The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Re: Shocking fallout from Alamieyeseigha’s pardon

    •I have just read your column and I thought I should let you know how delighted I am with your humorous play on the pardon matter, and your kindness in letting the whole world know about the con artists who have been going about using my name to swindle people.

    It will interest you to know that one of such persons was in fact convicted by a court of law last year, and his only defence was that he had no option but to use my name because he needed to get a job badly. Hopefully, your piece will further help to caution the unwary. Thank you.

    Reuben Abati, State House, Abuja

    •The state pardon to Alamieyeseigha remains a sore on Nigeria’s redressed good image. The pardon continues to make Nigeria go low in rating regarding a transparent nation. For how long shall they become corruption-shy? And how soon shall they wake up from their slumber of pretence? Who will tell the truth? Whose workable advice will they listen to? The pardon to Alamieyeseigha has dragged Nigeria backwards while our transparency rating has been buried! Our corruption is re-awaken.

    Lanre Oseni

    •Jonathan must have learnt from the experience of David in 1Samuel 22:2. “And everyone that was in distress; and everyone that was in debt; and everyone that was discontented gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them; and there were with him about 400 men.” You know he overcame many battles with his army. Let’s watch and see.

    Olukayode Gbemi.

    •From all indications, the President is surrounded by dare-devil men and women. That Alamieyeseigha was granted pardon should not come as a surprise to any right-thinking Nigerian, bearing in mind the saying that birds of the same plumage flock together.

    Nigeria will never enjoy good governance/democracy if the PDP continues to rule this country. The party is made up of the most devilish people in Nigeria. It has never won and can never win any genuine election in this country. INEC and all the other agencies are PDP-controlled. Hence, the fear to register the APC, the only political revolution that can save Nigeria.

    Pastor Odunmbaku.

    •One day, death will come to all. Then all our intellect, power, wisdom and riches will not be enough to make heaven. The Alamieyeseigha we are judging today, if he has truly repented of his sins and gives his life to Christ, he might make heaven while people who have not given their lives to Jesus might end up in hell. If his Creator has forgiven him, who are we ordinary mortals not to? The Bible says we shouldn’t judge so that we are not judged.

    Isaac Jackson Isele

    •‘Shocking fallout from Alamieyeseigha’s pardo’ is a beautiful reminder to the fact that the President is guilty after the fact of the case of corruption charges against Alamieyeseigha, when both served Bayelsa State as governor and deputy governor. Needless to say more.

    ADEYCorsim, Osodi, Lagos.

  • Mourning Achebe

    Mourning Achebe

    The world has been united in celebrating Chinua Achebe since his passing last week. Commentators have hailed his contributions to learning, for he was a teacher. Essayists have applauded his impeccable literary effort, some of which earned him universal respect and prized awards to boot. Some too have chronicled his life and times, tracing the journey of a boy-child born in Ogidi in present-day Anambra State, who would forge an early pact with the academia, virtually living in the library, churning out a masterpiece at age 28 before passing on at 82 in the United States. Mention was made of his stint in the media, of his involvement in the Civil War, and of his flight overseas where he spent a good part of his memorable life. In the end, everyone seemed agreed that there, encased in a casket in America lies a great man, indeed one of the greatest Africa has produced.

    All of that fills me with a sense of personal gratitude. I feel like saying thank you to all of you for doing your bit in immortalising the great Achebe who, without knowing me helped in shaping my life the way fathers do. I never got closer to him than several metres at an event way back in time, and to this point I will return shortly, but the man had made an indelible impression on me even before that august occasion.

    Yet, for all the outpouring of encomiums, it hurts to note that much cynicism overlay or underlay some of the comments on Achebe. You could pick out the snicker when commentators mentioned his last literary effort “There was a country”. The cynicism was accentuated when analysts tended to minimise him as a tribalist or even credit him with little love for his country.

    If Achebe seemed disenchanted with Nigeria, it should be noted that it really was not about the country but about its leadership. Twice he turned down national honours not because he personally hated Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who first offered it when he was president, or President Goodluck Jonathan who also included the celebrated author on his award list. Achebe never hid his disenchantment with what he perceived as a drift in leadership. Neither was he alone in this grief. Nigerians of different stripes are just as unhappy. Clerics bemoan the state of things. Writers and commentators continuously clamour for a better country. Even some who have accepted national honours have from time to time expressed worry at the profile of a potentially rich country hosting a mass of poor people.

    If Achebe was indeed a tribalist, he was no more than anyone else. Perhaps, his brand of tribalism was of the healthy sort, without poison or blood, machetes or bombs. He was a great man in every sense of the word.

    His Things Fall Apart helped to educate me more than some of my teachers tried. His simple yet profound narrative gripped me as a boy. It held me spellbound as a young man in the university. It reinforced what my HOD, Francis Ngwaba, once said that there is sophistication in simplicity. I found Achebe approachable. He encouraged me to study. But there was more to his works than simple language and unforced plot. He fictionalised the African reality but above that, did his best to correct a warped Western view of the continent and its people. Achebe gave back pride to the African, reminding the world that his history is not one long nightmare.

    For this, accomplished writers continue to praise him, some calling him a trailblazer, some father of modern African literature. Some regret that the Nobel authorities somewhat conspiratorially robbed Achebe of their prized honour. I do too. But I do not bemoan that. For the Nobel would not have made him a more profound writer, only a prize for what he had written. Besides, if he was deliberately ignored, other accomplished literary figures were likewise overlooked. The spite did not detract from their works nor from their worth; it only cast a shadow of doubt on the integrity of the awarding authorities. What indeed can you write to get the Nobel prize?

    Over a decade ago, Achebe delivered one of the Ahajiokwu Lectures in Owerri. I was there and there he was in his wheelchair doing his best wake up the Igbo and work towards a better future. He said Echi di ime, ma taa bu gbo, literally meaning the future may be unknown but you can start today. I cherish that distant meeting.

    There may be a point of disagreement with Achebe, though. He said in his greatest novel that the white man put a knife on the things that held us together and we fell apart. He blamed the white man’s cunning and his religion. I do not know how much of those words frozen in his fiction he lived out in his eventful life. If he really believed the white man erred by knocking down our gods and our shrines and planting his religion on the African soil, I do not. I also believe that this new religion in itself and true form is not injurious to us. Neither does it undermine us as a people. It is the false pretenders to the faith that are the problem.

    Still, I celebrate Achebe’s genius and his impact on the world.

