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Tag: journey

Abia at 23: Journey so far
By August 27, Abia State will be 23 years old having been created out of the old Imo State by the General Ibrahim Babangida administration in 1991. Scientifically, the age of maturity for human being is 12 years, but at 23, solid foundation is being laid in Abia State for the first time. This is because since its creation, successive governments in the state, especially during the military era, ran its affairs with impunity and recklessness. But they did not do it without the collaboration of some civilians from the state who served as their conduit pipes.

Under the guise of businessmen and government contractors, they registered phony companies and government contracts were awarded to them and funds released to them. At the end, no contract would be executed and nobody would ask for the refund of the public funds already paid into their pockets.

That was the kind of leadership provided for the state for more than a decade. The hope and expectation of the people for a change in the status quo with the inception of democracy in the country in 1999 was never to be a dream come true. This was because the same characters that connived with the military leaders to impoverish and under-develop the state for almost a decade ploughed the looted funds into the politics of the state and hijacked the political leadership.

So nothing changed in terms of leadership style, aside change from military rule to civilian democracy.

Between 1999 and 2007, there was no sign of governance in the state, especially in the area of infrastructural development, youth empowerment and peaceful atmosphere. The state then ranked top in the promotion of unnecessary political controversies to attract undue attention from the public and media.

Decayed infrastructures begging for government’s attention were abandoned, while elected and appointed office holders built business empires and those of their family members, converting government assets into family assets at will. The state-owned newspaper was destroyed.

Voodoo politics was also introduced in the state and an intriguing matriarchy took charge of government decisions, while the son became the ceremonial leader of the state. A suburb in Bende council area of the state became a Mecca of sorts for politicians seeking appointment into the state government. Nobody dared ask question or criticise government’s policies or actions, which were in most cases anti-people. That was the democracy dividend for the impoverished people of the state then. There was no difference between the military and democratic era in the state. It was as if things were better in the military days.

By the time the second term of the government expired in 2007, the state was left worse than it was met in 1999 in terms of decayed infrastructure, absence of quality and access roads, a health sector in shambles as residents sought medical attention in neighbouring states. The state of education was pathetic, and the rate of examination malpractices was at the peak as special centres that encourage examination malpractices became dominant in the state than public schools. The state debt profile was as high as N29.9 billion.

No foundation was laid for the incoming government to stand and take off from. The civil service meant to drive government’s policies was bogged by petty and clannish politics, encouraged by the government. The state capital Umuahia remained the same glorified village it was upon its creation in 1991.

Assuming office in 2007, Governor Theodore Orji, came with a vision and blueprint on how to transform the state, but his predecessor on whose party’s platform Orji was elected had a different agenda which was maintaining the status quo in the state. Stifled and hounded on many fronts, Orji was just a figurehead and the system at the national level encouraged the situation at that point. Having seen it all in government as Chief of Staff for eight years, Governor Orji tarried for the best time to strike and liberate the state from the menace of godfatherism, a feat he achieved before the 2011 general elections, after due consultations with the people on what they wanted. Thereafter, the state breathed air of freedom. And since then, Orji’s government has been in hurry to cover the lost ground. It is no doubt a daunting task, but the government has remained resolute and focused even in the face of numerous financial challenges.

As one can witness in the state today, there is no incessant political crisis especially in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). This is because of Orji’s peaceful and developmental approach to governance. A development that has made the people of the state to now sit down and discuss the way forward for the state without any reservations. A new Government House befitting of a state is nearing completion in the state capital Umuahia now. So also is an Ultra-modern International Conference Centre, a New Workers’ Secretariat completed and occupied by the civil servants. Also completed and being used now is the Ubani Ibeku International market, Amuba Housing Estate, Isieke Housing Estate, Ohiya Power station, more than 350 kilometre roads constructed and rehabilitated.

Also not left in the health revolution in the state is the Umunneto General Hospital which the state government has given a facelift by the massive construction of new structures, and equipping it with modern facilities. The hospital which was before now a shadow of its former self can now compete with any modern hospital in Nigeria and beyond in all ramifications.

