Closer collaboration among all stakeholders and regional integration are key ingredients for the expansion and sustenance of agricultural activities in the North-West geo-political zone of the country, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State has said.

Politician, businessman and statesman, Chief Don Etiebet, was an early enthusiast for democracy who memorably established the National Centre Party of Nigeria, NCPN, in those difficult days of General Sanni Abacha, when the democratic space was saturated with the foul odour of regimented politics. He had left his position as minister of petroleum in the Abacha regime to give life to an alternative voice to the cacophony of political wanderers championing Abacha’s transmutation into a civilian president. His independence was, however, brought under check after a spell in detention at the end of which the former minister abandoned his NCPN and his famed presidential aspiration to join the United Nigeria Centre Party, UNCP, one of the supposedly leprous five parties advocating Abacha’s continued rule.

WORRIED by the crisis in Edo State chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the September 10 governorship election in the state, a group of chiefs in Benin Kingdom sympathetic to the party, Otu Odolevbo – Osioba, has called on the national body of the party to, as a matter of urgency, ban the deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu and Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s anointed candidate, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, from contesting the governorship primaries in order to save the party.

On Monday, May 9, 2016, the British ruling class got gossiping about Nigeria over the recent international anti-corruption summit in London. They were all there in that little circle at Buckingham Palace, wining and dining in the afterglow of Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday: the Queen herself, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron; the Speaker of House of Commons, John Bercow and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

Financial markets across segments have reacted to the quantum increase in the price of petrol with foreign exchange rate and petroleum stocks in the upbeat while money market rates moved in mixed direction. In the foreign exchange market the Naira extended its losses against the US Dollar on Friday following continued demand pressure which had started a day earlier on the heels of the pump price adjustment closing at N350/ USD1, bringing its total depreciation to 7.7 per cent in the first two trading days after the pump price adjustment.