PREJUDICE has become profitable in Nigeria. It’s boom season for ethnic entrepreneurs and, indeed, for sundry purveyors of hate. These traders in prejudice do not inhabit any special corners of Nigeria. They are everywhere and they profit from nearly everything. They cut across generations, class, gender, creed. Nothing escapes their attention and everything is sooner or later an ethnic conspiracy or an excuse for a slur on an identity group.

DESPITE the clear directives of the Nigerian Bar Association at its Pre-NEC meeting of Sunday, August, 25, 2013 that all lawyers should refrain from comments in the press regarding the issue of the appointment of acting Chief Judge of River State, my attention has been drawn to a newspaper publication in the Vanguard of August 27, 2013, at page 11 (eleven) thereof issued by Chief O.C.J. Okocha, MFR, SAN, JP, and captioned as above, stating false and misleading facts against my person.

THE debate on whether there should be local government council autonomy has been on for some over two decades and if care is not taken, it may become an elastic issue comparable with the two–legged discourse over the tenure requirement for the president. But at the end of the day, the status quo will remain for the latter. The Americans for close to 50 years had been embroiled with a similar predicament without any acceptable alternative solution.

THE recent celebrations of the 80th birthday of the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, BoT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and Iyasele of Esanland, Chief Anthony Anenih, have left in their trail useful lessons across the political divides, the most important being that political leaders should eschew bitterness and embrace forgiveness, which is needed to pull all men of great influence and goodwill together to work in the interest of national security, development and unity.

I REMEMBER few years ago when Awka people, particularly the ones in Diaspora were spitting out fire, thunder and brimstone on Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State for allegedly neglecting their kingdom. They accused him of taking developmental issues that concerned Awka town unserious. I’m quite aware that some groups threatened to ‘shut down’ the […]

As the cliché goes, all this would have been laughable if it is not so tragic. In the heat of the subsisting venom and vitriol, it seems nobody now cares that the first set of “deportees” from Lagos were no other than Yoruba indigenes of Oyo and Osun states. I say this because this knowledge is not reflected in the way and manner protagonists have been conducting the debate on the so-called “deportation” of Igbo from Lagos.

NEXT month,Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo, will mark his first birth day in life, because life begins at 50. It will perhaps be a good time for him to assess the situation, make sober reflections, seek the face and will of God, to plot the way for the years ahead, knowing that it is only his actions now, that will determine whether he remains relevant or not in the political scheme of things, in Imo, Nigeria, and the whole world, in the future.

POLITICAL observers would be wondering at the relative calm that pervades Anambra State in the face of electioneering for the local government and gubernatorial elections billed for October 5, 2013 and November 16, 2013, respectively.

I AM certain that the title of this piece will ‘unsettle’ some people. They know themselves and I don’t intend to get in their way! And by way of assuring them, this piece has nothing to do with 2015. Trust me.

A GREEK proverb warns: “don’t hear one and judge two”. This sensible aphorism would appear to have been ignored by Mr. Femi Aribisala in his article of August 21, 2013, in which he bitterly assailed the contribution, character and person of the late Chief R.A. Fani-Kayode in the following terms : “….Like father, like son: That was 48 years ago.