At the commercial city of Aba, the government has constructed a modern auditorium at the Specialist Hospital Abayi, for student doctors of Abia State University Teaching Hospital. Millions of naira was released to the management of the hospital for speedy completion of ongoing project in the hospital to ensure that patients get quality medical service and students graduate as at when due.

The same treatment has been meted to the Nursing department of teaching hospital whose accreditation process that has stagnated for years now is nearing completion.

Before 2007, only two Schools of Nursing in the state were fully accreditated, but presently seven Schools of Nursing have been fully granted accreditation by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. Also, the School of Health Technology Aba, School of Nursing Umuahia, Uzuakoli Tuberculosis and Leprosy Centre have witnessed massive rehabilitation and expansion.

Also in partnership with EU-Prime, the state government has distributed more than 20 vans to the council areas in the state for effective immunization of children against polio and other sicknesses. And in line with Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, the government has built over 250 health centres across the 17 council areas in state. Most of the centres, which are mainly located in the rural areas, have been equipped. Health personnel have been posted to the already completed and equipped centres with good incentives such as accommodation and means of transportation to encourage them and make their work easier. Some of the centres without resident doctors have visiting doctors attached to them and qualified nurses permanently attached to attend to the patients with the visiting doctors coming regularly.

The present government has also paid all the counterpart funds relating to HIV/AIDS programmes in the state and for other health agencies that have anything to do with HIV/AIDS. Due to the impressive performance of the state in reproductive health in partnership with United Nation Funds For Population Activities, UNFPA, the state remains the only one in the South-east zone selected for participation in UNFPA. In addition, the organization has selected the state as its zonal headquarters.

There is also the radical reformation of the state civil service which has eliminated quackery, non-challance while promoting competence and professionalism. The intervention in education sector has been great and encompassing with the building and rebuilding of state-owned public schools, funding the sector adequately and others.

What is paramount now is sustaining the situation and improving on it to ensure that the dark years of locust and looting will not find its way back to the government of the state. So ahead of 2015 general elections, all hands must be on deck to ensure that people of questionable characters will not find their way into the Abia Government House.
- Elder Ugbuaja, wrote from Ukwa-west, Abia State
August 21, 2014
‘Varsity project not a day journey’

From a humble start, the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University (IBBU) in Lapai, Niger State, has grown in academic and infrastructure, courtesy of its Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ibrahim Adamu Kolo. WALE AJETUNMOBI reports.

Three years after it was licensed to operate, the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University (IBBU) in Lapai, Niger State, faced the hurdle of accreditation for its 26 academic programmes.

The accreditation team of the National Universities Commission (NUC) gave a deadline for the exercise but the institution’s major headache was lack of requisite facilities.

In the midst of this, the school was embroiled in crisis, which led to the removal of its first Vice-Chancellor (VC). For six months, the institution was administered by an interim management until Prof Ibrahim Adamu Kolo was appointed as the substantive Vice-Chancellor on January 1, 2010.

On resumption, Prof Kolo was faced with some challenges, which include getting the courses accredited since the school was preparing to churn out its first set of graduates. His major task was to stabilise things and put in place infrastructure that would aid the accreditation.

How did he go about it? Prof Kolo, who spoke to this reporter in his office, said: “I had a choice either to fail the accreditation or to go and plead with NUC to shift the date for us. When I got to the NUC office, the Executive Secretary, being an experienced academic and conversant with universities’ challenges, gave us reprieve to go back and start the accreditation process again. A new date was set and it would expire in three months.”

To get the courses accredited, the management needed to put in place facilities, including municipal facilities, laboratories, blocks of classrooms in all faculties, offices for lecturers, functional libraries and teaching personnel, among others. These facilities were either inadequate or not readily in place for the exercise.

“I had to convince the state government that we needed money to provide those things,” Prof Kolo said, describing Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu as an educationist, who knows the value of education.

