My good friend Garba Shehu made what would have been the joke of the year on Wednesday but the theme was too serious to be funny. He blamed the Goodluck Jonathan administration for the unfolding scandal on the corruption, escape, return, reinstatement and second escape from the country of Abdulrasheed Maina of the pension scam fame. His exact words were: “some influential officials loyal to the previous government may have been the invincible hands” behind the scandal. It’s not funny because the names of the key agents in the affair, 2017 phase, are known and include the Minister of Justice,…

To understand how Catalan people see themselves as distinct, a word from their language is instructive: seny.It is an adjective used to convey a supposedly unique Catalan sensibility: pragmatic, level-headed, and dignified. Seny is just about the last word the Spanish government and the European Union would use for the Catalans, who instigated a lurching attempt to declare independence from Spain with a highly controversial referendum this month. Spain's Senate is approved a federal takeover of Catalonia's regional government on Friday. Leading political proponents of the secessionist movement have been arrested. Whatever the government in Madrid does, the sense of…