 months Nigeria civil war.

ACCORDING to a research conducted on 90 drugs approved by US regulators between 1998 and 2000, the results of more than half of all clinical trials which demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of new drugs are not published within five years of the drugs in the market.

EVERY citizen of Imo State is now familiar with Governor Rochas Okorocha’s governance by distraction. Every time his intrigues catch up with him, he reaches into his basket of tricks and fishes out ex-governor Ikedi Ohakim’s name!