“The governor immediately approved over N260 million for us to commence the accreditation process. Since then, the subvention of the university became stable. The money helped us to develop a strategic plan in preparation for the accreditation,” he said.

Four weeks before expiration of the deadline, according to the VC, substantial parts of the accreditation requirement were put in place, while the university waited for the NUC team for the exercise.

Prof Kolo said: “When the NUC team came for the exercise, 24 programmes being offered by the university were granted full accreditation. This is how we started the repositioning of the institution to meet world-class standard.”

After surmounting the accreditation hurdle, the Prof Kolo-led management was faced with improving on the quality of teaching and providing more infrastructure to meet the standards of higher institutions.

He said: “University project is not a one-day journey. It is one that requires a systemic planning for over hundred years. It was not easy to get the calibre of staff required to teach our students. We believed strongly that we needed it to fix a benchmark for our teaching staff. If we had gone ahead to recruit only Master’s degree holders, lecturer I and II, and assistant lecturers, it would augur bad for the system. We had to engage mix staff, which include professors, readers and Ph.D holders.

“Again, we had to start making contacts to attract people to the school. We said we must pay what the federal universities pay, so that people would be willing to come and teach here. The dictum is that if we pay peanuts, we would only have monkeys around the school. This helped us a lot to stabilise our standard.”

The rise in the number of staff and students naturally gave rise to the need to provide more facilities and services. With the considerable subvention from the state and local governments, and support by Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Prof Kolo-led administration has initiated several projects, including Central Laboratory with eight mini laboratories for sciences, university auditorium, twin Lecture Theatres, Faculty of Arts building, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, post-graduate school building and NIMASA Centre, among others.

Prof Kolo said the feat would not have been accomplished in the nine-year old university without the support of staff, who he said displayed professionalism in discharging their assignments. The university, he said, is becoming popular among secondary school leavers because of the qualitative teaching.

Students, who spoke to this reporter, praised the Vice-Chancellor for giving them hope through the accreditation of their courses.

Abdullahi Idris, a 400-Level student of Social Sciences, said students would remember the VC for bringing his leadership skills to bear when the school faced accreditation crisis. He said: “I remember students used to discuss what would be their fate should the school fail the accreditation test. But today, the story is different. Even, when I was admitted, the campus only had a few structures for classrooms and offices. We can see there is development on the campus, with several classrooms and lecture theatres for students’ use.”

To Adejoke Onipinla, a 300-Level Counselling Psychology student, Prof Kolo’s appointment came at the right time. She said: “He has made learning easy with the provision of ICT Centre, which has WLAN facilities that can be used to access the internet 24 hours. We also enjoy 22 hours of power supply on both campuses of the school. What do we need to have in an academic environment that the management has not provided? I think Prof Kolo has done his best.”

If possible, Olaniyi Oladayo, a 400-Level Computer Science student, said the VC should be reappointed to consolidate the gains of his administration. “I believe every man has his own shortcomings, but I think Prof Kolo is the type we need to sanitise the education system. Despite paucity of funds and other challenges, IBBU has witnessed sustained progress under his leadership. The VC has written his name in hearts of students, given his achievement in academic and infrastructure,” he said.

May 15, 2014
A journey within a journey (1)

For those who read his autobiography, Out of the Shadows, nothing strange has happened. For his book about his formative years and his entanglement in the battles for democracy and justice in his fatherland foreshadowed a life that some authors familiarly characterised as the unfinished life. He ponders in that book whether he is not too young to write his life story, knowing full well, that his odyssey has only probably just begun. In the words of the poet Thomas Mordaunt, “one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.” He has experienced episodes of glory.

