Kema Chikwe at 70…Ex-Aviation and Transport Minister Celebrates Mileage with a Heart Filled with Gratitude

•Her enviable exploits in public service

Former Aviation Minister, Kemi Chikwe, must be a fulfilled woman. There is no gainsaying she lives a charmed life. Unlike too many of her peers, she recorded remarkable feats in her hey days thus inciting ceaseless tributes to her femininity and citizenship of humanity. However, her heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a watered shoot; her heart is like an apple-tree whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; her heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea; and her heart is gladder than all these because she lives to be 70. The accomplished stateswoman, politician, mother and philanthropist clocked 70 two weeks ago and held a party to celebrate the occasion.

It would be recalled that Chikwe was one of the first women to gain prominence in the Fourth Republic, rising to the position of Minister of Transport and then that of Aviation in the Obasanjo administration.
Since then, she has been a low-key player in the political game. But she took the opportunity of her 70th birthday to gather her family, friends and associates together to eat, drink and reminisce.
Her musician son, Naeto C, and his wife, Nicole, graced the Abuja event alongside singer AM and his nephews, Asika and Asa, among other guests.

WILL THE WEDDING BELLS TOLL FOR JOHN OBAYUWANA AND ENEMAYA LAWANI THIS YEAR?
Their love leaps like a wolf – it is prideful, strong and courageous, thus eliciting envy and extreme jealousy by the brilliance of its flare. Like a silver light, the love espoused by John Obayuwana and Enemaya Lawani dazzles on their faces and seeps from their being in to the air, with resonant peal. It sheathes them, warms them, and becomes every inch of them. Until they fell in love, everybody deemed them an unlikely couple. But despite their differences, the bond between the two has strengthened over the years. In the last few years, luxury goods merchant, John, and his sweetheart, Ene, have been an item – though neither of them has come forward to admit to their hot but muted romance.

The age difference that exists between the pair may be as expansive as the distance of one end of the Safari Desert to the other, but this does not impede the flow of their romance in any way. At a recent high society wedding, John and Ene were sighted together. They were all over each other at the wedding, like two love birds lost in their private world of ecstasy. The intimate gazes exchanged by the duo echoed their deep-seated love for each other. Ene, who has been linked with quite a number of dudes in the past, is unabashedly in love with John, but only time will spell out the longevity of the affair.

ON ROTIMI AMAECHI’S UNENDING JOUSTS
•HOW NIGERIA’S TRANSPORT MINISTER’S KNACK FOR CONTROVERSIES ROBS HIM OF PEACE
Peace is overrated. Ask Rotimi Amaechi. The seeds of peace and slumberous calm wilted in his yard ever since his foray into politics. It will be recalled that while he served as executive governor of Rivers State, his eight-year tenure was fraught by endless challenges, political conflicts and controversies. Fast-forward to the incumbent administration, since his appointment as the nation’s Minister of Transport, it has been one day one trouble for Amaechi. He has never known a moment’s peace.

It is either he is fighting a colleague, especially Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Aviation, for ‘seniority’ or Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. As you read, Amaechi is embroiled in controversy with Wike over the two controversial helicopters for which the customs says no one has claimed responsibility for its importation. It’s really sad that he does not have peace of mind at all. And this life is too short for all this. Let’s hope he understands soon enough that life is vanity. You are here today and you could depart for the afterlife tomorrow. Will Amaechi begin to avoid controversies and make the most of a peaceful life? Time will tell.

LIKE OLIVER TWIST…ANDY UBA SWALLOWS HIS VOMIT, JOINS THE APC
•WHY HE MAY ‘CERTAINLY GET BURNT’
In the annals and cutthroat world of Nigerian politics, the successful politicians have always passed off as ‘made-men’ or the Nigerian version of Italian gang-lords; the unsuccessful ones however, always pass of as lesser gangsters – disposable muscles at the bottom of the totem pole of the country’s political class. More often than not, the latter manifests on the political circuit like 50-cent prostitutes, or N50 commercial sex workers, if you like, jumping from one political party to the other, in desperate pursuit of the next plum political office or deal.

Senator Andy Uba and serial gubernatorial candidate, emerges as Anambra’s most pitiful politician. Like a starved greyhound, Andy has swallowed his own vomit. He has gobbled up his bile like a sumptuous dish; as you read, he has recanted his scathing denunciation of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to suffocate the party in a crushing embrace. Uba, representing Anambra South Senatorial zone on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has defected to the APC.

Uba disclosed this at a news briefing on Wednesday in his home country, Uga, Aguata Local Government Area of the state. The lawmaker said he joined the APC at the ongoing registration of party members in the state.

According to him, APC has ideology and focus which he needed to tap into to provide quality representation to his constituents. Uba further said that he joined the APC because of other personalities in the party with sound ideas and whom he looked up to in politics. We believe him. After all, the gubernatorial election is around the corner.

THE BATTLE OF TWO GOVERNORS… WILLIE OBIANO GOES FOR BROKE AGAINST OKOROCHA
•WHY HE ENGAGED HIM IN BITTER SLUGFEST
Like petty lovers of strife that shriek and sweat in pigmy wars, Willie Obiano, the Anambra State governor, and his estranged friend, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, won’t stop bickering until either of them gives up and takes the moral high ground. It’s often said, bedbugs sting not from spite but because they desire to live. Could it be the same with the two governors? Is Okorocha’s aggressive political onslaught against Willie borne out of a curious desire to inflict hurt and neuter him or a towering passion to serve the state? Willie flares high and low like a wicker lamp. The incumbent governor flaunts a temperament that combusts like flame of the rattan work caught in a rainsquall.

According to him, Okorocha who cannot pay workers and pensioners has nothing but “destructive ideas” in his approach to governance. “If a governor that has constructed countless number of roads and bridges, embarked on several rural electrification programmes, constructed uncountable number of schools, and health facilities as well as rid the entire Anambra State of crime and criminality, is being termed clueless by Okorocha, then there must be another meaning for clueless.

“Okorocha’s claim that there is a general impression that Chief Willie Obiano is an aggressive governor, who should have done better as a militant than as a governor, is laughable and it is clear to Nigerians who really is a motor park personality between them. Obiano has always been known and accorded the respect of a complete gentleman.” Indeed, Okorocha is an example of what a leader should not be. Who is he to teach the virtues of leadership ideas and service to Governor Obiano?
The pair’s verbal altercation commenced when Okorocha claimed that three governors in the south-east zone would soon defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC).