Determined to reduce the rate of maternal and infant mortality in the country, Lagos State government has commenced a six-week training and orientation programme for more than 190 traditional birth attendants in the state.

The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, should start now thinking of a Christian successor to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, a Muslim, by religion, for 2015. Otherwise Christians should spend the next three and a half years, before the April 2015 elections, searching for another political party in which they will no longer be treated as second class members.

TWO-time governor of defunct Bendel State, Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, has described the late Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, as a “gallant nationalist and freedom fighter” who fought for his rights and for the rights of the overwhelming majority of his Igbo people.

“The escalation of the activities of the Boko Haram in Borno State was to stop all Nigeria Peoples Party from winning elections.”

No fewer than 14 persons including three soldiers were killed in two separate accidents yesterday.

When the news of the death of Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Odumegwu-Ojukwu after a long-drawn illness in a London hospital hit the air waves, the first person that came to my mind was Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State. And the reason for this is obvious. Governor Obi had been with Ojukwu since his ill health began and should be in the know of some very private thoughts of the late elder statesman.

The two major contenders in yesterday’s gubernatorial election in Kogi State, Alhaji Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Prince Audu Abubakar of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, were, last night, separately claiming a good outing in the vote that passed off with minimal incidents.

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed a suit filed against the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, challenging her appointment by President Goodluck Jonathan over alleged fake National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)certificate.

When we harped in this column last week on the imperatives of competitive ethnicity in Nigeria, our premise was that for longer than makes sense, the Nigerian nation has made no appreciable effort to embrace the integration of its multi-ethnic constituents which should have made everyone to subordinate his self interest to the general good. In reality ‘One- Nigeria’ has remained a slogan as each grouping continues to pursue its own agenda.

There are many theories of evolution and creation. Scientists believe life as we know it started with the big bang, Charles Darwin puts forth a convincing argument but like all scientific theories it loses ground the more we research and discover more.