Like the sort of thrill, and some may call vainglory, that triggered such epochal men of history like Jean Jacque Rousseau and St. Augustine to confess their epic personal and ideological stories, Dr. KayodeFayemi thought that he had lived, in barely four decades, what many would have called a full life. He wrote it as somebody who had just jolted himself out of the shadows. Out of the shadows of a military authoritarianism. Out of the shadows of a tormented and tormenting exile. Out of the shadows of fear and gallantry. Out of his own shadows of privations, democratic comradeships with fellow travelers in the perils of exile. Out of the shadows of his own past, of Radio Kudirat, of the ominous overhang of Abacha’s gulag.

He has over the past decade after the diminution of Abacha’s dream and the resurgent light of democracy recast himself in another incarnation. This time he morphed from an activist into a man of power. As if he had to play out that activist destiny to affirm his trajectory to the pedestal of governor, his mandate took on the nature of another heist like the June 12 mandate he had to fight and risk his life for. His victory in the April 2007 governorship poll was swindled from him, so the activist defaulted again to the trenches to unleash more salvos, and this salvo called not for exile or the retreat to the shadows. It was his own mandate that was in the shadows. He had to do what the Yoruba call Ijaigboro, a frontal battle where the faultlines were stark and dark. And in the odyssey some faithful fell, some faithful fell out of grace, some faithful lost their first love. He also sometimes suffered the angst of the solitude of the long distance runner.

But the foe was strong and trenchant, full of guile and dagger, and the battle took place in the courts, but the court battle took on silhouettes on the streets like killings, protests from half naked women, the atrophies of ballot boxes, the narrative of a man whose could have been arise but could not stand – no pun intended.

It was a battle of clashes and silences, of deferred hope in which sometimes the very strong lacked conviction. In the end, when victory came, it was as if it did not come. Many acted as those who were afraid of their own happiness. It reminds one of the song, now that we’ve got love what are we going to do with it.

He became Governor KayodeFayemi, a description that took yours quickly quite a struggle to come to terms with, even though I inherited quite a few of his antagonists even among most esteemed colleagues of the pen because of my occasional interventions in the epic tempest.

It is fitting that after a life in the shadows, and ascension to the high throne of governor, his ultimate goal is to pursue a legacy, to ensure that his tour of duty does not fall out of the bright sunshine into the shadows. That would have been the ultimate irony of the most savage kind, to fight for a vision while out of the shadows only to govern without any legacy worthy of a place in the sunshine. This very venue, I daresay, speaks to the power of endurance of memory, and it is in such spirit that he has titled his book, Regaining the legacy.

The book is a collection of his speeches, and going through the book, you get the sense of a man in an odyssey, a restless picaresque enthusiasm that moves in eclectic trajectories. Regaining the Legacy comprises 28 chapters, each chapter devoted to one public intervention. The venues are as much a journey as the intellectual engagement of the speeches. Most of them take place this year, whether it is the speech in Harvard where he tells his story from his activist days to the present of legacies, or his fellow feeling with his Yoruba folks in Canada or at Chatham House in London, or whether in Nigerian academic circles like the speech at the Pan African University in which, both in rhetoric and thought, he soars like anyone in the ivory tower. Or here in Ekiti State, where he recalls with poignant nostalgia the M.K. O. Abiola legacy in the aftermath of the June 12 struggles.

This is certainly a book of many themes. He looks at the nature of struggles as an activist, and this a theme that shines through virtually every theme and topic he engages. From this he seems to be aware of the moral burden of his past. If he fought for this society of legacies, he must as what Theodore Roosevelt calls the man in the arena, translate all those years of blood and tears and idealism into the heres and nows of fulfillment. As he himself quotes in his speech at the 80th anniversary of his alma mater, Christ School Ado –Ekiti, Franz Fanon said, “Each generation must discover its mission, and fulfill it or betray it.” From his writings, it is quite clear he confronts the epic battle of not betraying his mission.

Yet, we cannot escape the fact, that Governor Fayemi does not fail at any time, while addressing issues whether when he addresses an audience even in Kenya that he has done good in Ekiti State, whether in the laptop per student programme, his setting the pace for other states in instituting the welfare scheme of N5,000 a month for the elderly or his agriculture empowerment programmes, or his foray into a large-scale infrastructure renewal, or modernisation of rural reaches of the state.

