ABUJA— THE Senate has thrown its weight behind the suspension of the Director General of Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Mr. Peter Jack, by the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, over alleged employment and contract scams.

Palpable fear has gripped the family of the traditional ruler of Nguru Nwe-Afor Ajala, Eze Oswald Anyanwu, following his kidnap by unknown persons.

I AM not a fan of Kaduna State Executive Governor, Nasir El-Rufai. I find him rather brash. Even with some of my friends serving in his government, I did not think highly of administration. Then last week, I got a call from a close friend. He said his extended family in Kaduna who run a private school is thinking of phasing out conventional education and taking a different course. The reason is that most of its students have moved en-mass to public schools. But he says his family school is not the only private one limping; a number of others are tottering at the point of collapse for the same reason.

The Federal Government plans to train 370,000 artisans this year to boost skills development and employment generation. Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, disclosed this last week, at the flag-off of the Construction Skills Training and Empowerment Programme (C-STEmp), in Abuja. “The Federal Government has plans to train 370,000 artisans this year…It has already been decided. We have had a fruitful discussion on it with the Vice President and relevant ministers and we are looking forward to working with the C-STEmp to achieve the goal,” Imoukhuede stated.

Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is one official who has my total sympathy. He is the victim of economic circumstances absolutely beyond his control, yet, he is looked upon to provide solutions to problems well outside the mandate of the CBN. Unjustifiably, he had become the target of attack from all sides – manufacturers, importers, exporters, BDCs, domiciliary account holders, banks, oil companies,

The Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE has said that there will be no relenting on efforts this year to dialogue with the Federal Government to bring public enterprises on the stock exchange so that Nigerians could benefit from it. Chief Executive Officer of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, while reacting to questions from the media during its briefing on the performance of the market in 2015 and outlook for the year said “the NSE will continue to dialogue with the FGN to ensure that state-owned enterprises are listed in the capital market to unlock the government potentials.”

A member of the seventh House of Representatives and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Hon Opeyemi Bamidele, has said that genuine reconciliation of all the factions within the Ekiti state chapter of the party would not only incapacitate the influence of Governor Ayo Fayose but would also return the state to the party come 2018 governorship poll.

The interbank money market experienced huge outflows of cash last week leading to scarcity of funds which was halted by N331 billion inflows from payment of matured treasury bills. Vanguard investigations revealed that the amount of idle cash in the market fell from N633 billion on Monday to zero at the end of business on Tuesday as banks diverted the idle cash to participate in foreign exchange sales by the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Whereas the Nigerian monetary authorities fixed the official exchange rate at N196 to a dollar, there is today a near 50% differential in the parallel market rate to the official rate. The fact that the exchange rate is not market determined, that the price of the dollar is not determined by the equilibrium of demand and supply means significantly that the dollar is officially priced far below its true market value.

Nigeria faces a number of challenges that can only be met if it has innovative, well-educated, and entrepreneurial citizens who, whatever their walk of life, have the spirit and inquisitiveness to think in new ways, and the courage to meet and adapt to the challenges facing them.