  • Re: Jonathan’s tactical error on Amaechi

    •Thanks for your piece on Jonathan’s tactical error on Amaechi. Wonderful piece. But to me, both Jonathan and Amaechi are right and wrong, all things considered. We are still operating a federal system and not a confederation where the governors would have little or no control from the centre. In the same vein, the presidency needs to be told that our present federal system of administration has given a measure of autonomy to the federating units who should not be expected to dance to every move from Aso Rock without questions, no matter how inadequate.

    There must be a meeting point between the two extremes for the betterment of the country. But if God has heard our cries and is now willing that this corrupt, inept, destructive and divided house of the PDP gives way to a viable alternative, so be it.

    Emmanuel Egwu, Enugu

    •Sometimes I wonder why President Jonathan plans revenge without properly planning  its execution. That is one thing he has tried to copy but failed to learn from OBJ. The day Amaechi won the governorship of Rivers State through legal fireworks, he became too powerful and too dangerous to plan coups against. His brain is his strength while his co-governors are his collateral for all-time survival. They should settle amicably rather than see our President in open disgrace. What is the Board of Trustees doing?

    Lanre Oseni.

    You have done the President and his lackeys a great service by your advice to them on Governor Amaechi. But I wish they ignore the advice so that they can bury the President forever politically. If the President wants to succeed, he should iron out any differences he has with Amaechi and do away with all these bootlickers who are just out to protect their jobs.

    Seye, Akure.

  • Re: Naked lies won’t help, Okupe

    I love your piece titled Naked Lies Won’t Help, Okupe. Okupe abandoned his profession for dirty politics because of his love for big money, and he would go to any length to defend it. He is a medical doctor by mistake. He has found what suits him because it is only in politics that he can lie from both sides of the mouth.

    A medical doctor who left his noble profession for the dirty side of politics cannot be taken seriously because he is chasing money instead of honour. Whatever lies Okupe chooses to tell, he is advised to go and tell it to his kinsmen in his village instead of insulting the sensibilities of Nigerians who are older and wiser than he is.

    We are not complaining about our money being used for his unpatriotic services. The truth of the matter is that the patriotic governors’ visit to Borno State woke the President up from his slumber. His recent visits to Borno and Yobe states were cosmetic. They were meant to save his face. He was afraid to go there, and a leader who is afraid to die for his country cannot exepect his followers to do same. No patriotism in any of us; only opportunism.

    I. Umar

    •It is obvious that the PDP is a collection of men and women of doubtful character. Hence no honest person would be found in their midst. That is the more reason the country is in a big mess. They are congenital liars and merchants of corruption; the people who told the nation that Yar’Adua was hale and hearty when the man was already dead.

    Okupe is after money, not integrity and truth. Buy the truth and don’t sell it. Until we learn to embrace truth, Nigeria will continue to be in darkness. May God save us from shameless, obstinate liars in power.

    Pastor Odunmbaku.

    •Your piece on Dr. Doyin Okupe was apt. He should admit that it was the visit of the 10 opposition governors to Borno that emboldened the President to also visit.

    Engr. Babatunde Lucas, Ibadan.

    •Dr Okupe is seeking relevance. He is working hard to keep his job

    Gordon Chika Nnorom

  • Brics of change and hope

    Brics of change and hope

    This week in Durban, S Africa and for the fifth time in recent times, five nations met for a meeting to determine

    their financial fortunes and future by pooling their resources to help themselves, nations in their various environments and ultimately the whole world. The countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China and S Africa now popularly called the Brics nations – from an acronym of the first letters of their respective names. So its not as if one does not know the correct spelling of bricks as in ‘bricks and mortars’ but I reckon it is better to get used as quickly as possible to the vocabulary of change and hope for the developing nations of the world that the community of Brics nations – the leading global emerging markets represent in the present age and time.

    I explore today the promise of the nations in Brics for a new world order in the light of events concerning them individually in recent times as well as the conclusions and strategy that have emerged from their Durban meeting ; and what that portends for the future of the entire world in terms of growth and prosperity. I also share with readers my experience at the 5th Bola Tinubu Colloquium that I attended at MUSON which had as its theme – Beyond the Merger; ‘A National Movement For Change‘ –A New Generation Speaks -to mark the 61st Anniversary of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State and co author of the best selling book, ‘Financialism‘- How the financial system drains the economy.

    Let me track the Brics nation first by events that concern or emanate from their domains this last week or days. First is Brazil which had to close one of the stadia it is to use for the 2016 Olympics because of stadium cover problems but which just signed a 30bn dollar buffer agreement with China which guarantees it that much in times of liquidity crunch or financial crisis like the global melt down of 2008. Next is Russia whose self- exiled Jewish oligarch Boris Berezosky was said to have died from hanging in London according to British police. India as at now is getting negative publicity from the way its authorities have not been able to nail in the bud the menace of rape in its major cities and towns. The Chinese public on its own is enthralled with the emergence of the beautiful wife of China’s new president Xi Jinping on the world stage and her accompanying her husband on the foreign state visits , a rarity for China’s leaders since the purge of the wife of late Chairman Mao after the Cultural Revolution. Also in spite of the euphoria of hosting the Brics nations’ fifth meeting, S. Africa braces itself for the inevitable as the great but legendary icon, Nelson Mandela, is admitted to hospital for respiratory ailment. Indeed at the Bola Tinubu Colloquium last Thursday, I had to hold my breath when the Chairman of the Colloquium, Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka asked for a moment of silence for the dead as I thought he was going to mention Mandela but it turned out he was remembering the late Chinua Achebe and Chief Wole Awolowo who both died recently.

    Let us go back to the Brics nations, this time as a composite unit. Given the organization of the two – day event preceded by a business forum the Brics Summit seemed to be modeled after CHOGM – the Commonwealth Heads of Governments meeting, which Nigeria hosted in 2005. A Brics Business Forum has been formed as such to deepen economic ties between member nations. Most importantly an Infrastructure and Development Bank is to be formed although not immediately but within a year. In a CNN interview India’s Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram handled the announcement of this calmly but masterfully. He told the frantic CNN reporter anxious about the domiciliation of the Brics Development Bank that the planning has commenced and its location will be agreed by member nations. On the issue of a shift of world economic power from US and Western Europe being on the way, as the questioner said, the Indian Minister eloquently and firmly said the shift of global economic power has already shifted from the west to the east especially Asia and there was nothing anyone can do about it. Which really thrilled me no end the way it was said and that brings me to the crux of the matter and that is that the Durban fifth Brics nations meeting which was an important and historic meeting. To me it is indeed similar to the post second world war Bretton Woods agreement of the victorious allies – mainly US, Britain, and France who set up the World Bank and IMF for infrastructural development and loans under ideological conditions of free market economies and democracy for borrowers, a situation which has brought many economies to poverty and misery subsequently on taking the loans. This has culminated in the unfortunate creation of another acronym on debts and dread of defaults for nations now called PIGS- namely Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain now the pauper nations of the euro zone, being bailed out now by Germany, which itself was reconstructed from the ruins of war by funds provided by the US Marshall Plan. So in effect then the Brics Development Bank will rise out of the collapse or withering away of the Bretton Woods Agreement of yesteryears and its aftermath; and from the ashes of the failed IMF loan conditionalities which had no regard for the social costs inherent in loan conditions of layoffs and austerity measures that treated human capital like cold figures and inanimate objects.

