NIGERIAN politicians and their apologists prefer to describe the country’s democratic evolution as nascent. In their view, it is inappropriate for anyone to upbraid its many ugly sides or describe it as a sham compared to its American model.

STUDYING Nigeria over the years, it has become easy to identify a pattern of behaviour; that is to say: you will be able to identify a Nigerian anywhere in the world through his or her behaviour. The question therefore is: can the way we are – our culture and way of life – be the cause of our stagnated and slow growth?

THE appointment of educationist and former Governor of Kano state, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, as the new minister of education has no doubt made immediate impact. Thumbs up should be given to the new minister as his first assignment of meeting the striking Polytechnic lecturers led to the immediate suspension of the 11 months old strike.

OBY Ezekwesili and her gang have shouted themselves hoarse, yet have been unable to get anywhere near President Goodluck Jonathan. However, a Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan visited and, within 48 hours, met with the most powerful president in Black Africa. Why should the President ignore the former director of the World Bank, Mrs. Ezekwesili, and meet a teenager from a country in the middle of nowhere but terrorism?

LONG ago, that relentless nonconformist, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, in one of his many sad songs, Sorrow, Tears and Blood, lamented official brutality in Nigeria. He sang about people running helter skelter and confusion was everywhere because the police and the soldiers were coming.

THE story of Murtala Nyako, the retired naval officer who was penultimate week removed as Adamawa State governor, will continue to interest analysts. His fall from power is a typical story of the selfish, self-destructing Nigerian politician. For a man who became governor by popular acclaim in 2007, with the backing of the state’s political heavyweights like Professor Jibril Aminu, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, Mr. Boni Haruna and many others, he had lost their comradeship soon after assumption of office. He had either trampled on them in his senseless accumulation of power or sidelined them effectively in running the affairs of state

ON January 4, 1966, the then Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1912-1966) commissioned the Onitsha/AsabaBridge popularly called the Niger Bridge. It was his last engagement outside Lagos.

Recently at Bende headquarters of Bende council area in Abia State, the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji in continuation of his government’s youth empowerment programme gave out 200 vehicles to unemployed youths, and N2 million each to 13 unemployed graduates.

I woke up to that fateful midnight SMS: “So Sad. We lost Bamidele Aturu.” At first I thoughtfully concluded it was a bad dream, an ugly night mare. So I waved it away and tried to continue from where I left off my sleep.

WHEN the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, came into office in 2009, people hoped that funding for agriculture, manufacturing and the real sector will be enhanced and thereby build on the foundations already made by his predecessor in office. But instead he had began by tearing down everything his predecessor built.