He also writes about governance, and his ideological position, and this is another theme that penetrates everything he says. He writes about bridging the gap between the elite and the ordinary people. The government cannot assume that it knows what the people want more than they do. So the people must reckon in this vision and its implementation. This sort of vision again comes to the fore even when he examines the donor world in the Open Society Institute in Ghana where he draws attention to the alienating generosity of donation and its capacity to denude the people of their sovereignty. He seems to be saying, “You cannot take my pride from me because you put food on my table.”

So he connects his community empowerment programme in this context, and each village has its cheque to do what they want for themselves.

Even when he makes the case for the national question, a debate raging today, he recalls that politics and policy must take its root from our sense of community and the village square sentiment. As democracy goes, this classic is rooted in what scholars call the Greek city states.The struggle between the vast national question for equilibrium of interests must chime in with the various strata of society. Hence he asserts, quoting Lenin, about the “possibility of waging both a class and national struggle together at once.”

You cannot miss out in this book his speech to the Verdant Zeal Marketing Cmmunication’sInnovention Series, where he waxes philosophical on the subject of rebranding Nigeria, in which he asserts that the values are the precondition for any branding, and that is why he asserts that “most Nigerians expressed the position that the problem (with Nigeria) was with the brand and not with rebranding.”

Other than politics, governance, activism, he also engages piety, not only in his soulful tribute to the late Arch Bishop Joseph Adetiloye, but also in his letter to the new Pope Francis as well as his address to the Apostles of the Marketplace. All three are fascinating. His letter to the new Pope has the resonance and flashes of St. Paul, himself an intellectual,in which Dr. Fayemi interlaces the personal with the pious and philosophical. More potent to me is the address of the apostles of the market place, a name that amuses him. Are they apostles in a metaphoric sense in which case they could be Christian apostates or even atheists? Or are they Christians who are neo-liberal economists. On reading the speech, it was clear he was addressing Christians in love of capitalism. But what struck me was his blend of the personal and communal. He berates the obsession with materialism and jettisoning of thepuritanical grandeur of holiness in the past.

The rigour of intellectual forays did not forget the personal, whether it is tribute to BekoRansomeKuti, or to the towering image of GaniFawehinmi, we cannot but see that the author cruises home with full realization that all we do, whether in the lofty mountains of national questions or battle-fraughtvalleys of civil society engagements, we are, at bottom, human. Hence we see him pay tributes to two important women in his life, his wife Labisi whom he calls a renaissance woman and his late deputy, Mrs. FunmiOlayinka. On Mrs. Olayinka he tells the story of their meeting, and the growth of mutual respect and struggle together and how her struggle with cancer was an integral narrative in her public struggle. It comes across as a tender story of humanity that undergirds all we do. That is, in the final analysis, every struggle has its human end and apotheosis.

For his wife Labisi, the self-confessed detached and cerebral man in the arena cannot escape spilling well-hidden emotions of love and affection for a wife who is also a fellow traveler both intellectually and in the public good. He documents, as he does in Out of the Shadows, her domestic‘ heroics, and their picaresque narratives as lovers and family.

This is a book I recommend for its sincerity, and depth and study in governance on the go. The weakness? The book suffers from an evenness of tone. For a public officer who meets various audiences, we tend to see the same cerebral and linguistic temperament. I would have expected a less intellectual outlay in his June 12 remembrance. But that perhaps is compensated for, if insufficiently,by his tributes to both his wife and late deputy. Well, an intellectual will always be an intellectual.

The book is an accolade to a rare feat for a governor in active service who has not delegated his writings to another person or a coterie of speech writers as many do. It is obvious that this is a man who would not let another take his glory, so he has devoted his energies and mind, with lucubration, to a jealous telling of his legacy. And other than his roads and schools and welfare programmes, etc, telling his story is another way of telling his legacy. If you like, you can call it the poetry of poetry. Congratulations.