    More importantly though the Brics nations in Durban acknowledged and appreciated the efforts of the euro zone to get out of its financial crisis and is willing to learn from it but will not be hurried unduly on the path of economic growth it has chosen, by the western media. The fact that the first foreign state visit of China’s new President was to Russia and on the way to Durban showed cohesion in the workings and strategies of the Brics nations. As at now China is the biggest global consumer of oil and Russia its biggest supplier and oil is a dollar business and even the US whose currency it is, is not a member of Brics. So who is calling the shots in the global oil business other than these two Brics nations? Surely nobody but them and definitely not the US.

    In the case of Russia whose leader Vladmir Putin followed his Chinese guest to Durban so closely, the death of the Jewish oligarch Berezosky may be a sort of relief given the way Putin and his predecessor in office Boris Yeltsin were beholden to the Jewish oligarchs in Russia. In the early nineties when Yeltsin succeeded Gorbachev in the post Glasnost era and the marketisation of the Russian economy was underway in a highly charged and lawless manner, Yeltsin reportedly needed funds to run the Russian economy and win reelection as the Communists were poised to return to power. Yeltsin then evolved the–loans for shares deal –with the seven oligarchs, six of whom were Jews, and included Berezosky and Chelsea football club owner Abramovich. The deal enabled Yeltsin to have funds and win reelection but left Russia’s prize industries – oil, nickel, aluminium – in the hands of the oligarchs who became immensely rich. Putin too agreed to the deal before coming to power but changed his mind on coming to office in 2001 saying that he would separate power from capital and there will not be any political elite from amongst the oligarchs. He then went after those critical of his regime, which forced some like Abramovich and the late Berezosky into exile – and eventual death for Berezosky.

    Lastly let me make some observations on the Bola Tinubu Colloquium which like the Brics nations Durban Summit was the fifth one. Let me state again that apart from that similarity I see a greater similarity in comparing the great Mandela and the man after whom the Colloquium in Lagos has been named. In different contexts and time both have fought bravely for human rights and democracy. Before Mandela was sentenced to 27 years in jail, he told his prosecutors that he believed that only violent action would bring apartheid down and he said it in open court and even his colleagues were afraid he would be hanged but he was given a long prison sentence instead by the racist regime. On coming to power Mandela ruled with magnanimity and did not unleash the weapons of retaliation, nationalization and confiscation of his neighbor Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, on the whites in S Africa and thus ensured political stability in S Africa till today even as he seems about to make his ultimate rendez vous with mortality.

    At the Bola Tinubu Colloquium Professor Wole Soyinka sounded the alarm that we may be a nation at war without our knowing and it is time to brace ourselves as such, especially with the Boko Haram in the south west. Aside from the Nobel Laureate’s observation however nobody has done more than Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to keep the one party state we have become inadvertently, on its toes in terms of offering alternative leadership and security for our nation and people. He has done this by studying the problems of our unique democracy and coming out with meaningful suggestions and solutions that even his opponents and traducers have to acknowledge in terms of quality except they want to bury their heads in the sand. This is becoming apparent by the quality of his pronouncements on democratic rights, legitimacy, rule of law, the electoral process, federalism as a fiscal concept in theory and in practice in Nigeria , and in the documentation of his role in the democratic struggle against military dictatorship in Nigeria . Here is a leader who has paid his dues in terms of sacrifice, commitment and leadership and is yet not carried away by his immense achievements but is still searching for ways and means to lead in a better way and improve the lot of his nation and people . In this regard I wish him a very happy birthday and find him a worthwhile consolation even as I grieve, perhaps prematurely I hope , on the looming departure of the great Nelson Mandela in S Africa.

  • The insect that heals

    The insect that heals

    It cannot be strange to regular reciters of the Qur’an that there are 114 chapters in that sacred book. Out of these, six chapters are dedicated to the animal kingdom, three of which are specifically dedicated to insects. They are chapters 16, 27 and 29 which are dedicated to ‘The BEE’, ‘The ANT’ and ‘The SPIDER’ respectively.

    Each of these chapters is particularly symbolic of the purpose to which it is dedicated. But it takes only those who can reason to comprehend them. However, our immediate concern here is the insect called ‘BEE’ about which Qur’an 16, verse 68 quoted in this column last week is explicit thus:

    “And your Lord revealed to the bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. “From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as healing (fluid) for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….”

    Honey is like a message. No one can gain access to a message except through the messenger. And the messenger, in this case, is the bee. To appreciate the value of honey and other bee products, it is necessary to know something about the life of the bees.

    Bees are social insects living a communal life under an organised and disciplined government. Bees have male and female genders. Their males are called drones. Their females are known as workers. They all live together in an abode called hive. Such hive may be wild or man-made. Though people had been harvesting honey for thousands of years, it was not until 1851 that the idea of a definite man-made hive came into existence. In that year, an America apiarist, Lorenzo Lorrain Langstroth, discovered the principle of ‘bee space’ and designed a man-made hive that came to be named after him (Langstroth). According to his discovery, bees leave spaces of about 0.6 cm (about 0.23 inches) between wax combs. Thus, Langstroth’s discovery made it possible to remove individual frames from a beehive and to harvest honey and wax without destroying the colony. It also became possible to control diseases in the hive and to maintain a larger number of colonies. (A colony is a hive effectively occupied by bees while an apiary is a place where hives are sited and kept by an apiarist).

    Man-made hives are of three types. These are Langstroth, Kenyan top bar and Tanzanian top bar. Kenyan and Tanzanian top bars are similar in shape and outlook. The one was designed in Kenya while the other was designed in Tanzania in the 1950s and 1962 early 1960s. Each of the Kenyan and Tanzanian hives can contain an average of 20 litres of honey. Langstroth on the other hand can contain as much as between 38 and 40 litres because of its double chamber capacity. To get the bees to occupy a hive, what apiarists do is to bate such hives. And to bate the hive, some pure, genuine honey is added to a piece of beeswax and put at the entrance of the hive. Once this is done, the bees will come in their hundreds to colonise the hive. Thus, it becomes a colony.

