POOR Attahiru Jega! The distinguished Professor of political science and Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is once again in the dock. Indeed, the first salvo against Jega in the court of public opinion is that he is biased. Those who say that Jega is biased cite his now aborted plot to create 30,000 polling booths eighty per cent of which would have been located in the North as evidence of his ploy to give his side of the country an edge over the rest of the country. Another charge against Jega is to the effect that the umpire has kowtowed to pressure from the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to disenfranchise voters who are seen to be sympathetic to President Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP). The story making the rounds in Lagos is that INEC, in solidarity with APC, has denied the Igbo who constitute more than 46 per cent of the population in Lagos the Permanent Voter Card (PVC).

The struggle for power in Nigeria has always been accompanied by violence, intimidation and sometimes total war. The 1965 general elections, marred by fraud and violence, led to the collapse of the democratic process.

God said in Gen 2:18, “it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him”. Everything that is missing in your life, God will help to put in place for you. Because God knows all things, He knows what is best for you. Whatever is lacking that is relevant to your destiny fulfillment; He will help you with it. Adam was not the one that identified the need; God identified it and did something about it. Before this year will be over God will help you out of the place of hopelessness. Don’t quit or surrender, help is on its way. There are more glorious paths ahead of you. Your best days are still ahead.

ON Thursday, February 5, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu treated Kwarans to yet another poodle of hatred, as always, about the person of Senator Bukola Saraki, the former governor of Kwara State. In his sentimental and heavily jaundiced article entitled: Let us collectively save the Emir of Ilorin’s palace,published in the Vanguard newspaper, he attempted, without justification to pick holes in the sale of government quarters in the state capital and a fathom attempt that existed only in his imagination, to sell the Eid praying ground. Ordinarily, as a principle, such blatant, audacious and shameless display of ignorance laced with pathological hatred for the Saraki, would have been ignored, but if the madman is allowed to bury his mother, he might roast it ?

NO matter what you thought of the postponement of Nigeria’s General elections from February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11 2015, the truth is that the realityof the shifting has been accepted.

AGRICULTURE used to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy. But as oil revenue increased, successive governments out of lack of leadership vision ignored this economic multiplier until President Goodluck Jonathan made it a top priority of his government. Happily government’s agricultural programmes have recorded appreciable gains that can easily ensure self-sufficiency in food production and possibly economic stability in the face of dwindling oil price.

AMONG the Yorubas,the clutch bag is an essential accessory on the male because that is where he carries the money he will use to spray celebrants and others at the party.

This time, Buhari’s prospects are better. Jonathan is widely perceived as ineffectual, and the clearest example, which has eclipsed his entire presidency, is his response to Boko Haram. Such a barbaric Islamist insurgency would challenge any government. But while Boko Haram bombed and butchered, Jonathan seemed frozen in a confused, tone-deaf inaction. Conflicting stories emerged of an ill-equipped army, of a corrupt military leadership, of northern elites sponsoring Boko Haram, and even of the government itself sponsoring Boko Haram.

AS Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka put it the other day, ‘this intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by declarations of support from directions that leave one totally dumbfounded.’ Nothing best describes the upsurge of vociferous but futile calls for Nigerians to forcefully swallow hook, line and sinker the arrival of a long awaited messiah in Buhari

The words that have emanated from some of our politicians especially over the course of the months leading up to 2015 have been too desperate, and antagonistic, tending towards brinksmanship and giving the impression that they see politics as a zero sum game and not as a vehicle to offer service to the people.