November 6, 2013
Deadly journeys of the food on your table

That sumptuous and inviting meal on your table has gone through a lot to get there. Whether processed or raw, foreign or local, it has an interesting train of movements. In this report, we consider the amazing journeys of at least five main foods in the country as well as the varying hazards they have gone through on the way to your table amid serious health concerns.

August 25, 2013
…As Efere Ozako begins final journey tomorrow

ON Monday, May 6, the once full of life entertainment lawyer, Efere Ozako, will begin his journey to the great beyond with a candle light procession ceremony being organised by his group of friends at the Muson Centre by 5pm.

The Delta-born lawyer was snatched by the cold hands of death on April 18, an incident that sent shock waves through the nation’s entertainment circles as Zakilo (as he was fondly called by close friends) was not ill before his untimely demise that morning.

I knew Zakilo in early 2000 when I was still a practicing journalist and after our first meeting, our paths always crossed as I covered the Arts and Entertainment beat while he was heavy in Entertainment and Copyright Law. His Wetin Lawyers Dey Do Sef; for Entertainment Industry? periodic seminar and workshop and his quarterly Takai journal were enough for any journalist or entertainment practitioner worth his onions to know and work with Efere.

Zakilo was a man who would hold a gathering of friends down for hours with different stories from across the world. His energy was unequalled. A real professional, when I was head of Public Relations and Communications of a Pay TV Company, Zakilo was legal consultant to a rival Pay TV outfit and when we met at a popular hangout for entertainment practitioners, he would be the first to joke about our rivalry and we laughed and drank over it even with law suits hanging on each other’s necks as a corporate entities.

When I started my own media-lobbying outfit, Zakilo was one of the few people I reached out to and, as usual, he did not disappoint. He directed a client of his who needed some media services and that was how I got my first set of clients. He was the unpaid legal adviser to my company and God help you if Efere was on the opposing side against you in a legal battle. Ask comedy merchant Opa Williams when Zakilo went after him. It was the zeal and professional competence he displayed in the matter against Williams that made him to retain him as both his personal and company lawyer for many years till his demise. He was both lawyer and family friend of Opa Williams.

Last year May, I and Efere were on a Kenyan Airways plane to Nairobi for Opa Williams’ Nite of A Thousand Laughs Xtra comedy show. Williams and others were already in Nairobi some two days ahead of us, so as representative of Williams Media Company, I had to have first-hand knowledge of the show while Efere was attending to signing some new deals that will open up East Africa to Opa Williams whose plan was to take over Africa with his premier comedy show.

I am a terrible traveller, I always must pack the wrong things in the bag. Even if my wife assists in the packing, I must always have one reason to check the bag for something last minute and in the process drop either the tooth brush or paste or on one occasion, my laptop! On that fateful day, I realised when we were in Cotonou for a brief stop for the plane to refuel, that I had left my wallet containing American dollars in the car! So how would I pay for the visa on arrival? I had never asked for financial favour from Efere before, so all through the six-hour flight, I was racking my brain how I would get around this issue.

Efere took my mind off my problems momentarily when he offered me a supposed real life account of one of the main actors in the 1966 coup in Nigeria (there are so many accounts so one does not know which to believe anymore). I, however, read the book voraciously as I had not read a book in a long while before then. We spoke at regular intervals on other issues and Efere even did some commentary on the book as I read (that was Efere for you).

Now, my nightmare was about to start when I heard the pilot announce we were commencing our descent into Kenyatta International Airport. I held my breath. Anyway, we were now at the immigration and realised my problem was not just the visa fee only but I also forgot my ‘Yellow Card’. That was intentional as most countries have abolished that dumb card that Nigerians buy for N300 naira at the MMI A. I never knew Kenyans still attach importance to that worthless piece of paper.

