Political intrigue and speculation heightened last week after two political stalwarts publicly declared their presidential aspirations within 24 hours of each other. Constantly vilified, Ibrahim Babangida was all over the media, proclaiming that he has learned from his past mistakes and deserved another shot at ruling the country. Atiku Abubukar, whose presidential ambitions have percolated for many years, also launched his campaign by promising to “clean up the mess left for the next generation.”

The PDP contenders

Mr Babangida, who turned 69 on Tuesday, has come out with both guns blazing. However, despite his touted presidential experience, he failed to put forward any clearly defined policies, admitting that this was not his strongest point. He also failed to use the opportunity to apologise for his annulment of the June 12, 1993, elections, widely considered one of the fairest in the nation’s history. He made spirited defence to the charges of financial impropriety levelled against his regime in the Okigbo report, and again denied having anything to do with the murder of Dele Giwa. Although his candidacy comes with a lot of baggage, as an extremely wealthy candidate who claimed his concern is to improve his legacy, Mr Babangida remains a force to be reckoned with.

As the cost of energy from conventional sources like fossil fuel and coal continues to increase and the need to reduce the level of carbon emission that is being argued as being the major cause of global warming remains a popular agenda, the need to turn to renewable energy becomes the only viable and sustainable alternative or solution. What this means is that people, organizations and nations continue to look for ways to cost effectively develop or implement alternative energy solutions that would work side by side the regular or existing sources of energy and in some cases become complete replacements where energy (read electricity) is generated, stored (if need be) and utilized independent of the typical grid.

A question by a woman on why Patricia Etteh was removed as Speaker of the House of Representatives over corruption allegations, yesterday, forced conflicting responses from Dimeji Bankole, the current Speaker who is also facing allegations of corruption, and the house ethics chairman.

Stella Okereke, a Nigerian resident in America, faced up to Mr. Bankole during a courtesy visit by Nigerians in Diaspora group, and demanded to know why he has retained his seat when he played a role in removing Ms. Etteh on a similar accusation.

Ms. Okereke said she monitored the events of June 22, 2010, in the house, when 11 members of the house were suspended for leading calls for the Speaker to step down on corruption allegations.

In a bizarre move, the National Assembly which previously criticised the budget for the celebration of Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary, calling it excessive, has turned round to approve a figure that is N7 billion more than the Presidency had requested.

The President had initially asked for N16.4 billion for the anniversary but later reviewed it downwards to N9.48 billion following severe criticisms from the public, civil society groups and even the lawmakers.

When the request for N16.4billion was turned down on July 7 and returned to the Presidency, President Goodluck Jonathan scaled down the request to N9.48 billion in a revised supplementary budget. However, the lawmakers have now approved N17.195 billion, an excess of about N7.715 billion for the anniversary.