    Bees are governed by a female monarch called ‘the Queen’. To choose a Queen, a group of kingmakers in the hive meet to select some fertilised eggs shortly before those eggs are hatched and give them royal incubation. When they are hatched and become princesses, they are then fed with a special food called Royal Jelly to accelerate their growth and facilitate their longevity. After about 16 weeks, one of them is chosen and made the Queen while the rest are either taken out into new hives as Queens or left altogether to slug it out among themselves in a battle of survival. In such a situation, whichever of them emerges as overall winner retains the crown as the Queen of that particular hive. The other fertilised eggs not specially selected for the same purpose are left to grow naturally until they become worker bees.

    Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilised eggs. They neither sting nor work. They are idle in the hive except for mating with an emerging queen which they do only once in a lifetime. As soon as they finish mating, the drones fall down and die as they have completed their destined duty. The queen also mates only once in a lifetime but she does not die as a result. Drones are very few in any hive since the unfertilised eggs that produce them are scantily laid by the Queen. They constitute less than one per cent of the hive population. The other drones which do not participate in mating only loiter around the hive and feed freely from the labour of the workers. Their population is invariably determined by the Queen which lays very few big and unfertilised eggs from which the drones are produced. The worker bees are produced from smaller but fertilised eggs. Only one Queen can be found in a hive at any given time. And she has no deputy. If two or more Queens should meet in the same hive, they will engage in a fight of survival killing one another until only one (the strongest) is left to reign.

    By the natural culture of the bees, the Queen neither mates inside her own hive nor mated by the drones from the same hive. This is similar to the principle of endogamy (marriage within the same family) which is culturally prohibited in most African clans. When it is time for the Queen bee to mate, she produces a glandular secretion with which she sends out a powerful pheromone into the air to alert the drones in other hives that she is ready for mating. A meeting is then arranged by the worker bees, between her and some interested drones, to mate with the Queen. And the mating is done in the air.

    To breed new bees, the Queen bee lays unfertilised eggs in the larger chambers of the bee comb while she lays fertilised ones in the small chambers of the comb. The eggs in the larger chambers are meant for the production of the drones while those in the smaller chambers are meant for the production of the workers. This is because the drones are naturally bigger in size than the workers. Both chambers are expertly designed in the honeycomb by the worker bees for the purpose of breeding. One of the mysteries of the beehives is the building of the honeycomb by the bees. Researchers in the field of apitherapy know that the bees use wax to build honeycomb but they are still puzzled by the natural skill with which those tiny insects do it. An attempt by those researchers to manufacture similar honeycomb as a means of assisting the bees in reducing their workload has proved abortive as the bees have shunned such artificial comb. Honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honeybees in their nest to contain their larvae and store honey and pollen.

    Worker bees are classified into groups for the purpose of carrying out specific duties assigned to them. Some go out every morning to scout for flower nectars with which to produce honey. Some are assigned to the duty of picking resin with which to produce propolis. Some others are charged with fetching water to be used in the hive. All of them travel out in groups of hundreds into the wild vegetations or plantations every morning as a matter of duty. For carrying out such duties, they are called foragers.

    Among the other multitude others remaining in or around the hive, some are responsible for guarding the hive against any foreign attack or aggression. They are the security officers. Some are assigned to carrying out the conversion to honey of the flower nectars brought into the hive by the foragers. Those are the corporate cooks in the hive. Some engage permanently in fanning the interior of the hive with their tiny wings to reduce the heat and neutralise the humidity therein. Those are the ventilators. Some specialise in converting to propolis the resin brought by the foragers. Those are the pharmacists or apothecaries. Some are assigned to the Queen’s kitchen as special cooks and prepare royal jelly for the Queen which is the latter’s exclusive food. Those are the Queen’s royal chefs. Some are kept at the entrance of the hive for monitoring the environment and for passing any gathered information to the busy workers. Those are the informants. Some are put in charge of nursing the young bees into adults. They are the foster mothers. Some are assigned to the building and maintenance of the honeycomb. Those are the colony architects and builders. Some are assigned to sterilising the interior of the hive with propolis and to ceiling any leakages therein as well as to embalming any predators that stray into the hive after such predators might have been stung to death to prevent any outbreak of epidemic in the hive. Those are the sanitary inspectors. All of these duties are carried out by the female bees called worker bees.

    In the performance of their duties, some foragers do alert others about the discovery of sources of raw materials like nectar and pollen in the visited vegetations by doing a “waggle” dance, which explains the direction and distance of those raw materials. If the source is within the range of 100 meters from the hive, the bees dance in a circular shape. If it is further away than 100 meters, they dance in figure 8 shape. Worker bees, by their nature, do travel very far in search of water or raw materials needed to carry out their assigned duties in the hive. And they follow the principle of ‘esprit de corps’ in carrying out such duties.

    This great division of labour is a daily routine which enables perfection to be attained in the hive. And all these activities are centrally co-ordinated by the Queen bee from her palatial chamber. The Queen bee herself is about three times bigger in size than the worker bee. She lays an average of about 2,000 eggs per day. And she lives about 40 times longer than those other bees because of the exclusive diet of Royal Jelly which she takes every day. The average lifespan of an ordinary bee is six weeks. That of the Queen bee is two and a half years but she can live for as long as six years depending on the conduciveness of her royal environment.

     

    When the Queen bee becomes old or weak and can no longer lay enough eggs (of between 1,500 and 2,000 per day) with which to sustain the population of the hive, the kingmakers in the hive meet and decide to depose her by jointly stinging her to death. Then, she is replaced with a new, vibrant Queen.

    The drones (male bees) cannot sting because they are naturally not endowed to do that by virtue of the infertile eggs from which they are produced. Stinging is part of the duties of the worker bees. And each of them can sting only once in a lifetime. No bee can sting twice. That is why they move in groups when they are going for attack on an enemy. Stinging bees are like suicide bombers. They die in less than 30 minutes after they had stung. However, by virtue of her position and the special food she eats, the Queen can sting many times without any fear of death.

