ONCE again, Nigeria ’s name has surfaced in another alleged age cheating in international sports events. This time, it was in South Africa where the Nigeria ’s female Under-17 soccer representatives, the Flamingoes, are being accused of fielding a number of over aged players.

IN April this year, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sent four of its correspondents to film about life in the Lagos slums. The group, led by Will Anderson, believed “everyone thinks of (Lagos) as a noisy, dirty, dangerous city, probably because all we ever hear about it on the news is the corruption, religious violence, and dodgy email scams.”

Finally, on Wednesday, May 5th at about 9.pm, late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua gave up the ghost after a brave, five-month battle against acute pericarditis. This brought to a close a long history of poor health which the 58 year-old president had suffered but was strong enough to bear throughout his eleven years of service as the Chief Executive of his native Katsina State and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

ON Monday, May 3rd 2010 , the world celebrated this year’s World Press Freedom Day. The Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, declared that the focus of the celebrations was the public’s right to be informed. At the Public Affairs Section of the United States Embassy, a seminar was, as usual, staged to mark the day.

At last, the chaos that followed in the wake of the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) set up by the federal government under the President Olusegun Obasanjo regime is set to come to an end as the turbines for the generation of electric power, have started being evacuated to sites.

THIS year’s May Day anniversary were dominated by agitations over pay rise by organized Labour nationwide. This was unlike 2009 when the deregulation issue was on the front burner.

THE prisons and prison system in Nigeria have been in the news of recent. About a week ago, an aborted jailbreak in Kaduna led to the death of three inmates and the injury of many others.

AT a time it was not expected, the Acting President Dr, Goodluck Jonathan peremptorily punctuated Prof. Maurice Iwu’s tenure as Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

IN 1989, the then Minister of Petroleum Resources, Professor Jibril Aminu, displeased at the virtual lack of Nigerian presence in the upstream sector of the oil industry, invited a number of wealthy Nigerians from all parts of the country to come forward and take oil prospecting licences.

IT was with utmost pride and satisfaction that we received the news that Nigeria ’s new Minister of Finance, Mr Olusegun Aganga, had been elected as the Chairman of the Board of the Bretton-Woods Institutes, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after a keen contest.

New Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, recently disclosed that the Excess Crude Account would soon be abolished to give way to the creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Part of the reorientation campaign should be focused on encouraging Nigerians to buy and use new products, especially those of good quality made in Nigeria. It is safer and cheaper in the long run. The encouragement of credit and hire purchase systems will help in no small measure.

The refusal to transmit the letter should have been viewed for what it was: a gross misconduct on the part of the president, punishable by removal from office through impeachment. Since the Constitution did not make the transmission of a letter optional, the president and his handlers should have known the grave effect of neglecting to write and forward that letter. And having failed to do so, the National Assembly should have followed the next logical prescription of the constitution by commencing an impeachment process.

THE comment made by the National Security Adviser (NSA), General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau against activities of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) is coming at a time when Nigerians are wondering if the government is not in touch with the business community and the economic reality of our time. The CBN reforms no matter how well intentioned has dealt a serious blow on the economy.

AT 98, Chief Jerome Udoji, could only be said to have had a blissful life, leaving behind him, words of endearment of a man who spent greater part of his life to promote the welfare of mankind.