THE Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Ben Akabueze, while defending Nigeria’s rapidly-increasing debt burden (which he called “sustainable”) also pointed out that our real problem is our low revenues. He also admitted that we have the lowest tax-to-GDP ratio in the African continent and one of the lowest in the whole world.

THE President’s Media Office recently circulated a press statement that President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Minister for Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, directed Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to sign the 2017 Appropriation Bill as passed by the National Assembly.

On the day we commemorated the 24th anniversary of the epochal June 12, 1993, presidential poll that midwifed our current democracy, heavily armed operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, invaded THE Sun Newspapers’ head office in Lagos.

The much-vilified Nigeria Police Force, NPF, has something to crow about after consistently being in the news for its inability to rein in rampaging criminals across the country. The Force has the right to celebrate the recent exploits of its men in tracking and nabbing Chukwudubem George Onwuamadike, popularly known as “Evans”, the leader of a highly- organised syndicate responsible for the kidnap of prominent Nigerians across the country.

A recent report published by Vanguard has pointed out that only six states out of 36 were able to outpace the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC, allocations to sustain governance with internally generated revenue, IGR, in 2016. Though this is even a base-level statistical representation of the problem, it shows heavy dependency of the states on federal allocations for survival.