First of all, I want to say that we have made all our research findings available to industry and we are encouraging industries to come and look at our innovations and commercialise them, particularly in the build environment. We have worked with the Council for Regulation of Engineering. We are developing a concrete mix design manual for the country to end the controversy on cement. The tests for the development of the manual are being done in NBRRI and the University of Uyo.

MALAM Ahmed is one of the drivers in the Government House pool in Maiduguri. Whenever I visit the Borno state capital, he was almost always the driver that carried me around. Last Saturday afternoon, just after noon, Ahmed called from Maiduguri to inform me that the Borno state Deputy Governor, Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, had died in Yola, Adamawa state. I was stunned and immediately placed a call to Kashim Shettima, the Borno state governor.

THE Head, Trade Division of the African Union Commission, AUC, Mr. Nadir Merah, has disclosed that cooperation among standard organisations in Africa can boost sustainable agriculture and food security in the continent. Mr. Merah, who represented the Chairperson of the Commission, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma , at the just concluded 52nd African Organisation for Standardisation’s, ARSO’s meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, said Africa was close to realising the lofty dream given the rate of collaboration and cooperation among the ARSO members.

Absence of trial judge, Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye, of a Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja, has stalled the trial of Seun Oladapo, a suspected killer of a Lagos-based human rights crusader, Kunle Fadipe. Justice Ipaye, who has been sitting since inception of the long vacation for judges in the state, on Monday, joined her colleagues to observe her own holiday.

However, there is a need for legislative reform such that, among other things, the damages which a public institution has to pay to whistle blowers like Ibirogba should be borne personally, collectively and/or individually, by those who constitute the Management and/or Governing Council and who knowingly participated, aided, condoned or allowed the looting, dissipation, mismanagement and/or waste of public funds, rather than the monetary penalties being taken from public treasury.

The issue of extra judicial executions by the Nigerian police has, for quite some time, been on the front burner of national discourse and despite denials by the Police High Command the ugly trend has continued unabated with many public health institutions raising alarm over alleged harassment, intimidation, and highhandedness of police officers in their bid to off load the victims of their mass executions.

WARRI—OVER 350 communities, which are victims of the Bonga oil spill in Bayelsa State and negatively impacted have given Shell Nigeria Exploration Company, SNEPCO, a 14-day ultimatum to compensate them for their operations in the Niger Delta region or will be shut down.

BENIN—A legal practitioner, Bola Amaye and two of his siblings, Fome Amaye and Shola Amaye, have been arraigned before an Oredo Chief Magistrate Court sitting in Benin, Edo State over alleged stealing of documents of property belonging to late Engineer Samuel Amaye.

ASABA—PROCEEDINGS at the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, has been stalled following three fresh applications by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, seeking details of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC officials being summoned by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Delta State in the April 11 election, Olorogun O’tega Emerhor to testify at the tribunal.

“The rate at which the water is rising is giving us cause for concern due to our low shoreline and vulnerability to flooding. We are more disturbed by the reported release of excess water from the Lagdo Dam in Cameroon,” said Preye, a resident of Sagbama.

THE lingering decline in crude oil prices, which has greatly affected Nigeria’s revenue from crude oil exports, has taken another dimension in recent months. About 35 million barrels of the country’s crude oil remained unsold at the international market as at December 2014.

This is the concluding part of this article. The second part was published in the penultimate Wednesday’s edition of Vanguard By Obi Nwakanma THERE is Dr. Alvan Azinna Ikoku III, who studied Medicine, and is an MD from the Harvard Medical School and also has a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from Columbia. He is currently […]

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Wednesday stated that about 110 Nigerians were still living below poverty line despite the policies of past governments to improve their welfare.

GOVERNOR Henry Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State is a leader who defies the familiar categorisations and typologies of Nigerian public service. Since his swearing in on February 14, 2012, he has always been at home with the values and sensibilities of the creeks and Bayelsa’s rural communities. But he is also comfortable in the world of wonky policymaking and urbane governance. The governor is thus as close as it gets to the archetypal 21st century public servant. These attributes, in conjunction with his organic involvement in the Ijaw struggle, have earned him the adulatory name of the Countryman Governor.

The Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Lamorde, has made a case for the establishment of special courts to prosecute corrupt persons in Nigeria as a way of facilitating the anti-corruption war.