THE number of first class degrees one of the private universities announced at its convocation ceremony last year stunned guests. A relatively new university with less than 2,000 graduating recorded over 30 students in the first class category.

THE Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, has notoriety for frauds and scandals. Some of the stories about frauds in Abuja contracts are too fantabulous to exist beyond the imagination, but many of them are true.

TO the average Nigerian who dreads the disruption petroleum products scarcity inflicts on him; it does not matter whether Nigeria imports the products from Zinder in Republic of Niger or Zinguichor in Senegal. The key thing is availability.

THERE is no gainsaying the fact that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and its twin organisation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) are very relevant in any equation relating to politics and economy in Nigeria. In fact, many government policies would not have been properly articulated if the reactions of the labour unions on issues are not factored in.

ONE thing that really gets to people about the Boko Haram sect is the violence associated with its clamour for change, the way it understands change. Were it just a sect that defended its religious fervour peacefully, the opposition to its existence would have been mollified.

Privatisation was a cardinal policy of the neo-liberal reforms advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, for ailing third world economies in the 1980s.

WHY are we ever so ready to concede Nigeria to criminals? The suggestion of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, for suspension of night travels meets this standard of postponing challenges under the pretence of solving them. Fourteen passengers died on a night trip last week on the Okene-Lokoja road not because they were travelling […]

IN December 2008, thousands of young people hit the streets of various cities in Greece to protest the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a teenager a policeman shot.

TWO things may shock you about the report of the Presidential Committee on Environmental, Survey, and Clean-up of Ogoniland which the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, conducted — Ogoni spokes people are rejecting it as an imposition and the Nigerian government, the senior partner in all oil productions in Nigeria, says it needs help to implement it.

MORE than 29,000 children are dead. Another 640,000 are malnourished enough that their death is a matter of time. The death toll increases from people scrambling for food or through gunmen who want to hijack food that relief organisations are distributing or stop it from reaching the people.

COMPARISONS between Boko Haram and the militants in the Niger Delta, as the explanation for the proposed talks between government and the group in Maiduguri are inevitable, though many would refuse to see the connection.

PROFESSOR Ben Nwabueze at his 80th birthday re-stated his idea of the Nigeria he wanted since his return to the country in 1962. He had thought Nigeria after independence would be the great nation that many foretold.

SENATOR Ahmed Makarfi was governor of Kaduna State for eight years. Thereafter, he was in the Senate for four years, but the people denied him a space when he sought re-election, though his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, returned him unopposed in the primaries.

LAST February when the tiff between Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, and President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, became public, Salami had predicted, “chained reactions.” In a February 4 letter, he warned Katsina-Alu not to create a “dangerous precedent which may give rise to chained reactions.”

THE best ploys in defence are to stick to your story and more importantly blame others. President Goodluck Jonathan is applying both in his comments on the proposal to hand the president and governors a six-year tenure. There is a sweetener that will sell the proposal – the legislature will also get a modified tenure.