2015, has come and gone forever, with its risks, lies, cheatings, manipulations, deceits, and deaths, and leaves us with many issues to continue to grapple with. Many may not indeed know how we got here, but I know, that if it were not for God, we won’t have made it.

NIGERIA is great not just because it is the seventh most populous country on the planet. It is an important nation not only on account of her oil wealth It is significant more because of the energy of her people, whose creativity and resilient spirit of enterprise continues to assure her progress even in the face of seemingly hopeless situations. It is due to the hard-work and industry of the ordinary Nigerians- the nation’s greatest asset, that Nigeria attained a GDP rebased at $510 billion in 2013 exceeding that of South Africa to become the biggest African economy even in the face of her parlous infrastructure.

After months of addressing Nigerians from outside the country on issues that are largely local, granting interviews to foreign media outfits while neglecting the local media, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), was finally convinced (or was it confused) to host a presidential media chat in Nigeria. Before now, Nigerians had expressed strong reservations on why the president had chosen to always make policy statements concerning the country only whenever he travelled abroad. For those who might not understand why, the president’s media chat shows it.

IT is an axiomatic fact that a leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. But most times, the encumberances and challenges associated with leadership often derail leaders. But the ability to overcome such challenges, differentiates a leader from others.

What constitutes true poverty is not just the inability of an individual to be without a square meal per day. It is the inability to be mentally equipped. it is a condition and state of mind where there are limited educational resources thereby leading to knowledge deficit.

THAT was one of the stanzas of Sir Walter Raleigh’s final poems some times titled “The Lie”. It was written on realising his impending death and that life is vanity and falsity in 1592. The satirical poem loaded with irony and metaphor threw up so much that was hidden in the political protests of January 2012 against the removal of fuel subsidy by the PDP led Federal Government.

WE are in the season of festivity. In fact, this year is significant because the Christians and Muslims are celebrating at the same time. We must maximise this beyond the coincidence of dates. I had mentioned in a previous piece that the challenges of the Nigerian nation are multi-dimensional, that you cannot get the expected change result if we view it from a very narrow prism. Our challenge is embedded in our culture, our attitude, our way of life; of nonchalance, of no care for the consequences of the whole as long as our individual or narrow interests are protected. If the people are not getting it, if the messages are not being absorbed and internalised by those at the bottom rung of the ladder, there is no way we can make progress.

Mr. President, as one of your most loyal and faithful subjects who has nothing but the utmost respect for your person and your office I am constrained to write you this open letter.

For a cause that has thrived through the vicissitudes of fate; a cause that has withstood for decades, the compulsory test of time; a cause for which those whose lives have been claimed are proclaimed ‘martyrs’, then, it is suffice to say that the ideology behind such a cause is vividly a force with which to reckon.

THERE were two major national problems our military rulers managed poorly. First was the enormous wealth that came our way in the oil boom of the early 70s. One martial ruler said his headache wasn’t money: It was how to spend it. Whereupon the country under him took upon itself the Father Christmas role. We gave and gave to African countries that were not as oily endowed as we were. When we could no longer locate the needy in Africa we turned to shores outside the continent.