ABUJA — The first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mrs. Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, was among 4,225 new lawyers that were called to the Nigerian Bar, yesterday.

The Director-General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mrs Sally Mbanefo yesterday said that the tourism sector generated over $1.1 billion in 2015. Mbanefo disclosed this during a two-day Nigeria Tourism Investors Forum and Exhibition. The forum is being organised by the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN) in collaboration with NTDC and the National Institute for Hospitality and NIHOTOUR in Abuja. The theme of the forum is “Tourism: Tool for Economic and Development.’’

Several Information and Communications Technology players in the country are expressing serious frustrations over some of the policies coming from government, particularly aiming at using telecommunications as a means of revenue generation.

THE Senate, yesterday, constituted an ad hoc committee to probe alleged non-remittance, under-remittance, misuse, and other fraudulent practices in the collection, accounting, and expenditure of internally generated revenue by all revenue generating agencies of government for a period of four years, beginning from 2012 to 2016.

THE German playwright, Bertolt Brecht, notably declared: “Unhappy the land in need of heroes.” And too much emphasis cannot be laid on the role of heroes in shaping the destiny of nations. Like Aeneas whom Virgil credits with founding the Roman nation The Aeneid, and Christopher Columbus credited with the discovery of America, and José Marti regarded as a founding father of the Cuban nation, and Kemal Ataturk recognised as the father of modern Turkey, heroes, in history and legend, have been known to play critical roles in establishing, shaping and reshaping nations, and infusing their peoples with pride as the offspring or descendants of remarkable ancestors or living men – and women. And any land without them should truly feel improvised, as Brecht suggests.