FOUR days after he was declared winner of the Bayelsa State governorship election, Governor Seriake Dickson of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and his running mate, Rear Admiral John Jonah (rted), yesterday received certificates of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

SINCE the Justices of the Appeal Court in Owerri arrived at a judgment that has been widely criticised and rightly referred to as being “fundamentally wrong” by Mike Ezekhome (SAN), I have read commentaries siding with Alex Otti of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), and one thing they all brazenly promote is the disregard for the rule of law, which application was recently applied in the conduct of Bayelsa State’s 2015 Governorship election.

Rumblings over whereabouts of the 2016 Budget proposal of the Federal Government in the Senate came to a climax yesterday as the Senate accused the Senior Special Assistant to the President (Senate), Senator Ita Enang of doctoring and circulating fake copies of the budget proposals.

After missing their places at the Rio 2016 Olympic during the 2015 African Games in Brazzaville, Nigeria’s Segun Toriola and Edem Offiong will another shot at making it to Brazil at the 2016 Olympics Qualifying Tournament in Khartoum, Sudan on February 16 to 18. The tournament holds after the ITTF Africa Top 16 Cup.

Tension rose at the branches of a new generation bank in Osogbo, when officials of the Osun State High Court stormed the bank premises to effect a court judgement.

NIGERIAN Army Board of Inquiry constituted to investigate alleged professional misconduct by some officers in the 2015 general elections has returned a punitive recommendation of compulsory retirement of two senior officers.

Nigerian youth athletes who did the country proud, at the Commonwealth Youth Games last July in Samoa Island have asked to be included in the list of sports men and women to be hosted by President Muhammadu Buhari on January 21.

THE immediate past executive chairman of Delta State Sports Commission and President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, has hailed his replacement, Chief Tony Okowa, as a right peg in a round hole and an assurance that Delta sports will remain in the upward swing.

Last week, I wrote about the many Nigerian VIPs who do not manage success graciously, change for the worse the minute they cease to be ordinary citizens and start treating old friends (and blood relatives as well, in some cases) very shabbily, even when these folks who knew them before they became VIPs have helped them a lot in the past and are therefore owed considerable goodwill and courtesy.

Bala Emmanuel and Mary Dauda were just like any other farmers in Rafin Tabo Village near Zaria in Kaduna state as they work hard yearly cultivating maize on their farms but get little in return in terms of yields at harvest time. Why were they not getting high yields? The answer lies in the fact that they were using farming methods passed on to them by their parents, methods which were sometimes at odds with internationally-recognized best practices and many times detrimental to the success of their farms.