Political associates around President Goodluck Jonathan are promoting the aspiration of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur for the national chairmanship of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The death toll from Sunday’s suicide bomb attack on St Finbarr’s Catholic Church, Jos and the ensuing reprisals rose to 19 yesterday as more corpses were taken to hospitals.

AFTER six days of diplomatic stand-off that led to the deportation of 256 nationals, Africa’s two powerhouses, Nigeria and South Africa, have mended fences and reached a five-point agreement to avert a recurrence.

AN end to the raging diplomatic row between Nigeria and South Africa kick-started by the latter’s deportation of 125 Nigerians, including a serving senator over alleged possession of fake yellow fever vaccine certificates is not in sight. Reason: South Africa is not ready to apologise for the dehumanising treatment and Nigeria is ready to reciprocate the ‘gesture’ with equal measure.

The North has set machinery in motion in preparation for a conference to discuss the future of the country under the aegis of a Sovereign National Conference or forum of any sort, it emerged yesterday.

CHIEF Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Dahiru Musdapher, yesterday, blasted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for smuggling the plea bargain concept, which he described as dubious into our legal system to prosecute public officers involved in money laundering and looting of public treasury.

Sharp criticism to the call by northern governors for the reduction in derivation proceeds to oil producing states continued weekend with members of the House of Representatives from the region, leading stakeholders and the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND angrily rebuffing the quest.

FORTY-TWO years after the Nigerian civil war ended, the Igbo nation declared yesterday that the impressive manner in which the Federal Government and the entire Nigerian nation accorded the leader of the defunct Biafran Republic, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu a befitting burial has confirmed that the war has actually ended.

Four policemen and three military personnel among them a Lieutenant Colonel were yesterday, killed by unidentified gunmen along the waterways of Nembe and Brass local government council areas of Bayelsa State.

Prominent South-South leaders, a former governor and ex-militants in the region, yesterday, took up the northern governors in their agitation for a review of revenue allocation formula saying they were either uninformed, fishing for trouble or have deliberately set out to provoke the South-South.