PRECISELY 24 hours from today, eligible voters in Enugu State will return to the booths, this time, to elect the Local Government chairmen and councilors who will pilot affairs in the seventeen Councils.

I READ Mr. Femi Kusa’s brilliant expose in the Nation newspaper, on his days in The Guardian and his encounter with the late Chief Alex Ibru, our late publisher and it occurred to me that one of the reasons why Africans counselled that we should not speak ill of the dead is that we deny them the right to reply.

NIGERIANS criticise the government because they love Nigeria. Patriotism is not love for one’s government; it is love for one’s country. Theodore Roosevelt said in 1908 that “patriotism …does not mean to stand by the country or any public official save to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.

UNEMPLOYMENT is not new to Nigerians. They have grown used to reading about the general failure of the state called Nigeria and by extension, have come to understand the futility of trying to redirect the tragic trajectory of their own existence. We have heard gory stories of “700,000 applicants jostle for 5,000 positions in the Customs”, let alone the Nigeria Police Force.

GODSWILL Obot Akpabio, the Governor of Akwa Ibom State is fast becoming a proverbial golden fish that has no hiding place.

IN France, President Nicholas Sarkozy has taken over the leadership of European affairs through the EU. His command performance role in the NATO bombing of Ghaddaffi’s Libya and his offer of assistance to help Nigeria overcome her security challenges over Boko Haram are all seen in Paris as an attempt to shore up his dwindling poll rating for the presidential battle coming up next year.

THE furore over the President’s single tenure has by now subsided and appropriately this is an auspicious opportunity to look at the subject more objectively after the hazy dust has simmered down.

THE occurrences of disasters often result in displacement of persons. Therefore, the global increases in the number and magnitude of disasters have directly led to increasing human displacements.

THE governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, did not just come by the name, Caring Heart. He worked for it. He deservedly earned it. He lives it. He became synonymous with Caring Heart for the simple reason that, for the third year running, his administration has engaged in intervening in the critical sectors of the state to make life worth living for the people.

ONE of the resounding landmark achievements and legacy that would be bequeathed by the present administration of Abia State, under Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji, is the establishment of the Abia State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, ASOPADEC, which has become a stronghold of superstructural development in the state.