In Disgrace (1999), Coetzee, the South African writer, painted a rather frightening retirement picture of Professor David Lurie. I am different from the fictional professor in so many ways. Unlike Professor Lurie, this is not the kind of retirement I see for myself at all. While the announcement calling for the retirement of the seventeen permanent secretaries was shocking to me, it was not at all unexpected. Whoever managed to reach a fulfilling career point in the civil service must have gotten there with a sense of history. If Nigeria could waste the incredible talents retired summarily especially in 1975, why should we be exception to what has literarily become a rule of a sort in our governance trajectory. I have had no doubt whatsoever what my retirement plans would be. I have nurtured it for over ten years, reflecting and adjusting and planning. This preparation originated from the foreknowledge that I would not always be in the service, but that the business of reform cannot dare stop.

FOR the avoidance of doubt, to those who are not familiar with the City named WARRI, I will like to describe Warri as a City in Delta State of Nigeria. It once served as the Colonial Capital of the then Warri Province. However, today Warri is described as an Oil Hub in the Southern Senatorial District of Delta State. Warri used to be a small powerful Commercial Centre with surrounding towns like Effurun, Ekpan, Ubeji, Edjeba, Ogunu, Aladja, Enerhen, Ugbuwangwe to mention but a few. Though all these towns mentioned above and others are now referred to as Warri for ease of reference, but they still maintain their political autonomy.

THE story of Warri city has been told so many times, a city that has given so much, yet got so little in return, with a giant sized reputation and wallowing in penury, a happy people, hospitable and full of live, yet dying slowly. Who will save Warri from its rot? You cannot see a Warri boy – wafarian – anywhere and not take notice; his unique pidgin english language, his braggadocio, his vigour and yes, his jokes.

THE feud between the Igbo and the Yoruba ethnic groups is contrived, just like the feud between the Igbo and the Ikwere. Whenever these feuds take centrestage, the impetus is invariably traceable to the divide-and-rule imperative, which inevitably profits the oligarchy of northern Nigeria. Every other explanation adduced in the explanation of the phenomenon can only be peripheral. It is important to make this point from the outset, before going about the business of explanations – for the benefit of those who may genuinely be ignorant of a crucial factor in the continued inability to resolve some of the more critical of Nigeria’s contradictions.

Taxes are hardly welcome with a smile. Even in jurisdictions where public funds are judiciously husbanded, taxes are often treated with as much dislike as for leprosy! As such, I was not surprised that my call for creative taxation has attracted an admixture of commendation and condemnation. One has learnt to take both with equanimity.