Governor Nyesom Wike, yesterday, presented a budget of N470 billion for the 2017 fiscal year to the Rivers State House of Assembly for approval.

The Presidency may have discarded the various Niger Delta fora that have shown readiness to represent the militants in a dialogue with the Federal Government as it has commenced a fresh search for Niger Delta leaders, with control over militants, just as it yesterday, charged supporters of former President Goodluck Jonathan to move on, saying that the Jonathan government was gone and gone forever.

Former Golden Eaglets and Flying Eagles coach John Obuh said defender Kenneth Omeruo will be the next Nigerian player to rise to prominence like Chelsea’s rising star Victor Moses.

The Naira, yesterday, weakened N490 to a dollar at the parallel market after appreciating to N485 to a dollar during the Christmas break.

THE series of crises that characterized the activities of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2016 made the outgoing year the most agonizing in the party’s 18-year history.

Mrs. Dupe Atoki is the Director General, Consumer Protection Council, CPC. In this interview, she talked about the challenges of combating consumer abuses and curbing impunity of business operators in the economy; the Council’s collaborations with other sector regulators, among other issues.

Barring any other unforeseen hiccup, the Enugu depot of Nigeria National Petroleum Company, NNPC, would resume operation on or before April 2017.

GOVERNOR Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State yesterday swore-in the newly elected Chairmen of the 17 Local Government Councils of the State and their deputies with a charge to them to look inwards for funds by focusing attention on internally generated revenue.

Piqued by what it described as irregularities that greeted the conduct of the December 21 council polls in Abia State, a group, Forum of 2016 APC Local Government Chairmanship and Deputy Chairmanship Candidates, Abia State, has called on the State Independent Electoral Commission, ABSIEC, to withdraw the certificates of return issued to all the PDP chairmanship, deputy chairmanship and councillorship candidates in the 17 council areas and 292 electoral wards in the state.

THERE is tension in the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Edo State as the state Police Command detained the ward leaders of the party in Oredo Local Government Area of the state, including the state Youth Leader of the party, Osakpanwa Eriyo over alleged threat on the life of the state secretary of the party, Chief Osaro Idah and a security detail attached to Governor Godwin Obaseki.

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has debunked claims by Governor Ayodele Fayose that he has promoted 15,000 workers in the state’s Civil Service as part of the end of the year package for civil servants.

Over 345 internally-displaced persons, IDPs, and widows from Agatu Local Government Area have received food items, clothes and cash gifts from wife of the Benue State Governor, Mrs. Eunice Ortom to celebrate the Yuletide.

Despite the moratorium on death penalty, which Nigeria signed, the Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has signed the warrant for the execution of three death-row inmates at Oko Prison, outside Benin, Edo State.

The Bauchi State Government has said it will establish three Information Communication Technology, ICT, centres in secondary schools across the three senatorial districts of the state.

BIAFRA Independent Movement, BIM, and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, yesterday stated that the long standing agitation of the Igbo people will abruptly come to a logical end as soon as the Republic of Biafra is separated from the Nigerian nation.