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By Josef Omorotionmwan THIS column today is dedicated to two Nigerians – Master Daniel Ohikhena, that wizkid who flew from Benin City to Lagos without paying a kobo; and Alhaji Danbaba Suntai, the Executive Governor of Taraba State, who travelled to hell and back. The blames game has always been with us. We blame everybody and everything for our failures. Until recently, there was no natural death. Every death was attributed to witchcraft. Meanwhile, these people have never seen a stethoscope and no matter how ill they were, as long as they still had some breath in them, they still struggled to the cassava farm, sometimes after swallowing two tablets of expired panadol. Yet, when we come face to face with actual wizardry, we throw away all its advantages. The penultimate weekend, 13-year-old Daniel Ohikhena hid inside the wheel of an Arik airplane from Benin City to Lagos. This is a great feat for which that wiz-kid deserves an award. [caption id="attachment_410831" align=...

By Josef Omorotionmwan OUR sense of democracy may be warped. There is still a large group of Nigerian youths who are deprived of freedom to learn because of poverty or prejudice or the absence of adequate educational facilities. And as citizens of a democratic society whose moral premise is that each individual has a right to that education that will permit him to achieve his maximum growth as a person, our duty is to work for, and support, whatever measures of reconstruction we deem necessary to remove the social obstacles to freedom of learning. It is morally binding on us all to study these problems and proffer solutions to them. The world over, all universities worthy of the name are already doing so. It admits of open failure that more than 53 years of our nominal independence, we are still engaged at the level of the elemental politics of cut-off marks to our secondary and tertiary institutions of learning. Never has one had a better cause to doubt if the government is still maki...

By Josef Omorotionmwan SOME have asked: "Who wants the President to appear on national television annually to deliver one more boring speech?" Such people see the State of the Nation Address as an avenue for the President to blow hot air on us for a whole hour. We think otherwise. The State of the Nation Address is a unique opportunity for the President to x-ray the political, economic and social health of the nation. It presents the President with a golden opportunity to showcase himself and his administration's policies and programmes to the world. In an election year, for instance, there is no telling how many campaign points an incumbent can rub into an address. Properly utilized, the President will soon find that the State of the Nation Address is the best marking scheme he can ever have. Rather than seeking to kill the Bill, we think the President should be the one lobbying for its passage. He needs it. We need it. The State of the Nation Address Bill as already pas...

By Josef Omorotionmwan WE see aspects of misinformation, and sometimes, outright disinformation, in the Edo hanging row. When we woke up on Tuesday, June 25, 2013, the newsstand was awash with the news, "Four death row prisoners - Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aigbokhai and Richard Igagu - in Edo State, were, yesterday, executed, despite their pending appeals at the Court of Appeal." [caption id="attachment_329854" align="alignnone" width="412"] *Oshiomhole[/caption] The veiled impression is created here that the cases of these suspects were hurriedly terminated at the High Court level and they were led to the gallows, without exhausting the judicial remedies of going to the Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The truth is that the cases went through the thorough judicial process from the High Court to all the appeal processes and the verdict everywhere was death sentence. This was 16 years ago. Lately, though, the Legal Defense...

By Josef Omorotiomwan THIS writer has been caught severally on the soft side of providing the good life for past leaders. During the debate at the Constituent Assembly on the pension scheme for past Presidents and Governors, I made this demand: “Hands up, all those who will be happy to see their former President driving a taxi or moonlighting as a charge-hand in a factory, trying to make ends meet”. There was not a single hand up. I proceeded from there to posit to the Assembly that the only way to obviate that ugly situation is to devise a robust pension scheme for past Presidents and Governors. We were travelling to the East to take a wife for my son (name withheld). On the way, I kicked off a discussion: “Suppose we get there to find that the head of the household, your prospective father-in law, is the one pounding the yam that we would eat, what would your reaction be?“ He retorted: “I will not continue with the marriage. I will just go home.” When I asked why he would react that ...