Stiff-necked apartheid high priests had their problems but none of them contemplated the type of weird political culture the ANC and Mr. Zuma are foisting on post-apartheid South Africa. Where is that country headed?

Negotiations did not produce the state of Israel. From 1917 when the Jews procured the dubious Balfour Declaration right up to independence three decades later, the Jews conducted themselves in a manner that could have made the murderers of today’s ISIS and Boko Haram look like saints. So, why do some people encourage Palestinians to embrace negotiations as the way to their freedom?

Talk of breaking up Nigeria is lazy. The country should restructure in a way that every part will, at all times, be appropriately represented in government. This was the central idea in the late General Sani Abacha’s well-thought-out provisions that would have restructured Nigeria from a country of contending ethnic nationalities into a modern nation-state in just 30 years.

Stiff-necked apartheid high priests had their problems but none of them contemplated the type of weird political culture the ANC and President Zuma are foisting on post-apartheid South Africa!

The conduct of embattled president of Nigeria’s senate, Bukola Saraki, is forcing some of his fans to question his innocence in the corruption case instituted against him.  

Today’s Angola proves the African proverb that all manner of knives are brought out the day an elephant is killed. Pity is that the party that should have all Angolans in attendance is for a select few. On the high table, surrounded by members of his family and a few cronies made up of generals and sundry leeches, is His Excellency President Eduardo dos Santos and his eldest daughter, Isabel.

The drama surrounding Nigerian kid, Ese Oruru, is the result of failed parenting. The girl is not the last of her kind around even though many would wish her case was a bad dream that will soon go away. A bad dream, yes, but this one is not about to go away in a hurry.

Forty years after his death, Nigerians who see General Murtala Muhammad as their country’s ‘best gift to the world’ are clamouring for the anniversary of his death to be declared Heroes’ Day.

In a world where more people are busy buying and blowing their trumpets, Mr. Trump knows he is the appropriate person to blow his own trumpet. And boy, has he made a success of his new found vocation.

Iran, now emerging from years of diplomatic isolation by the West, is hell-bent on destabilizing nations in the Arab world and beyond in it is attempts to put Shi’a Muslims in power. That is the context in which the current worsening relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia should be understood.

Islamic militancy which targets non-Muslims, often Christians, is deeply rooted in the historical discord that exists within Islam itself. Prophet Mohammad preached peaceful co-existence particularly with Christians. Muslims who promote wanton violence in the name of their religion are simply misguided about its true teachings.

If those crusading for a separate state are doing so because of the failures of previous governments to serve the needs of Nigerians adequately, that is not a good enough reason to seek secession. The grievance is shared across Nigeria. Moreover, the idea of a separate nation based on religious and ethnic calculations is unworkable.

Now that Nigerians have Buhari, how far his government goes will depend on how far Nigerians purge themselves of the counter-productive practices of the better-forgotten Jonathan years. Things will not work if business continues as usual. Things do not work that way - they never have!

Maybe President Zuma and his xenophobic countrymen are right, after all. Why would a Nigerian close his barber shop in Karmo ghetto to go operate the same in Soweto? Why would a second degree holder prefer to travel to Johannesburg to be a cabbie when that line of business would have been more profitable in Lagos?

Nigerians are already looking beyond the March 28 presidential election, which the opposition All Peoples’ Congress and its presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari are expected to win.

The recent diktat by Nigeria’s first lady that her husband’s political opponents be stoned is yet another red flag that the bungling government in Nigeria is not sincere in conducting violence-free elections.

Recent gains in the fight against Boko Haram have justified growing calls for appropriate sanctions for those found complicit in playing politics with an insurgency that has claimed more than 13,000 lives, placed hundreds in captivity, displaced thousands and virtually grounded the economy of Nigeria’s northeast.

Six years of the Jonathan presidency have pushed the country to the precipice. The way it looks, Nigeria might take a dangerous plunge if Jonathan remains in office beyond May 29, 2015. Another four years under the present dispensation is an open invitation to chaos.

Nigeria’s president Goodluck Jonathan is surrounded by discredited men who are doing his re-election campaign more harm than good.

In the wake of the attacks on Paris, hypocrisy has won and the world is basking in a warped victory. Bigots have been celebrated and their right to offend defended, without any critical view of the excesses of Charlie Hebdo magazine. It is such attitudes that fuel Muslim anger.