    It must be noted that the bees work and produce honey and other products for themselves and not for human consumption. Honey is the food of the bees. They work during the dry season and never in the rainy season because they cannot cope with the wind and storm which often accompany rains. Thus, during the rainy season, they concentrate on taking care of the Queen and on nursing of the younger bees. Therefore, the food which they had stored during the dry season is what they consume during the raining season. It takes an average bee about 21 days to grow into an adult from the egg status while it takes the Queen about 16 day to develop from the egg status to the royal status of a Queen.

    Bees have as much friendly stinging as they have of hostile stinging. Their friendly stinging is for healing purposes. Their hostile stinging is like missiles reserved for attack on enemies. The natural sac in which their venom is kept at the tail end of their abdomen is called ‘ovipositor’. Bees also have three ways of communicating among themselves. These are through buzzing by the collective clapping of their wings; through pheromone released by the Queen and through certain dancing styles. They have eight of such dancing styles each with comprehensible connotation. The number of honey bees inhabiting a hive at a time may range from 10,000 to 100,000 depending on the size of the hive and its proximity to the needed raw materials.

    The Queen bee mates with about six to eight drones, only once in a lifetime. And this is done over a period of two to seven days. And she must fly to at least a height of 20 metres in the air before mating. This is to maintain royal privacy and avoid unnecessary disturbance. There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. But the most prominent ones in relation to human life are seven. These are Bumble Bees; Carpenter Bees; Honey Bees; Killer Bees; Ground Bees and Yellow Jackets Bees. Some worker bees are stingless. But generally, the world of bees is a wonderful one. It takes those who know it to appreciate its value. Without bees, there will be neither crops nor farmers. No amount of narration here can expose all about the communal life of the bees. Their story is inexhaustible.

     

    Identifying genuine honey

    Following the publication of an article in this column last Friday entitled ‘The Prophet’s Medicine’, many readers of this column (not less than 401, as of last Tuesday when this piece was being put together), have called yours sincerely or sent messages wanting to know how genuine honey can be recognised. This column has no choice but to oblige since readers, like customers, are kings and queens.

    A genuine honey can be recognized in two simple ways thus:

    (1) By dropping a little quantity of honey in a transparent glass of water. It should ordinarily go straight to the bottom of the water and stay there without mixing with the water. If it mixes, consider it as either debased or not genuine.

    (2) By dropping a little quantity of honey on a small portion of sand (not soil). It should ordinarily stay on top of such sand without sinking. If it sinks then it is not genuine. There are other ways by which genuine honey is tested. But those two ways should suffice for now. The idea that ants do not go near a genuine honey has no basis. Ants will go for anything sweet anywhere. The only reason why ants are careful about honey is its gummy nature. Ants have six legs. If they are not careful about their approach to honey they may get trapped in it. Thus, when the ants want to consume honey, they put only two legs forward and retain the other four backwards to enable escape getting trapped in gummy honey.

    Besides, consummation of honey by human beings has rules and regulations. For instance honey should not be put in any hot substance like tea or pap. Such substance should be allowed to cool down to a warm level before honey can be added to it. Otherwise, one will merely be consuming the fructose in honey and not the vital properties like enzymes in it which are of high benefit to the body system.

    Finally, looking at the communal life of the bees as well as the style of government in the beehive, no sensible person will disagree with an Arab poet who once coined a couplet part of which reads thus:

    “…..And in every creature, there is a natural sign confirming not only the true existence of Allah but also His indisputable oneness”. God bless the readers of ‘THE MESSAGE’.

  • Gods and clay toys (1)

    Idiots as fragile as clay toys evolve into out-sized heroes and gods, on our watch. But even gods grow out abandoned, writes the late Christopher Okigbo. I would say, “writers too.” But not Chinua Achebe. Achebe died and Africa mourns. The novelist whose engaging literature taught the world to read and understand from an African perspective died at 82 and his demise is felt across literary tropes and political cultures.

    In Nigeria, Achebe’s death reignites a seductive dirge; a ritual culture of requiem and colourful superlatives. Politicians froth with doctored and hardly-felt regret around their over-fattened lips and literary buffs compose tributes with obscene and overwhelming lyricism. Yet none is perhaps as impressive as the mainstream media’s glorification of Chinua Achebe.

    At his death, Achebe not only made “cover page,” he commandeered the first five pages of many a flagship newspaper. And he didn’t have to spend a dime to achieve such impressive feat. What height politicians and conglomerates burn a fortune to attain, he used mere words and a fertile imagination to ascend.

    Alive, Achebe lightened many a thunder by his words; in death, he commands seductive shrieks of wonder and appreciation. Such is the quality of life and manhood of Chinua Achebe. It doesn’t matter how skewed or alluring he was in politics and candour, everybody remembers Achebe as one good thing that happened to Nigerian literature. In his death, the world relives his quality as a man and African.

    How do journalists die? How do journalists live to be precise? Do we merit such honour and appreciation like we confer on Chinua Achebe? Do we at least merit the passing tribute of a sigh at our demise? Is there such person amongst us that excites interminable tributes, poetry and superlatives like Chinua Achebe?

    The time for pleasuring ourselves will soon be over and like failures eternally condemned to self-fellate, on ego and all that vanity ever gives; many of us will pass in spasms of insignificance and self-love. The world has seen the swollen belly of our pride; it is nothing to write home about. Nothing excites, nothing moves, nothing encourages anyone to go to bat for our cancerous pride.

    We have failed to become worthier than our bylines. And our bylines aren’t really worth much to be precise. Yet every time we see it, we feel like some gift. Gift to whom? Gift indeed. How narcissistic can we get? We, whose answers to national riddles have become trite. We, who bandy inappropriate cliché as solution to avoidable conflict pretend to be worth more than disposable pawns in the scheme of things.

    A simple lust is yet our woe; the lust for unearned riches and self-love. It drives many a practicing journalist beneath the bounds of ethics and above it. But no matter how significant we pretend to be, we are actually worth nothing in the eyes of our benefactors and “friends in high places.”

    This is some truth we love to ignore simply because it’s therapeutic to do so. Every journalist on the beat is on a string to some puppeteer. Be it on Crime, Politics, Business, Aviation, Entertainment and Society beat, everybody kowtows to the wiles of some contemptible deep-pocket, to the detriment of society and journalism practice.

    But many of us would never admit this much; rather we love to argue that we “operate on a higher level.” We have learnt to claim that by virtue of “quality journalism” that we practice, we get to hobnob daily with “the crème-de-la-crème of Nigeria’s high society.” And thus is the ultimate fulfillment to many of us.

    It is however, fascinating to note that many of us are actually kept on a leash by our so-called “high society,” like dogs. Our so-called “clients,” benefactors or friends in high places do not think much of us.

