We were pleased – early Saturday morning notwithstanding – to accept the president’s invitation to attend the conference on national unity on February 27. We did so without easy cynicism. As an organisation which has been persistent, unflinching in its 27-year-old campaign for social justice across various sectors, we walked into the conference with confidence in its good intentions, some questions about its follow-up and not a single doubt about our own mission. Meteorological considerations aside, the air was indeed lighter without the suffocating presence of PLPN, which, busy campaigning for votes before the nationwide shutdown struck, would do better to listen attentively to the interventions from distant Buskett.