Stakeholders at the just concluded presidential summit on education have asked the Federal Government to re-introduce the Higher School Certificate (HSC) programme without further delay.

NATIONAL Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, yesterday, said that if the National Assembly delayed approval of the extension of time lines being sought by the commission beyond November, it would affect its plan for both the registration of voters and the 2011 elections negatively.

The Federal government through the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has ordered the release of relief materials to victims of flood disaster in Lagos and Ogun States as interim measures to address the plight of the inhabitants of the communities.

BARELY eight days after his comment on the twin bomb blasts in parts of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, which generated controversies, President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, said that he only meant to distance the spirit behind the bombing from the globally acclaimed Niger-Delta struggle.

CHIEF Raymond Dokpesi, the embattled Director-General of Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s 2011 Presidential Campaign, yesterday, visited a Federal High Court sitting in Maitama for reasons he refused to disclose to newsmen.

AFTER playing key roles in laying the foundation for Nigeria’s post-independence education sector, former Education Minister, Prof. Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, yesterday, bade the living goodbye.

Yes, millions of Nigerians have for months questioned the huge amount of money set aside for the celebration of what amounted to them as a non-event against the backdrop of mounting external debt, infrastructural decay and sundry failures in the system- Nigerians had expressed their reservations about the entire celebration.

As the world, yesterday, marked the World Day Against the Use of the Death Penalty, Legal Defence and Assistance Project, LEDAP, has called on the Federal Government to abolish death penalty, adding that it was time the country joined other democracies of the world that had stopped the use of the death penalty.

FORMER President, Olusegun Obasanjo and the group of 15 lawmakers, who are at loggerheads with Governor Olugbenga Daniel were said to have reached an accord to present General Adetunji Olurin, as a common candidate for the 2011 gubernatorial polls in the state.

Before the week runs out, more aspirants are expected to join the presidential race, in what has been described as “a final push” to stop President Goodluck Jonathan on one hand and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on the other, from retaining power.

Amnesty International and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, yesterday, asked the government of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Rivers State Governor, Mr Rotimi Amaechi to “urgently set up an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the excessive use of force and firearms by security forces, which resulted in at least one death, and 12 serious injuries in Bundu Waterfront, Port Harcourt, last year.

The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, yesterday, said that there was no going back in its efforts to ensure that the North produces the president in 2011.

All that is left is for god-fathers of the governors (anyone they listen to) to act in the common interest by calling their sons to order. Universities in the South-East cannot be different from those in other parts of Nigeria, no, not this type of difference.

Nigeria at Independence from this perspective is seen as a fully formed polity that in time has become corrupt resulting in the failure of state and political institutions, resulting in the disorder now witnessed. Failed state analysis result in two contrasting remedies.

Earlier in his speech, the Deputy Director General of the Babangida’s Campaign organization, Senator Kanti Bello said that it was time for Nigerians to elect a leader who can take the nation out of the woods, adding that people prevailed on the former military president to contest the 2011 elections owing to his good leadership qualities.