    That is why they agree to an interview and request for the interview questions in advance. They think many of us are incapable of normal conversation and informed questions and follow-up questions hence their robotic repetition of what their “personal assistants” or “media person” tell them to say. That is why they prefer an email interview but get their “media person” to write the answers. That is why they agree to a two-hour interview session and shorten it to 15 minutes on the spot.

    Our so-called “big friends” in high society liken the Nigerian journalist to scum of the earth, that is why they invite journalists to their offices for an interview session only to keep them waiting for two or three hours in order to tell them that they can only do the interview if they can grant full copy approval before publication. That is why they invite journalists to their events only to tell security operatives on site to prevent them from getting into the venue. The embarrassment and shame will encourage humility and show the journalist who’s boss.

    I do not know why an average journalist needs to blindly believe that he can attain relevance only by courting and serving as publicity pawn to his so-called “friends in high places.” It’s amazing to see journalists engage in heated altercation and fisticuff over accusations of “stealing” and “courting” of each other’s “friends in high places.”

    Many of us are a pathetic fraud. We make a show of friendship and intimacy with our so-called privileged friends although the latter do not consider us worthier than vermin or intolerable hacks. Many of us have nothing to say, do we? We have no more stories to tell or hope to offer to folk who still wander to the newsstands hopes aglow, every day, seeking answers to timeless conundrums on the pages of our colourful prints.

    What answers can we give? What remedy can we flaunt past the trite banalities we haughtily couch as columns, and most times, “Our Stand?” But the readers hardly know better. They never know better and those that think they do would buy into our finest delusion as long as they can identify with it and as long as it fetes their vanities while they do the spirited waltz in the intellectual trash can of public discourse.

    Talk is still cheap. It is yet the proverbial staple that keeps compatriots who know no better, glued to our sensational news prints. Still they seek answers but we have no answers to give, do we? Just more sensation and rhetoric.

    Nobody actually learns from us anymore. Every journalist is seen as an attack dog or junkyard dog for a variety of interests and “high society.” Having pretended to have answers to everything, we have no more answers to give. And our l usual alternatives are tainted by our vanities and grief; twin-miseries for which we have no tongue.

    Every day we see that we are not ready for the travails of the inflamed distance. We know the darkness of our practice and the perversions in our hearts and yet pay lip-service to evolving a practice worthy of the humane and the heroic. This is not to deny the existence of the few good ones among us but their paltry band isn’t enough balm to soothe our practice’s festering sores.

    • To be continued…

  • What makes this Friday good?

    What makes this Friday good?

    According to convention, this is a Good Friday. It is also a Holy Friday. And convention is what human beings create and stick to. It is our tradition of doing things and naming events. There is a paradox here.

    From the perspective of the God who ordained the birth and death of Jesus the Christ, whatever He does is good, and that includes the sacrifice of a son. But for us as humans, we tend to see things differently. We would not be humans if we don’t. So, we consider death in whatever form or shape as bad.

    In the particular case of the death of Christ on the cross, it is not only the manner of the death but the intrigue that caused it that was extremely bad and evil. He was wrongly accused of treason and blasphemy. He was maltreated by his accusers. He was mocked. There was a palpable miscarriage of justice. In the midst of it all, he was calm and cool. In that regard, the day on which his unjust killing occurred must be judged a bad day for all intents and purposes—that is, from our human point of view. If it happened to any of us, and we were in a position to pass judgment, we would curse the day it occurred. Therefore, if by convention we have come to recognise the day on which the messiah was crucified as good, there better be a good explanation and justification.

    There is an explanation and, humanly speaking, it is a selfish one. For Christians, the death on the cross is even a happier and merrier occurrence than the birth in the manger because without it, salvation is impossible. Therefore, for the salvation of humans, Christ must die on the cross and resurrect from the grave. The assumed consequence of death on the cross—the salvation of humans—is good. Therefore the means to that consequence is good. Even the elders who prosecuted and judged Christ made the point that it is alright that one should die so that the many may be saved.It is a utilitarian reasoning.

    Let us assume that this is a valid reasoning and there is something good in the death on the cross and therefore this is indeed a Good Friday. Shouldn’t we also expect at least believers in the sacrifice that made possible the salvation of souls follow suit? Shouldn’t the example be a model for leaders and followers at least in Christendom? His was a life of simplicity. His armour was truthfulness. He delivered a message of hope and redemption. He not only empathised with the poor, he also blessed them with sustenance. And while he abhorred sin, he did not reject sinners; he dined with them.

    Two thousand years after the supreme sacrifice of the one we claim to follow, many Christians, including those in the leadership rank of all stripes and collars have only paid lip service to the creed of the messiah. They complicate what is a simple message of love and sacrifice. They are pretenders and impostors who draw crowds of sycophants through means other than Christ. They court satanic powers to attract membership to their congregation and expect the spirit of Christ to fall on them! They sell their halls of worship to the highest bidder and hope that the God who noticed and recognised the widow and her mite is not attentive. And while they condemn corruption from the pulpit, they are not ashamed to receive the bounties that corrupted hands deliver.

    No one preaches or expects perfection. Even the messiah who reflected the perfection of God was humble enough to attribute perfection to God alone. But there is an expectation that spiritual leaders have the responsibility to lead by example and not just by words, in the observance of the teachings of Christ. Instead, in many congregations, the human inclination to division by rank and the promotion of inequality instead of the egalitarian teaching of Christ has been the order. We identify spiritual kinds with some higher than others and the concept of the priesthood of all believers is jettisoned. Christ taught his disciples that he was their only Teacher and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth teacher. He told them that their only Father was in heaven and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth Father. He taught them that whoever was greatest among them shall be their servant. And he demonstrated this by washing their feet.

    Christ lived a simple human life but was not a proud and haughty human. He dined with sinners; he drank wine; he associated with an adulterer without condoning adultery, and he revered the Sabbath day without worshipping it, which was one of the reasons he was rejected by the Pharisees.

    On our part, we have substituted for Christ’s teachings the Big-man philosophy of religion. In this philosophy, what really matters is how big the followership is, and how much power and resources we are able thereby to control. No wonder that even as churches litter the nooks and crannies of our streets, the evils of cultism, kidnapping, and armed robbery are on the rise. Sure, we condemn the evils that eat at the soul of the individual perpetrators without harming others, but we condone those evils that harm others but benefit the perpetrator.

