THE approval by the national working committee of the All Progressive Congress, APC, of the use of direct primaries for the Osun state governorship aspirants represents a welcome reinstatement of the ethos and the building blocks which is at the very heart of the party system.

Today, the 19th of July, 2018, Mr. Peter Obi, the former Governor of Anambra State turns fifty-seven. Besides Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whom I did serials on his birthdays, he is the only other  person I have rashly laid upon myself the task of writing on in commemoration of his birthdays. He is one of the few in Nigeria whose lives a keen observer can look at and proclaim how good they are. 

If one image  has animated social media and adrenalized international fora in recent times, it’s certainly the spurning, denigrating  Photo-shopped picture of Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, garbed in National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) attire. Curiously, Adeosun whose alleged infractions have brought severe  national, global opprobrium to Nigeria and stretched citizens anger, has maintained a subdued silence.

Nine years ago, I was in Durban, South Africa, for the 14th edition of the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards, which took place at the prestigious Durban International Conference Centre on Saturday, July 18, 2009.

Recently, visionary business leader and philanthropist, Segun Adebutu has been the subject of vicious attacks by detractors determined to bring down his family name, soil his reputation and sap political will out of his brother, Ladi Adebutu, who has indicated interest in Ogun State’s gubernatorial race for 2019. Ladi is a PDP gubernatorial aspirant in Ogun State and member of Federal House of Representatives, and both Ladi and Segun are sons of the Premier Lotto founder, Chief Kensington Adebutu, popularly known as Baba Ijebu.