On Thursday, June 7, President Goodluck Jonathan flagged off a mass book distribution initiative aimed at returning the country to the days of qualitative learning with a view to building a critical foundation for the general development of the nation.

IT was a conversation we had several times. If he had to choose between Youth Development and Sports, what would it be? That was a question Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the Minister of Sports who until few weeks ago was also in charge of the Youth beat, found difficult to answer. And his dilemma was understandable.

EVEN though the 2015 general elections are not around the corner, the polity is already being overheated by the debate over the zone that would produce Nigeria’s next president.

ON February 14, 2012 the governor of Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson exhibiting his love, zeal and passion for effective and functional education delivery pronounced a policy of free education for all, and went further to declare a state of emergency in the sector.

THE current security challenges facing the country, especially in the North remind Nigerians, most especially Ndigbo of the predicament and frustrations faced by their people at the peak of kidnapping in the South East zone. Worst hit by the menace then was Abia State with its commercial city, Aba, overtaken by the dare devil kidnappers. Residents of the city fled en masse and the once bubbling and ever-busy city became deserted.

IN two years time, the office of the Governor of Anambra State will be vacant. By then Governor Peter Obi, now in his second term in office, would have spent eight years.

IN Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s supplementary budget submitted to the Edo State House of Assembly towards the close of 2011, he requested for, among other things, N7.2 billion for debt servicing.

THE point to begin the story of my political journey is unarguably my meeting with David Edevbie. I told my wife when I was leaving home for Ikoyi for that meeting that I would get on famously with this man.

ONE of the major crises the Federal Government of Nigerian has been facing in the last eight years is religion. It has stretched the unity of the country to its limit as politicians have, since the inception of the Fourth Republic, gone beyond limit, using it as an instrument to acquire political relevance, therefore, creating acrimony between people who ordinarily lived together harmoniously.

IN the almost five years that Chief Godswill Akpabio has been on the saddle as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, the state has witnessed unprecedented infrastructural and human capital development that many people who have followed development in the state since its creation in the last 24 years have marvelled at the quantum leap.