ASABA—KIDNAPPERS took to their heels, abandoning their victim, a 13-year-old girl, Mordi Ogor, abducted on June 26, when police operatives from Ogwashi-Uku Police Division, Delta State stormed their den at Ubuluku community in the state.

LAGOS — Nigerians woke up, yesterday, with the cheering news that the Federal Government has arranged a bailout for states to enable them pay salaries of workers. It was cheering because the President had earlier told states to find ways of resolving their financial crisis.

Lagos—A 38-year-old tailor, Kehinde Ogunmola, was yesterday sentenced to six years imprisonment for trafficking in illicit drugs by Justice Musa Kurya of a Federal High Court, in Lagos.

BENIN—THE Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, yesterday, described as wicked and barbaric the continuous onslaught on churches and mosques perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect, saying that hell fire was the portion of the perpetrators.

LAGOS—Three young men are currently cooling their heels in one of the dreaded cells of the State criminal Investigation Department, SCID, Panti, Yaba, for allegedly gang-raping a 16-year-old girl (names withheld) at Orile area of Lagos while on her way from school.

PATANI—EXACTLY three weeks after the release of three staff of a construction company working in Patani Local Government Area of Delta State, gunmen on Monday at about 3:45pm, stormed Patani again and abducted a woman at a building site.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has condemned the arrest and detention of the President of Ekiti State Market Women Association, Mrs Waye Oso, by the police on the orders of Governor Ayodele Fayose.

The brickbat between some people in the current government and the immediate past Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, continued yesterday, with a group with the name Forum of Finance Commissioners denying that FAAC ever approved the withdrawal of $2 billion from the Excess Crude Account, ECA, late last year.

THE Presidency and the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were sharply divided, yesterday, over the sources of the N804.7 billion relief package being worked out to bail out many states of the country from their unpaid salaries burden.

The Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) on Tuesday said that the nation would participate in 21 sports at the forthcoming All Africa Games (AAG) coming up in Congo Brazzaville from Sept. 4 to Sept. 19.

The Judicial Commission of Inquiry constituted by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to look into the expenditure of the previous government has called for memoranda.

WARRI—THE Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, Warri Zone, Delta State, yesterday, said that its members will from today join the ongoing strike by members in Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, over unfair labour practices, especially casualisation of workers.

WARRI—A Federal High Court sitting in Warri, Delta State, has overruled the objection by Gbaramatu people in Warri South-West Local Government Area, to the suit by Ugborodo people also of the same council, seeking to restrain the Federal Government from naming the Deep Seaport in Escravos, Warri South-West, after Gbaramatu.

One of the greatest failures of successive Nigerian governments has been the inability to properly aggregate the worth of the informal sector and showcase same to the world. This also seems to be why the common understanding of Nigeria’s economy by the outside world is basically an economy in the woods. Most unfortunately the perceived bad governance and political system allegedly fraught with corruption and below par human policies, give an impression of an economy seriously in need of restructuring.

The loss of the 2015 presidential and State House of Assembly elections by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Anambra State dealt a big blow to members and supporters of the party, who had been relying on the PDP’s control of the federal government.