So we were in front of the smiling but firm heavyset lady who was insisting I must be given vaccination injection at a cost of 100 dollars. It was then I saw Efere’s lawyer’s skill at work. In three minutes, he had everybody gathered around us reeling with laughter and I was slapped on the wrist and let off the hook. How do I now tell someone who just rescued me out of paying 100 dollars that I had no money on me to pay my visa fee?

But I finally did and Efere just looked at me and smiled and paid the money. Later in the evening after I had got some money, I called on him, “bros, see dat money.” He replied, “which money be dat?” I answered. “Dat money for airport now.” Hear him: “Ehen?” and smiled that his famous smile which always started from his nose region before it spreads through the whole face area. A minute after, with the money still held loosely in my hand, I knew Efere was not interested in a refund. That was Zakilo for you, he gave without expecting anything in return. Even when I thanked him in our Urhobo language, he mumbled a response which told me he wanted the money issue forgotten in a hurry.

If I decide to narrate all the favours Zakilo had done for me for over a decade, it would make a very long and emotional read. He begins his final journey on Monday, and what can I say? Just last year May, we were all over Nairobi rocking the hell out of that beautiful and cold city. Now, this May, I will be attending your candle light procession. Life is truly an irony.

—Akpovi-Esade is a media lobbyist

May 5, 2013
Journey to the afterworld

H.A. Goodman’s book: Breaking the Devil’s Heart: A logic of Demons Novel takes one on a journey to the afterworld. It’s a story that captures and exposes Satan’s antics against humanity.

Goodman delves into a Satan’s unknown thoughts in always looking for opportunity to trade on the human soul.

The novel centres on Stewarts (Mr. Willoughby) a former CIA agent who thinks he has a mandate in his “after -life” to destroy Satan’s ploy against humanity that is not aware of how hard the devil is making sure that his plans will be futile.

The novel makes one understand that the devil is only interested in souls who are living an unpleasant life. “Hell” was referred to as “The Company,” a financial institution in the present day New York Stock Exchange. As stocks, derivatives and shares are been traded on the floor so also in the “the company,” human souls are being traded in this instance.

As there are stockbrokers trading on shares for companies so also there are “market makers” who trade on human souls for the devil.

Goodman clearly portrayed the latent ability of human imagination. It helps to understand that in the realm of the spirit there is on distance. For Stewart to know what is going on in the mind of his girl friend Layla, who is a partner with Stewart, there had to be a contact of Stewart‘s spirit with that of Layla’s.

The main characters in this novel, Stewart: Mc Willoughby a former CIA agent and also a history teacher who had worked for the agency for year before he died. It was in his “after life” he reincarnated back to earth to accomplish what has always been on his mind: “Break the Devil’s heart.”

Layla: Ms O’ Toole, a former English teacher in her late twenties has the same ambition as Stewarts and is always found around as a result to her intimate relationship with Stewarts.

Adrain: former student to Layla who appeared at the middle of the novel contributed greatly in accomplishing Stewart’s desire in destroying the devil’s plan to hunt down the human soul.

In terms of the credibility of the characters in the novel, Stewarts who had worked in a criminal detention department in CIA was given an unusual task that had never been addressed before by the agency or any other government organization: Find the root of evil and learn ways to destroy this impulse within mankind.

H. A. Goodman’s novel is to make the unaware to be aware that there is a spiritual world controlling this physical world. His intention in the book is to

awake the “unawakened” that the devil is not as lazy as we are, he works on a daily basis to make sure humans partake in his punishment in reality for eternity.

He wants readers to understand the dynamics, ploy and antics the devil uses to lure and cajole people to succumb to his plans.

For those who doubt the existence of heaven and hell, the novel proves that they exist.

It also proves that good has always prevailed over evil no matter the enormity of evil. Those who want to understand more about spirituality will find the book very interesting, though it will take some level of maturity to understand the message.

For one to understand the intention and purpose of this book you have to read page by page to the last word. It is a fiction story well told that is hard to put down once you start reading.

