All,

This blog post is special for 1.5 reasons.

The 0.5 of a reason is that it's my 100th post. If you don't understand why I call this 0.5 of a reason, check out my blog post here:

http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/foru...orations-1103/

But the more important reason is that this will be my last post on this blog. Yeah, after today, I'm packing my bags and shutting up shop on 'The Thoughts of...

When I was younger in secondary school, it was a big thing to be able to announce to your peers that you too had joined the elite group of 'bia-bia' sporters. You could pluck the few isolated hairs on your chin with smugness, while your friends whose chins were still as smooth as a baby's bottom would look on enviously. There were all kinds of crazy things that people did to hasten the appearance of that first hair; I recall that one suggestion was to regularly use methylated spirit, as this would...

So once more, we're coming up to National Day, October 1, when all other cares and worries of the world take a back seat as we celebrate all things Nigerian. We flock to the streets in green and white, play 'Arise O Compatriots', and make merry as we eat jollof rice with dodo and chicken.

But why October 1? Sure, it was the date that we were gifted political independence by the British, but I honestly do not believe that its significance is felt viscerally by many present day Nigerians...

The other day, Mulan and I were having a chat about female singers with distinctive voices. Whitney Houston's name came up; so did Sade Adu's, as did Tracy Chapman's. The discussion got me thinking about other female singers with voices which were so distinctive that you could spot them in a hundred-person choir. It's not as easy as it sounds, because most people trying to make a career of singing tend to model their voices on successful singers' voices rather than doing their own thing. But two...

You know the old saying - "if at first you don't succeed..." Well obviously, it's harder to practice than to understand. Nevertheless, persistence does have its rewards - and a case in point is the eventual triumph of Malam Bacai Sanha who has succeeded in his third bid to become the elected president of Guinea-Bissau, and who took office just a week ago.

Sanha had been president before in 1999, but only in a caretaker capacity. He did run for president in the elections to choose...