Next Thursday, June 9 will be the first anniversary of the 8th Senate. This is therefore a a good period to critically examine the performance of the Upper Chamber of the federal legislature. There have been attempts by some people to define the narrative of the performance based on the initial controversy arising from the politics of the emergence of its leadership. However, It is clear that this Senate has more going for it beyond politics.

A coalition of 14 Christian groups has raised the alarm over alleged plan by the Presidency to turn the country to an Islamic State, “through the backdoor”, warning that such action contravenes Nigeria’s secular status.

Dr Samson Parker served as the Commissioner for Health and helped to reposition Rivers State into the modern focus of Primary Health Care. During his tenure, he led the initiative to contain the spread of the Ebola in Rivers after a diplomat breached quarantine in Lagos. In this interview, Parker explains the public health importance of the Ogoni clean-up launched by President Muhammadu Buhari, last Thursday..

The fall in oil prices alone is enough for the blind to see that Nigeria is financially down. President Buhari must therefore tighten government’s belt and block all leakages. In so doing, he has to have in his sub-consciousness that the Nigeria ghost is special. Thus, the term “ghosts” as used in this article is more than a non-existent entity that functions as though it is alive when in reality it is not. The Nigerian ghost is in various forms and shapes just as it presents itself in several dimensions. Its history easily reveals a rather large figure that is disturbingly high enough to make anyone wonder if there are not more ghosts than the ordinary workers in our public sector. As far back as April 2001, the then Accountant General of the Federation Chief Joseph Naiyeju revealed that there were 40,000 ‘ghost workers’ in the Nigerian government service. Two years later, 24,000 ghosts were identified in the pension’s unit of the Ministry of Defence alone. The Information Ministry allegedly had 40% under-qualified staff and 20 percent ghost workers. The Federal Civil Service Commission authenticated the revelation with a report that over 30 percent of the workers on its payroll were phantom staff.

For instance, there is no way Nigeria’s economy could have been successfully diversified just after three hundred and sixty-five days in office. This is because, assuming that the federal government puts in place appropriate policies that, if implemented, would lead to increased output from the manufacturing sector or guarantee more efficient and profitable exploitation of solid minerals and other viable sources of foreign exchange, several years of consistent and determined efforts are required before positive results would begin to manifest in these sectors. And, concerning the campaign promises to achieve parity with the dollar and increase Nigeria’s share in the international oil market, it is clear to anyone with a simulacrum of knowledge about the determinants of global currency regime and uncertainties in the demand and supply equation of oil that none of these promises can be realised in this dispensation. Having said all this, I am sure that President Buhari and the sycophants around him are aware, as already pointed out, that one year is indeed enough for well-informed Nigerians to reach a reasonable judgement on the overall direction his government is headed regarding the key sectors of our national life.