December 23, 2012
Omoruyi’s second journey

No one should ever again have to cry so plaintively for help as the former Director-General, Centre for Democratic Studies, Prof. Omo Omoruyi, did two days ago before he was flown abroad a second time to treat his recurring cancer. For someone who served his country well at a fairly high level, it was heartrending to see him bemoan his state of utter abandonment. He singled out his former boss and ex-head of state, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, and some of his friends for being indifferent to his plight. They didn’t contribute to his first journey to the United States to treat the cancer that ravaged his body, he said, and they were again uninterested in assuaging his misery as he embarked on what he described as the second journey. Speaking in Benin City shortly before his departure, he also revealed that he had unsuccessfully asked President Goodluck Jonathan for help through Chief Edwin Clark.

Hear the professor in his own words: “I have been used and dumped, especially by Babangida. Some politicians who don’t like me were also preventing the President from giving me assistance, after I sent a message about my health predicament to him. My cancer is back and I don’t know how it will end. Governor Adams Oshiomhole has graciously come to my aid again. He is the one making it possible for me to commence my second journey. In my book, My journey Back To Life, that is journey number one. It will appear I am starting a second journey, and how this second journey will end, I don’t know. I am going to hospital in the United States to commence a new treatment plan and that treatment plan, how it will end, I do not know… I am going back to the hospital. President Goodluck Jonathan should help me. I cried to him through Chief Edwin Clark. There is vindictiveness in the land. I have paid my dues to this country and the country is unfair to me. What did I not do?”

There are yet many people who appreciate the erudite professor’s contributions to nation-building, and who hope he would make it back alive and still enjoy life for many more years. But if he does not return, his parting words should haunt Nigeria for some time. In a tone heavy with anguish and despair, Professor Omoruyi had asked this rhetorical question: “What did I not do?” The problem is not what he didn’t do, or what anyone else needed to do. The problem is that it rarely matters what anyone does in Nigeria. After all, he would not be the first top Nigerian to be abandoned to his fate. Many sportsmen, artists and intellectuals have also suffered untold privations, sometimes directly at the hands of the government and its agents, and at other times indirectly as a result of unavailability of facilities. The shocking truth about living in Nigeria is that every citizen is on his own. Professor Omoruyi does not need more education to know how alone the Nigerian is. What worried him instead was the undependability of his friends, which his very desperate circumstances made him to appreciate anew.

It is possible the friends the professor said gave him cold shoulder would have something to say in their defence. But even if he exaggerated a little, he should be forgiven, for the parting words of this distraughtly sick patriot described such pathos that only someone with a heart of stone could fail to yield to.

October 31, 2012
Lawyer: Mimiko on journey to nowhere

A London-based lawyer and chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Nathaniel Adojutelegan, yesterday said Governor Olusegun Mimiko’s second term ambition is a journey to nowhere.

The lawyer denied the rumour of his alleged romance with the ruling Labour Party (LP).

He said Mimiko would fail in the October 20 election.

Adojutelegan, who is a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, hails from Arigidi-Akoko, in Akoko North West.

The ACN chieftain said the rumour of his defection plan to the LP came from Mimiko, following his refusal to heed the governor’s plea to defect to the ruling party.

He said the governor, on September 11, sent a delegation, led by Deputy Governor Ali Olanusi and a monarch, from Akoko to meet with him in London onhis planned defection to LP.

The ACN chieftain said despite the pressure on him by the deputy governor, he refused to join the LP.

Adojutelegan said: “I told the state government delegation that I am a committed member of ACN and that only death can make me part with the progressive party.

“I am a committed member of ACN and only death can separate me from the party. I belong to the progressives and I believe so much in the programmes and leadership of the party.

“I have told Governor Mimiko’s emissaries that they should steer clear from me. I have told them the kind of person and politician I am. I am using this medium again to warn them to stop spreading rumours that may dent my reputation.”

The lawyer urged ACN members to remain committed and avoid jeopardising the interest of the party.

September 21, 2012