BRIEFING State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr Labaran Maku, Minister of Information, who was joined by Zainab Ibrahim Kuchi, Minister of State, Niger Delta Affairs said those who designed the initial project failed to take into account the difficult terrain of the region and that for the project to meet the required standard, government had to review the entire road structure.

EMBLEMATIZED in the road sign of Setraco Construction Company, one of the three road construction companies, handling the dualization of the 337-kilometre East-West Road, from Delta – Bayelsa – Rivers – Akwa Ibom – Cross River states, is a white bird, symbolizing the company’s rapidity in job performance.

VISA processing and issuance procedures have become a major source of capital flight as Nigeria loses N3.6 billion through a web of criminal conspiracy between officials of government, embassy staff and consular officers of some embassies on one hand; desperate intending travellers and agents, their agents and proxies, making the West African country the most lucrative consular operating centre in the world.

One of them led the operation that led to the eventual arrest of Abul Qaqa, the notorious spokesman for the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunna Lidawati wal Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram. The mission of the operatives was simple: Acquire more knowledge in counter insurgency. The success of the arrest of Qaqa suggests that they’re doing well.

Call it a month of unusual events, one definitely would not be mistaken. Liken it to an interesting football match that is characterized with boot-kicking and back stabbing; one would not be out of place. Until a few days ago, the month of January 2012 passes for a month that parades an array of activities which again, shot the country onto local and foreign scenes.

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha like any ordinary man that has access to power would definitely have a time he will taste both the good and the sour aspect of what is attached to his political office.

BESIDES the fact that global economies are now private sector driven, the inefficiency in Nigeria’s power sector, occasioned by actions and inactions of the Federal Government and civil servants, necessitated for the ongoing reforms in the sector. But whether the reforms would bring about the needed efficiency in the generation and distribution of electricity depends on how well some contentious issues regarding the liquidation of Power Holding Company,PHCN, are resolved. CHARLES KUMOLU reports.

Even by classical standards of ineptitude, the records of Hafiz Ringim as AIG, Zone 9, Umuahia, where wanton killings, kidnappings, bank robberies and all other known forms of criminality held sway, did not compel President Goodluck Jonathan to sack his friend.

The Late Mr. Louis Orok Edet was appointed the first indigenous Inspector-General of Police (IGP) in 1964. Since then fifteen other Nigerians have occupied the exalted office.

Last week would probably go down as the busiest for officials of Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, going by the heightened level of international meetings it undertook, in the wake of the most deadly attack by the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, on the ancient city of Kano.

Few minutes after a bomb exploded at the offices of the AIG, Zone 1, in Kano, the Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, braved the odds and traveled almost five kilometres to the scene of the incident on a fact-finding mission.

Major Hamza al-Mustapha, former chief security officer to the late General Sani Abacha, and a co-accused to know fate over the killing of the late Kudirat Abiola. Twelve years ago when they were arraigned before a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja over alleged complicity in the murder of Alhaja Kuditrat Abiola, the wife of the billionaire businessman cum politician, Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, it appeared that judgment in the case will not come.

The federal government may have set the path to tackling the menance of Boko Haram after the sect has carried out series of terrorist attacks in the country, killing scores of Nigerians with several millions of property destroyed. The group’s deadliest attacks occurred recently in Kano and Bauchi States where over 200 people were killed.