Tackling frequent building collapses
Between January 2020 and June 2026, Nigeria recorded dozens of building collapses that killed hundreds and injured many more. Nationally, more than 650 collapses have killed over 1,600 people since 1974, according to figures the Federal Government cited last month. Lagos, where rapid urban growth and chronic flooding concentrate risk, accounts for over half of […]
Before corruption kills Nigeria
THE three-point agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC: Anti-Corruption, fixing the Economy and Securing the country, was so catchy as it encapsulates the contemporary needs of the country; hence, Nigerians quickly bought into it in 2015. A perceived “upright” and “no-nonsense” leader like Buhari was an icing on the […]
Is Gen Buratai mocking Nigerians? (1)
WE join millions of Nigerians to express our dismay at the recent claim by Chief of the Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Yusuf Buratai, that Nigeria is safer now than it was five years ago.
Sallah: Celebrating under economic strain
MILLIONS of Muslims around the world are celebrating the Eid-el-Adha religious holiday today. Eid-el-Adha, which literally means the “festival of sacrifice” commemorates monumental…
Ismaila Isa Funtua, OFR, mni(1942-2020)
IT is with great regret and sadness that we pay our humble tribute to a media colossus, astute businessman, industrialist, administrator, suave member of the power elite and highly esteemed friend of the Vanguard family, the late Mallam Ismaila Isa Funtua. Funtua’s sudden passage on Monday, July 20, 2020, aged 78, came as a painful […]
Need to cut cost of mobile data
WITH the advent of the coronavirus pandemic which occasioned over six weeks of near-total lockdown of Nigeria, the citizenry was forced to turn to mobile data as a means of coping with the outbreak and advancing their economic and social livelihoods behind closed doors. Nigerians, like their peers in other parts of the world, adopted […]
VIPs flouting airport protocols
IT is hardly surprising that some highly-placed individuals have reportedly been disregarding protocols deployed by the Ministry of Aviation to ensure safe air travel in Nigeria amidst the still burgeoning coronavirus pandemic. The reopening was considered necessary in order to resuscitate the economy. Three major such incidents have been reported in the Abuja, Port Harcourt […]
When it matters to step aside
ON Monday, July 20, 2020, Olubunmi Tunji Ojo, the former Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee probing the alleged financial malfeasance in the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, set what should be the gold standard in all cases of alleged involvement in misconducts involving public finance. At the venue of the probe, Ojo was […]
As the 774,000 jobs kick off
PERHAPS the most ambitious mass-employment programme in the history of this country has just kicked off. The tweet by the Federal Government on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 that the programme had started effectively overrode the earlier purported suspension of the Special Public Works, SPW, which the Joint Committee of the National Assembly on Labour had […]
Resolving Nigeria – Ghana trade disputes
IT is cheering news that the hundreds of Nigerian-owned businesses earlier shut in Ghana are being reopened after over six months of closure. This might be part of a gradual easing of months-long tensions between the two West African Anglophone countries over trade disputes and a diplomatic spat, with Ghana more on the offensive. These […]
The danger in reopening schools now
WE stand firmly on the same page with the Federal Government that schools should not be reopened for now. Reopening schools at this juncture of the coronavirus pandemic is a romance with disaster. After a recent meeting of the Federal Executive Council, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, announced that it was suspending plans […]
