Permit me to begin this contribution with an aside. The barbarians that launched a terror attack in Westminster, London yesterday in which four people were killed and many more injured are the same type of people that attacked and beheaded the sons and daughters of Ile Ife in their own homes and on their own land earlier this month.

WE are today taking a short excursion into Criminology. Confidence Game (con-game for short) depicts a crime situation where the person who should have reported the crime is part of it. For example, if you were to patronise a prostitute in a jurisdiction where prostitution was outlawed; and in the course of an argument, she stabbed you with a kitchen knife; you were on your own for, if you reported to the police, you would first have to explain what you were doing in a whore house. That is the exact nature of many aspects of life, particularly gambling.

THAT the country’s economy is currently experiencing a downturn, a situation largely precipitated by a reversal of oil fortunes, is no longer news. No thanks to decades of over-reliance on a monolithic economy and the utter relegation of agriculture, once the country’s cash cow.

CRISIS is not new to the Supreme Court in Nigeria. From inception, there has always been one crisis or the other, in that court.

Retired Colonel Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, is a proud and stubborn man. His disdain for others and insufferable arrogance is not only vexatious to the spirit but also downright nauseating.