AS we draw one year to a close and begin a fresh new one, there is much excitement in the air. People plan or even write down resolutions for the new year. For some, the resolutions must be strictly pursued and achieved, while, for others, it is just a normal ritual, that is discarded, early in the first month. We have personal expectations, that fall within our purview. We also have expectations from those that, we have given responsibility to govern our common interest. Our leaders also, begin with promises; some of them, they keep and some, they discard as soon as the first month of the year begins. What is our expectation from Jonathan? Is he going to fulfil them, or disregard them, as the normal practice of the Nigerian politician. Let us take them, one by one.

ASUU has resumed duties, after six good months of lost mann hours, in productivity and other collateral damages, in the form of accidents and deaths. The losses cannot be quantified, for example; counterparts of final year students, in the private universities, are months into their National Youth Service programme.

PRIOR to his predicted ouster last Thursday, erstwhile national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, was seen–rightly or wrongly – as the clog in the wheel of the party’s progress. The all-powerful governors within the party never hid their distaste for his style of leadership and they never refrained from saying that it was anything but democratic. The plot for his ouster could have been as old as his tenure as national chairman, a position he assumed in March 2012. With time, the subtle sabotage turned into open threats to his leadership; with five of them eventually making good that threat by quitting to join the opposition All Progressives Congress.

AN international airport is always the first point of contact between and international visitors and the country. Being an international gateway, the airport is where the traveller forms his or her first impressions about the country. This fact is more so if the airport is such a strategic one as the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos that controls almost more than 60 per cent of international flights in and out of the country.

ON January 1, 2014 one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, Vanguard announced winner of its 2013 “Most INNOVATIVE ENTERPRENEUR OF THE YEAR” as Dr. Innocent Chukwuma, Chairman of Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing Ltd.,Nigeria’s first indigenous vehicles manufacturer. Among those that made the Honours list include Alhaji Aliko Dangote, as “AFRICAN OF THE YEAR” and Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta state as “MAN OF THE YEAR”.