    On this remembrance of an otherwise bad day which by convention we have come to regard as good because we believe that it was the moment our salvation was bought with the blood of the innocent, it behooves all Christians to truly imbibe the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the cross. If we truly believe that He sacrificed his life so we can gain salvation, it is our obligation to make humanly possible sacrifices so the downtrodden, the rejected and forgotten in our midst may live a live that is dignified and decent. It is not the magnificence of a cathedral that matters; it is the spirit of giving that we imbibe in the hearts of men and women that God appreciates.

    If the foregoing sounds like a sermon; it isn’t. It is only a sober thought and reflection on our spiritual heritage in the age of ostentatious spirituality, an oxymoron in itself.

  • Like Mali, like Nigeria

    When reality struck me smack in the face, I could not cry; I actually laughed out loud as if to say, Nigeria, “I dey laugh o!” To think that Nigeria, a crumbling entity actually sent troops to Mali to quell insurgency! On a second thought, it occurred to me that our presence in Mali is not altogether altruistic; it is largely because there is some dollars to share. I will not discuss here, the number of military trucks, armoured personnel carriers and assault rifles Nigeria to make her fit to embark on a foreign peace mission. The question today is that is Nigeria truly more stable than Mali? Is it more secure, is it better governed and better led?

    Reality check

    Not that one didn’t have an inkling of the dire situation the polity in enmeshed in especially under President Goodluck Jonathan’s watch, but reality dealt me a dirtier slap when I read a report of a terrorist attack in Yobe state last Monday. Let me present the report verbatim as carried by National Mirror newspaper(Tuesday, March 26, 2013, page47):

    “Gunmen yesterday morning attacked the Bara Divisional Police Station in Yobe State killing one police man.

    “Bara is the headquarters of Gulani Local Government Area of the state.

    “Sources said that the attack began at about 1:00 am and lasted for about two and half hours.

    “The attackers burnt the police station and went away with the three cars parked in the premises.

    “The Yobe State Commissioner of Police, Mr Sanusi Rufai who confirmed the incident to journalists in Damaturu, the state capital, said though the police station was burnt with rocket propelled launcher and explosive devices, the attack was repelled by security operatives .

    “He also said that the police man killed was a corporal, adding that the slain victim was slaughtered by the gunmen in his residence at about 5:00 am after the attack on the police station.

    “The attackers, according to the police boss, also destroyed MTN and Glo telecoms masts.

    “The gunmen also carted away three local government vehicles.

    “The commissioner, however, said no arrests had been made in connection with the attack and no individual or group had claimed responsibility.”

    This attack comes exactly one week after the massive devastation of the New Luxury Bus Park in Sabon Gari, Kano, also in the Northwest of Nigeria. Yobe is a vast swath of border state. So are Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, kwara and even Oyo and Ogun. These states deserve special security attention, to say the least. From the account of the attacks in Yobe, it is obvious any notion of security in Nigeria is merely a ruse; we seem to be living by sheer Grace. For such a sensitive state where attacks have been rampant in the last two years, security is still virtually non-existent. This explains why a gang of hoodlums would operate for four hours (1pm to 5am), sacking police station, LGA office, damaging telecoms facilities and driving away with about six vehicles without a trace; they could have had breakfast if they wanted.

    Stories like Yobe’s are happening everyday across Nigeria. Last Friday, in Ganye town which is the headquarters of Ganye LGA in Adamawa State, gunmen stormed the Ganye Prisons, overpowered a combined team of Mobile Police, soldiers and other armed forces to free about 127 prisoners. About 25 people lay dead after the attack including the deputy comptroller in charge of the prison, Mallam Baba Musa. In Benue, the Tivs and the Nomadic Fulani are engaged in a killing spree; kwara, Ebonyi, Cross River, are theatres of communal wars with security agent over-powered and in retreat. Plateau State’s matter is a full-fledged debacle where perhaps, more Nigerians have been slaughtered than cattle in the last 10 years. Just last Tuesday, 28 people were killed and several villages razed in an overnight raid in Ryom Local Council. As has always been the case, Ryom could have been a jungle or the centre of the Kalahari Desert for there was no sign of government or security presence as the blood fest went on. In the south-south and south-east parts of the country, kidnappers and ritualists reign as security agencies wish they would be left alone.

    Where there is no government

    The reality that should be poking sticks into our eyes is that this entity has buckled terribly. Henry Okah, master-mind of the Abuja the bomber was tried and jailed in South Africa last Tuesday; James Ibori, was jailed in London recently but hardly any high profile criminal can be convicted or jailed in today’s Nigeria because our leaders have been castrated by corruption and our institutions suborned. The reality that most of us are wont to deny is that all else has failed in Nigeria except the stream of oil revenues that our leaders steal and fritter away as soon as they are earned.

    Our reality, which we tend deny, is that there is hardly any governance going on in Nigeria today. Yes, we see some governors and ministers deigning to do some work but they are not governing; they are merely executing odd, oft ill-conceived projects. Governance by a simple definition is working the institution, not working the helmsman. Therefore, while there are a few projects going on in some towns and city centres, a vast swath of space is overlooked along with larger population. Most of the 774 LGAs across the land are untouched, ungoverned and famished. Hardly any socio-economic activities go on there as the state governors hijack and squander the funds meant for this tier.

    Again, our unspoken reality is that our hinterlands are so withered and wasted that any band of boys with as many as six assault rifles could seize a chunk of the country and have the police, army, airforce running helter-skelter in their usual reactionary mode. Such is our reality and our predicament. Our naked reality is that Nigeria is no better than Mali today and if we knew any better, the UN should be considering a standby troop for Nigeria before the last few cords snap. Our REAL reality is that the current leadership lacks the capacity to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Our leaders are only single-minded about holding power; what a pity, blind people desperate to rule a dead country.

    FEED BACK: Re: Kano Blast: Second pogrom

    I refer to your Expresso column of Friday March 22. Islam has nothing to do with terrorism. Christianity is the bloodiest religion on earth, ask the Jews. No Muslim is happy with what is happening in the North and we pray that God will expose those behind Boko Haram. Mr. Steve do you know that some Christians were arrested trying to bomb their own church? Boko Haram is killing everybody, Hausa, Muslims included. I have lost brothers and sisters to Boko Haram. These people are not Muslims for God’s sakes; we are not happy and we do not support Boko Haram. 07066580774.

