IN the last few weeks, the issue of the abduction of nearly 200 students of a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State has been largely politicised. Rarely are the real mothers of the girls seen these days on television as some really concerned women and opportunists have taken the centre stage and relishing the attendant publicity, while the parents have been pushed to the background.

When the abduction of over 200 girls took place in Chibok a day after the first Nyanya Bomb blast my heart bled. My heart bled for the girls. My heart bled for the parents and relations, and my heart bled for Nigeria my country. I remembered my good friend, brother and classmate Dauda N. Iliya. We grew up together in Mubi. Had our primary Education in Mubi before going to Federal Government College Warri for our Secondary Education. He is today at the National Secretariat of USOSA, the umbrella body of all old students of Unity Schools in Nigeria. He is as much a son of Mubi as myself, perhaps even more since he has direct telephone contact with the Emir of Mubi. But his roots are in Chibok.

NIGERIA is an extremely corrupt country. With the exception of an eccentric few, the generality of Nigerians are corrupt. Corruption has permeated and pervaded every Nigerian institution and every spectrum of her social life.

FROM the beginning of President Jonathan’s administration, the argument has raged on whether he will recontest or not when his first term expires in 2015.

NO public commentator has as yet delivered as robust an analysis of the forthcoming 2015 presidential election as a regular columnist in the Vanguard, the intrepid Femi Aribisala. In a recent article, titled: “The 2015 presidential election will not be televised”, Aribisala presented a reading of the watershed election and postulated: “If, as many believe, Goodluck Jonathan is going to run for re-election in 2015, then the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be Goodluck Jonathan.”