On Saturday, the football world stood still for what is being referred to as the greatest club match in the world, Barcelona against Real Madrid, dubbed and rightly too as El Clasico.

This was followed in a few days by heart-breaking report of the results of JAMB examinations. Together, they point to a bleak future, which follows inexorably on a dreadful present and a woeful past about the quality of secondary school leavers the nation had been producing for more than twenty years.

There is no innocent literary prize just as no writing is innocent and free of value. Every piece of writing is a political act, and every prize made to a writer is an act of validation and an expression of a given value – the specific and subjective value of the awarding institution. It has very little universal meaning.

“This world is a comedy to those who think; a tragedy to those who feel”. Horace Walpole, 1676-1745.

In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.” – Hunter S. Thompson

Nowhere in the bible is it said or implied that the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, the bible is not even in the bible. Scriptures referring to the word of God never refer to the bible. For example, Moses says: “The word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Abram.’” (Genesis 15:1). It was not the bible that spoke to Abram. The word of God came to him before any scriptures were written and before the bible was compiled. Therefore, neither the scriptures nor the bible can be the word of God.

One of the negative qualities militating against the emergence of Nigeria as a country to be reckoned with in the comity of nations is self-deception or hypocrisy, particularly among members of the elite. Self-deception is a character trait of human beings which constitutes an aspect of what existentialist philosophers describe as the facticity of human existence.

There are a few things that rattle me and cause me to freak out. They are those things that are outside of my control and over the years I have done a lot of work spiritually, emotionally and physically to overcome my fears.

The revelation that the rationale of this year’s Appropriation Act was distorted through the jacking up of the budgets of some sectors is rather unfortunate. Thus, while signing the budget on Friday April 13, 2012, an angry President Jonathan threatened to sack heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) who lobbied to get their budgets increased by the legislature.

July 14, 2012 is barely three months away. It is a date that Edo State voters will troop out in their numbers to elect who to govern them for the next four years. Two candidates and two parties are the major contenders for the plum position.