THE various political parties vying for the presidency in 2019 deserve commendation for successfully concluding their primaries and producing presidential candidates with minimal friction and rancour. As the October 7, 2018, deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) expired, no fewer than 29 of the 91 registered political parties were ready with their flag-bearers.

DESPITE occupying unenviable positions in most international human development index ratings, great things frequently happen to reassure our people that Nigeria is still one of the greatest countries in the world in term of human and natural resource potentials.

INDICATIONS that the Federal Government is getting set to implement the recommendations of the Justice Obiora Nwazota Judicial Commission which probed the operations of the liquidated Nigeria Airways Limited (NAL), is a very positive and welcome development. We hope to see action on this as soon as possible because the looting of our national flag carrier was one of the most outstanding cases of mindless corruption in our history.

THE just-concluded nomination of candidates for electoral positions, especially in the two major political parties – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – have once again shown that the political class has no genuine intention to fight corruption. The processes were in most cases fraudulently packaged and delivered to fuel corruption among future political office-holders.

THE Senate and House of Representatives made a dream resumption for legislative business after over two months of annual recess which they embarked upon on 24th July 2018. They were supposed to resume on Tuesday, 25th September 2018 but had to defer it due to political obligations.

SHORTLY after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in May 2015, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, started pestering him to give them financial bailouts following the low federal allocations coming to them as a result of the plummeting price of crude oil in the international market.

FOOTBALL is widely acknowledged as the only thing that unites Nigerians. Whenever Nigeria is involved in major international football tournaments, every citizen, from the President to the common person, forgets the many divisive factors wracking our national unity and commits to victory for Nigeria, irrespective of the ethno-religious or sectional backgrounds of the coaches and the players representing the country.

A COUPLE of weeks after he retired from the Nigerian Army as its Chief of Administration, Major-General Idris Alkali went missing on his way from Abuja to Bauchi through Jos on September 3, 2018.

IN a little over one week from today, the deadline given by the Boko Haram Islamist terrorist group for the Federal Government to resume talks with it or they will murder Leah Sharibu and other captives will be up.

IN July 2017, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, at the opening of the 52nd National Council of Education meeting in Kano, disclosed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria was 10.5 million. This, he said, represented more than 50 per cent of the world’s out-of-school children which was 20 million.