Boko haram members Sunday released 192 out of the 218 people abducted at Katarko town, Gujba local government area of Yobe state.

Rescue workers on sound the bodies of six skiers who went missing a day earlier after being carried away by an avalanche during a trek in the Queyras mountain range in the French Alps, police said.

Aliyu Abdulrazhi had been on his feet since 6:00 am but had no intention of leaving Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential campaign rally in Kaduna, northern Nigeria.

Troops on Sunday engaged Boko Haram fighters in a fierce battle in the restive northeastern city of Maiduguri.

By some indications, simply by tracking all the polling numbers measuring possible outcomes for the February elections, it seems that Muhammadu Buhari, former Major-General of the Nigerian Army and former Military Head of state of Nigeria, has gained momentum in the polls in his current run for the presidency. The latest numbers by INEC showing the distribution of registered voters nationwide and by their regional or zonal propensities, pretty much reveals interesting realities in the current voting landscape.

President Goodluck Jonathan has blamed the non-rescue of the abducted Chibok girls on external forces, promising that his administration would do everything possible to end the Boko Haram insurgency in a matter of months.

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, yesterday, accused the Federal Government of diverting Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, money for the funding of the campaigns of President Gooodluck Jonathan.

I did not come with any particular magic wand, except the power of information. My colleague and predecessor and the staff here did a good job. I am building on what he did through another strategy, mainly anchored on information dissemination and dissuading those who snatched PVCs to stop doing so because it would be useless and unhelpful. Such action, apart from being criminal under the laws, is also redundant given the fact that all PVCs will be useless without the presence of the owner of the card when used with the proposed card Readers.

THE presidential candidate of the APC, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, warned that if the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) should win the February 14 election, the country will “never again witness change”.

The last appears not to have been heard over the Enugu Catholic Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka’s new year message that President Goodluck Jonathan should forget re-election for lack of performance.

Pa Ayo Adebanjo, a leader of the Yoruba group, Afenifere, was a top member of the Action Group, led by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in the first republic. He also belonged to the Awolowo – led Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the second republic. At the inception of the latest democratic experiment in 1999, he joined the late Pa Abraham Adesanya and Chief Bola Ige, among others, to form the Alliance for Democracy which dominated the governments in the South-west. In this interview, he speaks on the state of the nation.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate in Lagos State, Mr Jimi Agbaje, vowed, yesterday, to end what he called the looting trend in the state.

Mrs Enoghayin Ukponayusi Helen, a 45-year-old widow, was diagnosed with cancer and taken to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) for treatment. Although she hails from a poor background, she didn’t know her quest for cure was going to be tortuous. Prior to her ailment, the mother of four sold roasted plantain to take care of her four children following the death of her husband, a pensioner, in 2009.

BEFORE, it was the issue of extra-judicial killing or police brutality that was so rampant.

Operators in the rice and palm oil sectors of the economy have cried out that their investments and the Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government on palm revitalisation in the Agricultural sector are being threatened by imports allocation and duty waivers granted to some companies in the sectors.