ON Monday, the Federal Government announced a N10 billion fund to support domestic vaccine production to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. At the briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, PTF, in Abuja, Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, revealed that the Ministry of Finance had released the sum to support efforts […]

RECENTLY, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olorunnimbe Mamora, sounded a note of warning to Nigerians against lowering their guard in expectation of COVID-19 vaccines. The minister’s warning is in consonance with an admonition by the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, […]

TODAY, history, in the class of the famous American and French Revolutions, is being made in the United States of America. Although the history is taking place in the US, it represents a victory for all countries of the world where people value freedom. January 20, 2021, caps the victory of democracy in the age-long […]

THE United States President-elect, Joe Biden’s appointment of three young Nigerians into his cabinet is replete with lessons, not just for Nigeria, but for the entire African continent. Biden first appointed 39-year-old Adewale Adeyemo, who was the first President of the Obama Foundation, as United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Next, Biden appointed 26-year-old […]

WHILE speaking at the fifth regular meeting with the Presidential Economic Advisory Council, PEAC, Tuesday, December 29, 2020 at the State House in Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari again directed the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, not to release forex from the country’s reserves for the importation of food items. He declared that seven states are […]

RECENTLY, a renowned virologist, Prof Sunday Omilabu, Director of the Centre for Human and Zoonotic Virology, Lagos University Teaching Hospital and College of Medicine, University of Lagos, cautioned against vaccinating Nigerians who have acquired natural immunity to the COVID-19 virus. According to the virologist, giving the vaccine to such people could jeopardise their natural immunity. […]

THE coronavirus pandemic has contributed a lot to the current food inflation ravaging Nigerian families. Coming in February/March, the beginning of the planting season, and forcing a prolonged national lockdown, it prevented many of our farmers from sowing their seeds. Food inflation, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, rose from 16.66 per cent […]

THE call for return of the National Sports Commission, NSC, established as National Sports Council in 1962 under the Ministry of Labour, has been very loud. In 1971, the Federal Military Government renamed it to National Sports Commission under Decree 34. Over the years, the commission has witnessed name changes. It was annulled by the […]

STATES in the South have not been proactive in terms of food production, which is evident in their collective neglect of agriculture. This was one of the fallouts of our general dependence on the monthly federal allocations from Abuja since the rise of our crude oil-dependent economy. While Northern states continued to strengthen their commitment […]

SEVERAL weeks after Americans voted in the November 3, 2020  general election, the country’s Electoral College met Monday, December 14 and affirmed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory as President-elect and Vice President-elect respectively. It was an election that shook the very foundations of American democracy, and the presidential system of government fashioned in the […]

“TO every disadvantage,” says the American philanthropist, W. Clement Stone, “there is a corresponding advantage.” The coronavirus pandemic is yet to be over, but it has changed and continues to change our lives in significant ways. The challenge now is for us to strive to accommodate the positive changes the pandemic has espoused. Before the […]

ON pages 10 and 18 of the book, AWO, The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, published in 1960, the author revealed the incredibly low level of hygiene in his Ikenne community around 1920. Awo wrote: “In a society where most people did not have anything at all like a bath more than half-a-dozen times in […]

NIGERIA witnessed a spontaneous growth in sports in her early history of nationhood. Indeed, even before independence, competing under the British flag, the Union Jack, Nigerian athletes won laurels for the country. The likes of Hogan Kid Bassey (World Featherweight Boxing champion in 1957), and Richard Iheatu, also known as Dick Tiger (World Middleweight Boxing […]

NIGERIA, like many countries, does not know the exact number of her people infected with COVID-19. What is known is the infection status and number of people that have been tested. Only those tested who returned laboratory-confirmed infections are counted as confirmed cases. Testing is the window into the burden of the pandemic, and a […]

COMPROMISING the integrity of the election is responsible for many political crises in many countries. The civil war fought in Nigeria (1966-1970) was remotely connected to the heavily rigged 1965 elections in the old Western Region. Stealing of votes led to bitter and violent protests, a chaotic situation which some young, adventurous army officers believed […]