Jide Akintunde told me a story about an exemplary Christian in his former church who was unemployed. Everyone in the church was impressed with his piety and devotion to God. Therefore, the prayer squad took it upon themselves to fast and pray for him to get a job.

The Seventh National Assembly, NASS, ended on a disgraceful note when it passed forty six(46) bills, on which they have been seating, in ten minutes. Some of the jesters, called Senators even tried to add insult upon injury by defending the absolutely indefensible. The former Senators probably never heard that “it is better to keep quiet and be considered a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” If the 7th Assembly ended in disaster, the 8th had started in chaos which might have doomed it from the start. Yet, these possibilities were pointed out in 2013 – when the APC first got started. In August 2013, the following columns were published on these pages.

SENATOR Ben Ndii Obi is the immediate past Presidential Adviser on Inter Party Affairs. Before then, he had held many political positions, including being the National Secretary of the defunct All Peoples Party, APP, vice presidential candidate and the senator for Anambra Central. In this interview, Obi speaks on Senate President Bukola Saraki and why there is need for the executive and the legislative arms of government to work together

Their collective effort massively won them the general elections, but now they are in disarray. This is the story of a ruling political party in search of peace after the elections of Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon. Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives of the 8th National Assembly respectively.

It may be difficult to feel the pains of these over 1,300 victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, until you visit the children where they are camped in Uhogua community, in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State. The camp is situated on a large expanse of land acquired by the President of the International Christian Center for Missions, Pastor Solomon Folorunsho, in 2005, with a view to rendering assistance to less privileged children in the area, but unknown to him, a Herculean task was ahead of him. The camp resembles a monastery where you see missionaries who left their families to dedicate their lives to the service of humanity. A 28- year-old German lady, who identified herself as Linda Shoes, works in the camp. Sunday Vanguard saw her at the kitchen assisting the natives to cook for the children.

In July 2010, renowned law Professor, Itse Sagay, raised an alarm that Nigerian lawmakers were the highest paid in the globe. Sagay found that a Nigerian Senator earns N240 million ($1.7 million) in salaries and allowances while his counterpart in the House of Representatives earns about N204 million ($1.45 million) per annum. Realizing that an American senator earns $174, 000 while a UK parliamentarian earns about $64, 000 per annum, Sagay condemned the Nigerian situation as “a breach of public trust”.

Chief Chekwas Okorie is the founder of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, and the United Progressives Party, UPP. He was the UPP presidential candidate in the March 28 election. In this interview, he speaks on the expectations of Nigerians from the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Since the global human rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI), released its latest report on the Nigerian military, calling for the heads of nine military commanders and condemning the rank and file for alleged war crimes, things appear to have fallen apart for it. Stung by what they called the obvious biases and inconsistencies in the report which reduced the ongoing counter-terrorism war to an attack by the Nigerian Army, Navy and Air Force on innocent and law-abiding citizens in Nigeria’s North-East, many civil society and human rights organisations across the country have been staging demonstrations calling for the probe of the AI in Nigeria and expressing solidarity with the armed forces over the perceived campaign of calumny by the global watchdog

After three weeks of consultations with international and Nigeria’s political leaders, President Muhammadu Buhari appears set to effect major changes in the administration of the country in a bid to translate the ‘change’ mantra of his party into reality. To start with, the President is said to have accepted the recommendation of the transition committee he raised a few weeks ago to slash the number of ministries from the present 42 to 19 with a view to saving cost and making them more effective and responsive to the needs of Nigerians.

After two weeks of investigation, Sunday Vanguard presents exclusive details of the dirty war going on between the military, members of the Jama’atu Ahliss-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (Western education is evil), otherwise known as Boko Haram, some influential Nigerians who appear to have lent support to the terrorists on the one hand, and some officers and men of the military who are aiding the operations of the terrorists in this war, as well as the sometimes naïve yet complicit contradictory disposition of Europe and America, that have both wittingly and unwittingly allowed the terrorists to gain ground and have become somewhat difficult to defeat.

Fair-skinned actress, Edwin Princess, is a fast-rising actress in Nollywood. She was born in Anambra State but lived in Austria until she relocated to Nigeria to pursue her acting career. Edwin Princess has starred in movies like ‘The Birds’, ‘Ibu’s Wedding’ amongst others. She was recently on a movie location in Festac Town, where she starred alongside Eze Nwora George, Ginika Maureen and others in her latest movie. In this exclusive interview, she talks about her life, career and more.

’The odds against Boko Haram amnesty’ Professor Ibrahim Gambari was Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during General Muhammadu Buhari’s first coming as Head of State in 1984. He moved on to serve at the United Nations as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative and was the Chairman of the National Anti-Apartheid Committee for over 20 years. He served […]

*Says he collected N300,000 on each abduction victim kept in his custody By Evelyn Usman The visit of stern looking policemen in three vans to Odubotu compound, located in Okesopen area of Ijebu-Igbo,Ogun state, sent fear down the spine of members of the sleepy community. The armed men reportedly jumped out of the vehicles and […]

The request by seven All Progressive Congress, APC, Governors, namely, Okorochas (Imo), Ambode (Lagos), Al-Makura (Nassarawa), Aregbesola (Osun), Masari (Katsina), Ganduje (Kano) and Ajimobi (Oyo) raise several questions before consideration of the content of the request itself, as well as the reasons adduced for it.

The former Federal Office of Statistics, now National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has been calculating employment/unemployment statistics to guide policy over the years. During the 1960s, data from the then FOS reflected full-employment in the economy. Even when government was concerned about rising unemployment, the FOS from 1983 – 1998 published unemployment rates average as 4.0 per cent signaling full-unemployment. From 1999 to 2013, the rates of unemployment published by NBS mirrored the concern of government that unemployment was not only a major challenge but also indicated noticeable rising trend among youth unemployment. For example, in 2010, the rate of unemployment stood at 21.4 per cent and rose to 27.4 per cent in 2012 and declined to 24.7 per cent in 2013. These high rates clearly indicate that the economy has an unemployment problem. These rates are quite at variance with the 5-5.5 per cent full employment rates.