JUST before mass ended on Sunday at an outpost of St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Eziowelle, the hometown of Francis Cardinal Arinze, the priest invited a young man to make an announcement. The fellow said he had come from the Justice Development and Peace Commission, JDPC, to propagate the corporal works of the Year of Mercy.

The issue, I understand, is the flaunting of religious markers in public educational institutions. Let me begin by confessing that I envy the French to whom those choices have only been recently thrust to the fore – they have always been with us in Nigeria.

Attempts were made recently by some groups to misinform Nigerians about the introduction of genetic engineering into the country to aid agricultural productivity.

For most people, the notion of a hero conjures up images of brave individuals risking their lives for others, or “superheroes” from comic books or films, armed with supernatural powers. But what Africa needs, each and every day, are heroes of a different sort – “action heroes” with ideas and vision, ready to respond to challenges that could determine the fate of a continent with a land mass larger than the United States, Western Europe, China and India combined. This is a lot of land, with a lot of potential.

DEFINITELY, we are at cross roads and perhaps at a cuI-de-sac. This explains why we have been vacillating over our choice of system of government, heated arguments over revenue sharing formula, creation of more states, more local government councils, resource control and so on.