It was reported within the week that Yobe state Government is spending 200million naira to build 31 public toilets in 17 council areas of the state. As commendable as the initiative is especially given the current case of Cholera which is ravaging parts of Northern Nigeria and which has called once again to question the public health and environmental hygiene standards of our society, the amounts involved raises so many questions.

A popular Nigerian stand up comedian once stated that while other countries of the world were bedeviled by one form of natural disaster or the other, Nigeria’s own nightmare was Bad Government.

The leadership of KOWA Party views with concern the pronouncements being made by some of Nigeria’s elected officials, as reported in the media, regarding the screening of passengers at our airports. The matter of screening, it can be recalled, came to the fore a few weeks ago when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, refused to submit himself to the required pat-down and screening of his carry-on luggage as he was about to board a British Airways flight to London.

When last did you take note of a flying Nigeria national flag? The one you took note of, how was it looking? I am almost certain that there must have been something wrong with the flag. It is either it is tattered almost in rags, discoloured as a result of continuous exposure to the elements of the weather, flying at night in the dark, wrongly flown with the green and white laying horizontally instead of vertically, perpetually flying at half (or even quarter) mast when the nation isn’t mourning, very tiny in comparison to other flags flying beside it or looking so funny, like an article just out of an apprentice tailors shop with the green and whites sewn together and so poorly done.

One institution that is so critical to the success of any election in Nigeria is the Nigeria police force. In the past, the Police have been accused of working with thugs and supervising the snatching of ballot boxes on Election Day, providing cover for miscreants and intimidating voters. In some cases, the police have not hidden the fact that they are out to protect a particular party or candidate and would shamelessly confess that they are only obeying orders.