IN an unprecedented move, the Nigerian Army will put the nation on military lockdown between now and February 28, 2019 in a manoeuvre termed “Exercise Egwu Eke” or Operation Python Dance III.

THE gruesome murder of former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh by gunmen on Tuesday, December 18, 2018, was a sad reminder of the perilous times we live in, here in Nigeria.

THE much-awaited 2019 is here. May we congratulate all Nigerians who were privileged to cross over into this onerous Election Year.

There are dozens of other parties jostling for various posts, including the Presidency. Some of their candidates hold some promise. However, these parties are like toddlers who need time to grow, and time is not what the country has because a decision has to be   made early in the year to guarantee an orderly electoral process on which the country’s democracy rests

Dariye was sent to a 14-year jail term (later reduced to 10 years) by the Federal Capital Territory High Court presided over by Justice Adebukola Banjoko on a 23-count charge of diversion and laundering of 1.126 billion naira Ecological Funds belonging to the Plateau State Government. While sentencing Dariye, Justice Banjoko had called it “a brazen act of looting.”

TODAY is Christmas Day! Hurray!! On this day, which is a traditional public holiday in Nigeria, billions of people are celebrating around the world. These include the Christians, non-Christians and non-believers in any religion. Though they celebrate for different reasons, the central mood is to relax and be merry, as opposed to the hectic hustle that characterises the onset of the Yuletide.

WHILE the Christmas Day is fairly simpler to understand due to its direct religious linkage to the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Boxing Day, which was celebrated yesterday (26th December, 2018), is more complex and needs some explaining. It is the natural culmination of the Christmas celebrations.

In the preliminary investigation already done by the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC headed by the Chief Prosecutor, Ms Fatou Bensouda, over the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the course of the violence, six cases have reportedly been established against the terrorists.

WE find the war of nerves between the Federal Government and the Nigerian Army on the one hand, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF and global human rights group, Amnesty International, AI, on the other, very troubling and unnecessary.

IN an outburst of bottled-up frustration and anger, some critical stakeholders in the Apapa area of Lagos have come together to issue the Federal and Lagos State governments a 21-day ultimatum to clear the armada of trucks that have, for years, made life a living hell for them and the Nigerian economy at large.

LAST week, the Federal Government gave what appeared as conflicting signals on the state of the economy. On Friday, December 14, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari met with the 36 governors and confirmed what experts had feared since last year when we edged out of recession: the economy is in bad shape.

Nothing can be more detrimental and sabotaging to the economy. It is a monumental economic crime worse than smuggling, under-declaration and under-invoicing which they claim to be porters’ shops afighting on the highways and streets and even imnd homes.

But the situation in Nigeria is peculiar in so many ways. This is why the eminent persons’ group, the National Peace Committee, NPC, headed by former military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, has found relevance at the outsets of major elections.

AMIDST serious expressions of doubt over its ability to conduct free and fair polls next year, it is reassuring that the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has continued to be generally upbeat in its preparations towards the historic exercise.

BY now, the message ought to be clear to those who have ears: illegal migration to Europe through the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea is almost a certified death sentence. But unfortunately, in spite of the gruesome experiences of those who tried it and were lucky to return alive to tell their stories, more young men and women are still embarking on that journey to Golgotha.