The appointment of the former Chairman, Lagos State Internal Revenue Board (LIRS), Mr. Babatunde Fowler as the Chairman Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) did not come to many Nigerians as a surprise. Fowler had raised the internal revenue of Lagos to an enviable position such that an impressed President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted after his electoral victory as saying he would attempt to replicate the Lagos internal revenue generation model at the federal level.

Perhaps, never before in history had Europe faced the suffocating number of displaced persons desperately knocking on its doors to be let in. Wars, religious extremism, repressive regimes and battered economies are responsible for the uprooting of over 19 million people worldwide, especially Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

OSUN is one of the states owing workers’ salaries for several months. Like in other affected states across the country, the situation has foisted untold hardship on the workers and their families. Some of them have been sending SOS to their friends and relations. Feeding has become difficult and their children sent out of schools over inability to pay fees.

The Inspector General of Police, Mr Solomon Arase, has renewed the advocacy by the Nigerian Police high command for victims of gunshot wounds to be given adequate and prompt treatment by doctors and medical personnel.

Within his first one hundred days in power, President Muhammadu Buhari has made just a few appointments. These constitute the inner circle or “kitchen cabinet” within the Presidency. They also include those in charge of his personal security, National Security Adviser, Service Chiefs, heads of crucial federal executive bodies, presidential advisers and assistants.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s war against corruption received a massive boost last week Thursday, when the nation’s organised Labour, consisting of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) paralysed Abuja, the nation’s seat of power in a trenchant march to support the war on corruption.

On the heels of startling revelations from the presidency on how public funds were wantonly looted by some public officers in the last administration, President Muhammadu Buhari recently set up a Presidential Advisory Committee on Corruption. Its major mandate is to identify alleged treasury looters with the aim of bringing them to justice.

FAILURE of the Federal Government and Nigeria Ports Authority to dredge the Calabar port channel is adversely affecting economic activities the port was meant to sustain. Previous efforts to dredge the port ended without improvements in the capacity of the port to take bigger vessels.

Cancer is the world’s number one killer disease. One third of the world’s 7.3 billion people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime.

The first one hundred days have just passed since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office to run the affairs of the country for the next four years. Even though Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC) sources have played down the first hundred days as a period to take a measure of their new administration, we believe that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a step in the right direction to reach the destination on schedule.

THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) recently cancelled crude oil swap contracts and Offshore Processing Contracts, which it entered into with traders under the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. The Corporation in a statement also announced new measures aimed at cost reduction and strengthening of operational efficiency across its value chain

For over five weeks now the Nigerian foreign exchange system has been on drama sketch. It is unbelievable that at a time of harsh economic circumstances manifesting in the form of sharp decline in foreign exchange earnings from oil revenue, soaring inflation and interest rates, a slump in gross domestic products (GDP), rising unemployment, mounting salary arrears amongst many economic woes, the banking industry is complaining of excess dollar cash up to US$5 billion (approximately N1 trillion) either stuck in some people’s hands or lying idle in bank vaults as a result of a foreign exchange directive.

IT has become an alarming trend that protesters have now found the nation’s major automotive expressways as the best places to take their grievances to.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015, Nigeria joined the rest of the global community to mark World Humanitarian Day. For obvious reasons, the country readily identified with the celebration which had as its theme, Inspiring the World’s Humanity. Apart from the fact that Nigeria is a major contributor to global humanitarian causes, the country is said to currently harbour some 3.3 million internally displaced persons, which is considered the third highest in the world.

At last, the Nigerian Army has started making good its plans to screen and bring back into the service, some categories of its personnel sent home or otherwise sanctioned as a result of serious misconduct, such as desertions, acts of cowardice, insubordination and even mutiny committed at the height of the war on the Boko Haram jihadist insurgents.