In the last three weeks, the nation has been treated to dismal figures of poverty in many parts of Nigeria, especially in the Northern state by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The figures show that about 70% of the Nigerian population live below the poverty line with income of less than $1 per day.

A FOND farewell to James Udensi Akwari Iroha, OON, the iconic veteran comedy actor, scriptwriter and director who died earlier on this week.

HOLD am!” I’m sure you know what that means. You may also have heard children at play, spoofing police officers at checkpoints: “Park well, my friend. Show me your particulars!”

I call him, “the fabu-lous one”, and he was indeed fittingly named for it. FABIO Lanipekun chose to be himself though he might have been something else – something more acceptable in the evaluation of the public, or in the estimate of some of his friends and acquaintances.

SOME time in August 2008 I found myself in Benin City. I had missed a flight from the Enugu Airport so I had to take a segmented road rip back to Lagos. While the bus loaded up in Iyaro Motor Park the heavens opened up and it started raining monkeys and baboons. It was my first time in Benin under a rainy condition.

WE may really not have opted for the type of liberal knowledge that we all now possess. It is quite healthy that virtually every Nigerian is now an economist, an electrical engineer, a borehole expert, and so on – all in default, because those who are paid to provide services are not doing so.

LAST weekend, the deputy president of Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, held an interactive session with lawyers of South-eastern origin in Lagos. The topic of his presentation was “Constitution Amendment, Ndigbo and Quest for State Creation”.

IN the last two years or thereabout during which the Action Congress of Nigeria succeeded in chasing the Peoples Democratic Party out of most parts of the South-West, talks of integrating the economy and politics of the region have assumed an upward swing.

THREE important comments have recently been made on the linkages between poverty, politics and insecurity, and the current state of the North. First, the Governor of Borno State said that poverty and poor governance in the last few years are responsible for fuelling the Boko Haram insurgency in his region.

SOMEHOW death brings out the hidden side of the Nigerian. I mean, really, that death, especially that which offers photo opportunity, exposes the hypocritical side of the Nigerian.

FLIGHT AJ 132 was scheduled to depart Abuja Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport for Lagos at 7pm or 19.00hrs. I was booked on that flight being unable to travel with AERO Flight AJ128 whose departure Abuja-Lagos was scheduled for 14:45.

As I came in, I saw the SURE book being distributed; we are withdrawing it. This is the old one. We developed this with the expectation that we are going to completely deregulate the downstream sector of the oil industry, the 100 per cent removal of the subsidy….. I don’t want this thing to be distributed; it will give a wrong impression”.

The first part of this article was published last week; the following is the concluding part of Peter Alexander Egom’s “Market Law for Job Creation in Nigeria”. Please read on.

WHEN a friend contacted me to join a few other columnists in Abuja for an encounter with Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, I saw it as a real opportunity to get behind the iron curtain of the politics of far North East Nigeria, core theatre of the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.

Onochie Anibeze and Tony Ubani, Group Sports Editor and Sports Editor of the Vanguard respectively accepted my apology for not being able to write during the Nations Cup.