In 2017 alone, about 160,000 migrants successfully crossed into Europe but nearly 3,000 drowned in the Mediterranean, according to the International Organisation for Migration, IOM. The most pathetic case was the death of 26 Nigerian girls aged between 16 and 20, whose bodies were hurriedly buried by the Italian authorities without proper identification.

The problem has even been noticed by international stakeholders such as the International Monetary Fund, IMF, which has called on the Senate to confirm the appointments of members of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN’s, Board of Directors and Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, members to enable them join in the efforts to strengthen the economy which is just climbing painfully out of recession.

THE call for the establishment of state police is getting more strident, and continued opposition to it no longer makes sense. The Nigerian society has become complex, and so
are the variety and complexity of criminality now buffeting the citizens.

igeria’s expulsion will spell doom for our international financial transactions, especially as credit card holders will experience problems transacting business because such transactions can no longer be verified and confirmed through the global FIU.

That Nigerian voters shifted their preference to retired Major General Muhammadu Buhari owed to his promise, as a perceived no-nonsense military officer, to rescue the girls and defeat Boko Haram. If indeed the Buhari administration is merely giving away huge sums of money to terrorists in exchange for the school girls, the implications are obvious.

Nigeria was not the only country polled using the same metrics of assessment. Whether we like it or not, this report will definitely be used by global players, especially in the areas of investment and economic transactions, to make their decisions as to which countries to approach and those to shun.

The livelihoods of over 40 million people have been put at risk and what used to be Lake Chad could turn into pure desert. Research has thrown up fossilised evidences that in prehistoric times, most of the deserts today, including the Sahara Desert, used to be vast seas.

THE attack on the Government Girls Technical College, in Dapchi, Yobe State, apart from re-opening the unhealed wounds which the abduction of Chibok girls left in the national psyche, has once again dealt a wicked blow to the national effort to promote girl-child education in Nigeria. Most painfully, it is occurring in the most educationally-disadvantaged zone in the country.

The NLC had as its founding President, Alhaji Hassan Sunmonu whose leadership  built the administrative foundations of the Congress, secured its first headquarters in Lagos, popularised the NLC in the consciousness of Nigerians, promoted the culture of collective leadership and won the first National Minimum Wage in the country.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, who is privileged to be appointed Minister for the second time, is repeating a mistake he made over 30 years ago when he was the Minister of Communications under President Shehu Shagari.

Confusion arose following the broadcast of the videos showing scores of children well under ten queuing to vote in the election. INEC’s spokesman, Oluwole Osaze- Uzzi, had distanced the Commission from it, blaming the KSIEC and adding that the Commission has no power to conduct local government elections.

If not for the vigilance and commitment of this gallant officer, some of the law-abiding members of the university community who are still alive and going about their normal livelihood would have added to the gory statistics and body count that the Boko Haram Islamist terror has wreaked in the state, especially the University of Maiduguri, in recent years.

Worse still, a 2016 study of patients at the Radiation Oncology Department at University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan in Oyo State, carried out by the IAEA, had observed that 80 per cent of patients were unable to afford radiotherapy without financial assistance.

Most successful countries engage in long-term planning as a means of overcoming most of their capital developmental challenges but in Nigeria, they hardly get implemented. They have become the greatest sources of abandoned projects which litter our national landscape.

The reality is that several other public office holders and wealthy private individuals illegally mount sirens on their convoys bringing serious discomfort to other motorists and pedestrians. Banks have also joined the craze with sirens on their bullion vans.