MY encounter on December 10, 2016 with Lucky Awobasivwe on the ‘National Leadership Question’ opened insights worth sharing. A successful business tycoon, Awobasivwe is an amazingly simple man. Guided by sound ethical principles, he has deep respect for people, processes, and rules.

Day after day, it is becoming very obvious that the Senate Committee’s report, which purportedly indicted the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, David Babachir, over so-called corruption, was cunningly but poorly crafted by ‘’political enemies’’ to deliberately open holes in the SGF’s character.

READING through the article with the above heading in the Vanguard newspaper of January 12, 2017, written by a certain Ralf Imaghodor, it was apparent that it was a job meant to create a false impression about the characters and situations surrounding the ongoing trial at the 2016 Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, at which the People Democratic Party, PDP, and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, are challenging the September 29 declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that Mr. Godwin Obaseki, candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, winner – a result contrary to the evidence officially gathered from INEC polling officials, subject to empirical analysis.

Even the new joiners, Chief Great Ogboru’s Light of Labour is a faction and Hon. Victor Ochei/Chief Ayiri Emami, also head a PDP faction. Ingenious! Moreover, the Prophet Jones Erue Exco is not only “illegal” it is also unrepresentative of all the factions! So, why would such a fractious party resist the attempt to harmonise and restructure it?

Until a few years ago, Africa Rising was a dominant theme in conversations about the global economy. That enthusiasm has since cooled, so that in newsrooms and think tanks and conference panels, “Africa Rising!” has given way to a more questioning “Africa Rising?”