I am a historian and I have always believed that if we want to talk history, we must be dispassionate, objective and factual. We must take the emotion out of it and we must always tell the truth. The worst thing that anyone can do is to try to re-write history and indulge in historical revisionism. This is especially so when the person is a reverred figure and a literary icon. Sadly it is in the light of such historical revisionism that I view Professor Chinua Achebe’s assertion (which is reflected in his latest and highly celebrated book titled ‘’There Was A Country’) that Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late and much-loved Leader of the Yoruba, was responsible for the genocide that the igbos suffered during the civil war. This claim is not only false but it is also, frankly speaking, utterly absurd. Not only is Professor Achebe indulging in perfidy, not only is he being utterly dishonest and disengenious but he is also turning history upside down and indulging in what I would describe as ethnic chauvinism.

Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was not an ordinary person or one of the run of the mill leaders that we often eulogise after death in Nigeria. He was much more than that. I had read and heard so much about him throughout my youth and in various history books including the bestseller written by Fredrick Forsythe, his old English public ...school friend and biographer, titled ''Emeka'' and another book titled ''The Dogs of War'' which was later converted into a Hollywood blockbuster.

Today is yet another sad day for our country Nigeria. This morning General Muhammadu Mamman Shuwa was murdered just outside his Maiduguri home by a group of heartless people who are suspected to be members of the muslim fundamentalist sect Boko Haram.This is a tragedy of monuemental proportions.

The Dana Air crash and the recent lifting of it’s suspension from flying in Nigeria has once again brought to the fore the issue of plane crashes and the safety of air travel in our country. The fact of the matter is that ninety nine per cent of fatal air crashes that have occured in Nigeria in the last 10 years have taken place on a weekend.

I am sad and troubled for our nation. I just cannot sleep when I consider the amount of innocent blood that has been spilt in the 24 hours before I wrote this piece. Kano, Bayelsa, Bauchi....it goes on and on. So much blood, so much hate, so much division and so much destruction. And at the end of it all, just in the space of one afternoon, Nigeria's second largest city of Kano has been brutally raped and violated and no less than 260 innocent and defenceless Nigerians have been butchered mercilessly in broad daylight and are now lying dead in the mortuary or the cemetery.

Boko Haram say they have ''no problem with Jonathan'' yet they are killing his people like flies, destabilising his country, bringing his government to it's knees, destroying national unity and cohesion, waging a relentless religious and ethnic war against the state and committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against a section of the population.

When I challenged Chief E.K. Clark's assertion that there was ''nothing wrong with placing soldiers on the streets of Lagos'' last January during the oil subsidy crisis at a conference of the Political Summit Group in Lagos I knew that I was heading for trouble. I was given the floor to speak just a few minutes after the former Minister of Information and elderstatesman had stirred the audience with his words and to say that he was infuriated by not only what I said but also the thunderous applause that I received for daring to say it would be an understatement.

Yesterday (4th of Jan. 2012) during a specially convened meeting of the Federal Executive Council of the Goodluck Jonathan administration Mrs. Ngozie Okonjo-Iweala, my former cabinet colleague and good friend, threatened to resign from her position as Finance Minister and de-facto Prime Minister and go back to the World Bank from whence she came if the President dared to reverse his policy on the removal of the fuel subsidy and if he decided to re-introduce the subsidy once again.

Like everyone else in the country I was informed about the death of the Waziri of Ilorin, Dr. Olusola Saraki, on the morning that he passed on and the news saddened me immensly. This is because he was one of the greatest, kindest, most compassionate, most generous and most selfless leaders that we have ever had in this country. His power and influence stretched from the Second Republic when he was the Leader of the Senate on the platform of the NPN up until today.