    Stevo, great article you served us today on the Kano blasts. But it is very glaring that you are an ‘Igbo chauvinist’. You portrayed it as if Igbos are the only traders in Nigeria. For your information, there are other tribes (Yoruba, Tiv, even Hausa)in the buses and even in the park. Try to be more Nigerian in your write-ups as opposed to being a tribal jingoist. Taiwo 07038561808

    Have you identified the victims? If not, stop insulting the memories of other non-Igbo victims of this senseless mayhem. 08035963413

    You wrote well on the Kano blasts but you forgot your Christian brothers in the middle belt and other parts of the North as per creation of a new country. Barr Adam Smith kure, KDHA, 08067139490.

  • The APC acronym war

    It is not difficult to dismiss the claim by ACN that Attahiru Jega’s INEC has merged with PDP as an over exaggeration. Jega’s last Saturday’s outing and pronouncements while speaking on a live audience participation Radio Nigeria Hausa programme, Hanu Dayawa, on the then raging APC acronym war however seemed to give further credence to Muhammadu Buharis’s often repeated claim that there is only a thin line separating INEC and PDP. Curiously, Jega’s tone, choice of words and body language, seemed to be in tandem with both PDP and the phantom APC. As expected, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, also called attention to INEC seeming support for what it describes as ignoble and subversive role of PDP in an attempt to register a proxy “African People’s Congress “to forestall the registration of the authentic APC.

    Before Monday’s INEC announcement of the rejection of African People’s Congress’ application for breaching Section 222(a) of the 1999 Constitution (As amended), the only thing the proposed party, PDP and INEC seemed to have in abundance for the opposition was contempt. For instance, while Kingsley Nnadi, of the phantom APC spoke of “just one APC (African People’s Congress)”, insisting, “the other APC only did mere negotiation”, PDP claimed “the APC and its component parties—the ACN, CPC, ANPP and others—only advertised their boastful and deceitful…” which is not markedly different from Jega’s “only one group came… saying they want to form a political party with a particular name and while this was going on, some people started making noise saying that they wanted to merge with so, so name”.

    Neither can we find something more parallel than Nnadi’s “the unveiling of our party today has finally put to rest the contention over APC, which one is authentic or not” and the INEC chairman’s “Somebody first came with the name and …if you want your application to be considered, go and change your name because it is not possible to register three groups with the same name”.

    PDP’s description of the opposition as engaging “in leaping jamboree and propaganda , the hallmark of political naivety, painlessness” is not dissimilar to Jega’s “We only read in the newspapers that they have the intension of merging …If anybody wants to register a political party, you are expected to tell INEC of your intention”.

    But while Jega played the ostrich, Nigerians knew all along that Ugochinyere Ikenga, the secret promoter of the now rejected phantom APC, apart from being a card carrying member of the PDP, was known to have been involved in such hatchet jobs within the ruling party. It was reported he once tried to stop the emergence of a former national chairman of the party, Okwesiliezi Nwodo from assuming office, and in another instance, precisely on March 10, 2012, went to court in an attempt to stop Bamanga Tukur from vying for the position of PDP national chairman.

    And in spite of Jega’s body language, what was not lost on Nigerians, was the parallel between PDP/ presidency’s alleged sponsored proxy APC whose public face was Ikenga and Babangida’s secretly sponsored Arthur Nzeribe’s Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) that was used to truncate the Third Republic by desperate military politicians who ironically bred most of the current thieving members of the ruling class.

    But reading in between the lines, what should be of concern to Nigerians was Jega’s apparent indifference to, or acquiescence with PDP or any other group that may wish to employ immoral approach to secure special advantage in the 2015 election.

    This has been the bane of our politics dating back to the First Republic when ruling parties and electoral officers technically disqualified opposition candidates by not making application forms available until too late. We have since graduated from there to the fourth republic when elections which Obasanjo defined as a “do or die affair” are brazenly rigged while opposition candidates are told to go to court.

    Elections may have become a zero sum struggle for power here and elsewhere in Africa, but it is the responsibility of privileged individuals like Jega who swore to an oath of allegiance to Nigeria to prevent those determined to acquire power through immoral means. Our experience has shown one immoral step begets another or more immoral reactions.

    Babangida’s annulment of the most credible election in our nation’s history produced Sonekan’s short lived immoral interim government which in turn produced an equally immoral Abacha regime, the most brutal in the nation’s history

    We hailed Obasanjo who lost election in his ward in 1999 for his political brinkmanship when he outmaneuvered the Afenifere Yoruba elders in 2003. Obasanjo’s immoral acts of 2003, led to routine removal and replacement of governors, visitation of unprecedented level of violence and political assassinations in the whole of South-west including his Ogun State where the governor chased the state’s elected law makers out of town. Other Obasanjo’s immoral acts include forcing government contractors to make contributions towards the building of a private library and an attempt to manipulate constitutional amendment exercise to secure a third term in office, an exercise Ken Nnamani, the then Senate President claimed cost the nation over N10b.

    Today we reap the effect of our collective perfidy of supporting President Jonathan’s immoral upturning of his party’s zoning policy which first brought him into the limelight. We all, including men of God, hailed him as the scourge of the Hausa/Fulani hegemonic feudal lords. It was not too long when we started reaping what we sowed as he slapped the people with an increase in pump price of oil from N65 to N140. He has continued to keep those accused of corruption in his cabinet without giving a damn and only last week granted an amnesty to a convicted former Bayelsa State governor who is still facing charges in Britain.

    As the battle for 2015 unfolds, the power of the governor’s forum is undermined while the level of corruption has assumed new proportions as funds are needed for the battle ahead. And for this ‘do or die ‘electoral battle, no promises are too sacred to break. Early this week, Edwin Clark, President Jonathan’s godfather asserted that even if there was an agreement between the president and northern state governors to serve only one term, the president is not obliged to keep it. His justification: Niger state delegates voted for Abubakar Atiku in the 2011 PDP primary. And in any case, Clark who has nothing to teach the youths wondered if it is not on record that Niger State “voted overwhelmingly for Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) of the CPC who scored a total vote of 652,574 against President Jonathan’s 321,429 in the last Presidential election”.

    The executive cannot be trusted as they do not respect even their own laws and personal undertakings; the law makers are lawless as they struggle to usurp the functions of the executive, and our judiciary that shields the powerful and their children has become the sanctuary for the depraved. Less than 20% of our people have confidence in the fourth estate of the realm that has chosen to celebrate criminals and others whose activities they are to monitor instead of protecting the people.

    Our frustrated jobless youths ask us daily the way forward. The only answer we have for them is election of credible people who are ready to put the interest of the people before their own. The only group capable of rekindling hope in our youths is Jega and his privileged crew, beckoned upon by circumstances to perform an historic role at this point in our nation’s history. They will need more than legal provisions and its inherent loop holes in this arduous task.