THE drums are already echoing messages of what to expect in next year July elections in Edo state the Heart Beat of the Nation.

IN response to my earlier article, “Dismantle these Roadblocks”, an irate policeman called me on the phone. The article was on the need to dismantle the police roadblocks across Nigeria because they have failed as a crime fighting strategy.

ON the political turf, Edo people behave like Lagos football fans during a soccer game. In the same way in which Lagos soccer fans have expectations of the quality of football from their favoured side, Edo people, used as they are to good governance as offered by Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia (1967-1975) and Ambrose Alli (1979-1983), have standards by which they measure governmental performance.

A LOT of people have always praised the Governor Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole-led administration for the infrastructural development in Edo State.

I READ the interview by the Edo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Louis Odion, in the National Mirror of Wednesday, November 2, 2011 wherein he claimed that his boss and governor of Edo, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, inherited a bankrupt state.

NIGERIANS are quite aware that civil servants both at the state and federal level have over the years remained a stumbling block to the smooth running of government.

IT is challenging for me to write about my father, Hilary Nmerengwa Isiguzo, in the past. It is more frustrating still not feeling that he is dead. I returned to the house after his passing, at 82, expecting a surge of emotions that would have pressed the message home – there was none.

In January 2008, Vanguard published my review article on the late Wangari Maathai’s “Unbowed: A memoir”. I am reproducing it below as a tribute to the late Nobel Peace Laureate.

Only two political parties are hopeful of winning the 2012 governorship election in Edo State: The ruling Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. And since it is now clear that ACN is sticking to the comrade governor, it is left for the PDP, as the main opposition party, to provide the state with an alternative whose antecedents do not fall short of the peoples expectation come 2012.

In Nigeria, the battle to accord its citizens full access to healthcare is being prosecuted by the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).