FORMER Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, deserves pity in his defence of his EFCC days. His recent attempts at exonerating some individuals of corruption fail under the barrage of questions he posed about their conduct.

HERDSMEN have the headlines this week, introducing new dimensions of denials to the security challenges Nigeria faces. The pretences at action are worse than doing nothing.

MOST of the pains that people will go through in Lagos as the Third Mainland Bridge is being fixed are avoidable. They are part of the larger lessons about the consequences of poor planning. It is a great idea to maintain the bridge, but more thoughts should have been invested in minimising disruption of life.

MORE than 100 people were killed in two days in Barkin Ladi and Riyom Local Government Areas of Plateau State. We may be paying attention to the killings – which are routine – because Senator Gyang Dantong and the Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly, Mr. Gyang Fulani were killed on Sunday.

A FEW things are becoming clearer about the fuel subsidy scandal that is rocking the House of Representatives – there are more scandals within the scandal, and the public must not know them.

WE hope Chief of Defence Staff, Air Vice-Marshall Oluseyi Petinrin was not feeling triumphant when he told the House of Representatives committee probing the oil industry that oil thieves stole only about three million barrels of crude oil monthly. He sounded so.

JUNE 23 was the United Nations’ International Widows Day. Many interests and non-governmental groups, in Nigeria, took to the streets with placards calling for an end to crises and violence, the major sources of widowhood – especially among young women.

ON 10 May 2011, Nigeria was drenched in emotion as President Goodluck Jonathan paid compensation of N5 million each to families of 10 members of the National Youth Service Corps killed in election-related incidents.

A MONTH after 153 people died in the Dana air crash, the lamentations have not abetted. Motions on improving air travel safety continue. Some have lost their jobs and billions of Naira will be expended in improving airports, which national legislators rate so important that if they suffer blackouts, sessions are held on the implications as if the country was coming to an abrupt end.

NIGERIANS are still waiting for the security agencies to prosecute Farouk Lawan, the embattled chairman of the House of Representatives Committee that probed government expenditures on petroleum subsidy. It seems it would be a long wait.

President Joyce Banda, 62, emerged as Africa’s second female president on April 7th 2012 after her predecessor, Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika, died of heart attack. She promised to shake things up and improve relations with aid donor countries.

THE 2012 Children’s Day, the 58th Children’s Day since the United Nations Assembly declared it in 1954, was unique. It fell on a Sunday, so it passed without embarrassments governments would have endured about their neglect of children.

THE Dana Air crash threw up ample evidences of the internal problems of domestic airlines. Air Nigeria whose pilots and engineers were on strike for weeks, alleging poor pay and inadequate attention to industry imperatives was added to the suspension list. There may be more.

EARLIEST interests in constructing Nigeria’s coastal road, dates back eight decades. The Niger Delta Environmental Survey of 1998 rated the road among development priorities for the Niger Delta Region.

WITH days to his promised end of June restoration of normalcy, President Goodluck Jonathan sacked General Andrew Owoye Azazi, National Security Adviser and Mohammed Haliru Bello, Minister of Defence.