The five-star, water-front Radisson Blu Anchorage Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, has shut down operations to conduct extensive renovation of its facilities, as part of its management’s commitment to retain standards and remain the hotel of first choice for guests visiting Lagos, for business or pleasure.

Miss Gbemisola Atinukeola Abiola of the Federal Polytechnic, Ibadan has emerged the winner of the 4th edition of the essay competition organised by Consolidated Hallmark Insurance, CHI, Plc for tertiary institutions in the country, instituted to encourage research among students. Accordingly, Gbemisola went home with N250,000 from the initial N100,000 which previous winners got.

LAGOS—A group of lawyers under the platform of Lawyers for Change (Lawyers4Change) has described as mischievous, the call for a shift in the dates for the forthcoming general elections in the country.

ABAKALIKI—Passengers on board a commercial bus narrowly escaped death yesterday as the vehicle, an L-300 Mitsubushi, burst into flames along Ezza Road, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State.

BENIN—Unknown killers have beheaded an octogenarian, Pa Goodluck Uwumwanrogie, at Arougba village, near Benin, over alleged land tussle.

South Africa coach Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba insisted that his side performed well at the Africa Cup of Nations despite going out in the group stage.

Former Super Eagles attacking midfielder, Mutiu Adepoju has described as unfortunate the death of teammate, Wilfred Agbonavbare.

THE King of Saudi Arabia recently passed away and I must confess that what interested me most in the news reports over the weekend were the images of Saudi streets, infrastructure and people. Saudi Arabia is not a democracy.

ONE of the cherished traditions of developed democracies is the creation of fora for contestants to public office to sell their programmes to the electorate before live audiences. Contestants present their party’s manifestoes and planned activities on attaining power in form of debates that are often transmitted live to audiences via the broadcast media. These events are organized and moderated by select members of the mass media and others, not party partisans. This is especially the case for contestants to high offices like that of president. Since the 1960s, no presidential election takes place in America without a presidential debate. It is just a convention of American democracy that is now widely accepted and practiced the world over. It may not be a constitutional requirement but no candidate into elective office who wishes to be taken seriously spurns it.

THE other day in London, National Security Adviser Col. Sambo Dasuki called for a postponement of the February elections. I am vexed by both the call and the venue, so a word first on the latter. For news so important, you would think that Nigerians ought to be the first to know, and that it would come at the end of consultations with the electoral commission (INEC), National Assembly, and political parties, if as usual the general public is to be ignored. But I’m assuming that Nigeria’s public officials respect Nigeria’s public institutions or the Nigerian people.