As parties are getting set to produce their candidates, we feel the need to reproduce this write-up, first published on October 18 last year. If I were to be as sentimental as people are, I would say the Northeast, my zone, must produce the president in 2023. Many people fight for their people, region, zone or state to produce the president for various reasons. Reasons may range from the fact that a president attracts some goodies to his area. Ministers and other chief executives fall over themselves to site projects where the president comes from. Captains of industry, too, are…

Ibrahim Attahiru would be immensely pleased and appreciative if he could become aware of another passing being commemorated today, indeed this very moment. The connection is that the late Tony Uranta, whose week-long remembrance rites have also commenced in Lagos, and Opobo, shared an article of faith with the late General, namely, that the sustainable security of society is crucially dependent on a tripod whose three legs are: the People, the Army and the government. Thus, the weakness or flaws in any one leg leads to the collapse of society. The mandatory implication of this, in practical terms, is that…

Accosted by a luckless journalist after storming out on the communiqué drafting committee of a new group calling itself Referendum Now, Baba Lekki was full of bile and choleric rage. “Baba, how do you see the pardon of convicted political office holders?” the journalist demanded. “Pardon me!!” the old codger snarled as he shambled away. “How do you see the state of the country?” the journalist demanded. “The country is in quite a state”, the old man growled. “But Itse Sagay said there is nothing wrong with the pardon”, the old hack noted. “You see, Itse has run into a…

The story of football dribbling wizard, Godwin Odiye, is told almost like a legend in Nigerian football. A former Nigerian international defender, Odiye’s football career began to luster when he signed on to play with the third division league side, Nestle and thereafter, National Bank of Lagos. While he featured in the Nigerian national football team that played FIFA World Cup qualifying matches and the 1976 and 1980 African Cup of Nations finals, Odiye’s football achievements paled into insignificance when put beside a 1977 calamity that his foot wrought on the field of play. Gradually, all his remarkable footballing sensations,…