SATURDAY, March 8, 2014, was this year’s International Women’s Day, the first of which was celebrated in 1911. The celebration is a reminder of the plight of women all over the world while it marks their economic, political and social achievements. In history, even among the most socially advanced nations of the world, the status of women was always seen as inferior to that of men. Not only were women’s roles secondary, women were, in several cases, totally excluded from participation in certain activities.

THIS year’s World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos Switzerland confirmed that the annual WEF meeting remains the foremost gathering to contemplate and shape global economic agendas. The prestigious gathering captures in all ramifications the anxieties global business and finance are currently contending with and highlights the crisis of trust facing both public and private institutions.

THE feverish disputation over the suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, by President Goodluck Jonathan, dramatises a major problem of Nigerian politics.

NIGERIANS are a good people – no matter what the critics say. They are law abiding, hard working and obedient. That is the true characterisation of the average Nigerian man, amongst our various ethnic groups.

Nigeria may feel a long way away from Ukraine and Crimea. But matters of international principle are at stake.
On Sunday, the people of Crimea will be asked to make an impossible choice: to vote to be controlled by Russia; or to vote for independence – with no guarantee that Russia will show any more respect for the sovereignty of an independent Crimea than she did for the territorial integrity of an independent Ukraine.