THE United States government warned yesterday that if cases of electoral violence across the country were not checked and addressed, next month’s elections may be marred by violence, stressing that it had no support for any particular candidate and had no plans of doing so.

Leader of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the forthcoming elections in Nigeria, former Botswanan President, Mr Festus Mogae, has expressed worries about the rising violence in the country in the run up to the polls, saying it posed great danger to the conduct of a credible election.

There are several categories of leaders we can talk about in oil producing communities in Nigeria. There are youth leaders, who usually provide leadership for the militant wing of the community; there are appointed or elected elders, most of whom are elders that are often a blend of illiterates, semi-literates and literates; and there are activists and agitators, some of whom are appointed by the respective communities, and some others gradually become leaders because of the prominence and visibility secured from their robust activism.

President Good-luck Jonathan, yesterday, commenced strategic moves to get the backing of organised labour for his presidential bid as the race for the nation’s number one job became more intense less than 12 days to the Presidential election.

A Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo, has restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from using Amb Rufus Oluwatoyin Akeju as the Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in the coming elections for Osun State and directed INEC to immediately appoint another REC for the state.

The Federal Government would require N40 billion per annum to meet the challenge of training civil servants in the country, just as aviation professionals said lack of adequate manpower and succession plan in the Nigerian aviation industry was killing its growth.

Nigeria’s Super Eagles, still joyful at a harvest of goals in Sunday’s 2012 African Nations Cup qualifying victory over Ethiopia, take on the Harambee Stars in an international friendly match at the National Stadium, Abuja today(Tuesday).

THERE are enough reasons to be despondent if you have lived in these parts in the past 12 years. Elections have become more like circuses. They arrive and depart so quickly that we sometimes wonder whether they happened.

The naira again depreciated on Monday despite 50 per cent increase in foreign exchange supply by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority(NCAA), Dr Harold Olusegun Demuren recently spoke on various issues affecting the industry in Nigeria as it affects airlines, the agencies including the one from where he calls the shots, the challenges the ways forward and on top of it all the strides in ensuring that safety is given deserved priority by all the corporate stakeholders in the sector.