Kingsley Kuku, immediate past Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, is one of the promotes of the Niger Delta struggle, having been part of the Kaiama Declaration of 1998, which set the stage for the agitation for a better region, and having participated actively in most of the programmes that subsequently resulted in the granting of amnesty to militants on June 25, 2009.

It is not easy to rule a country with such diversities. But in spite of this, what is more important is that we have made progress and we pray that as we continue, we will make substantial progress. We need to be together and be united and we ought to turn our diversities into our strength.

Alleged ministerial nominee of President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Pat Utomi, is a renown economist and public affairs commentator. Utomi served as Special Adviser in the Second Republic government of President Shehu Shagari. He recently marked his 30th wedding anniversary in Lagos. In this interview at the low-key event, Utomi speaks on some national issues and how the change movement, brought about by the All Progressives Congress APC, came into being.

Dr. Muiz Banire is a man of many parts: An academician, an advocate in law, an administrator, a politician. Banire served as Commissioner under former Governors Bola Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, and is currently the National Legal Adviser of the ruling APC. The latest feather to his cap is the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) title. Meanwhile, in this interview, Banire says he is not a professional politician but a professional in politics.

100 days after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, human rights lawyer and former President, Nigerian Bar Association, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, takes a critical look at the Buhari administration. According to Agbakoba, 100 days is not too early to judge the President, but the parameters used in judging him is what matters. He also takes a critical look at the role of the anti-corruption agencies in the fight against graft, the new oppositional role of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Agbakoba advises Buhari to implement the report of the 2014 Confab for a new Nigeria.

In this interview with Jiti Ogunye, the erudite lawyer frowns at the issuance of orders that seek to scuttle court proceedings. Specifically, he advises Senate President Bukola Saraki to confront the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, and defend himself on the charges of fraudulent assets declaration levelled against him and, where he trumps the CCT, he should sue for damages

In his days as the governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, otherwise known as DSP, was fondly referred to as the Governor-General of Izon Nation, because he presided over the only state with entirely Ijaw extraction and was seen as the leader of the struggle for the proverbial Resource Control in the Niger Delta. But his popularity and political career was cut short when he was impeached towards the end of December 2005 and replaced by his then Deputy Governor, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who later became Nigeria’s President following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010.

The name, Shehu Sani, rings a bell in the global human rights community because of his antecedents as a defender of the less privileged in the society. But, in 2015, the activist decided to throw himself into the political turf and he won election to represent Kaduna Central on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC. But trust him not to be one who will look away if he feels threatened for any reason.

Buhari has come on a change agenda and he is not expected to behave in a manner in which you will see things as business as usual. He has to change things and he has to fulfill his promise of change to people and he is trying to understand the place and put fundamental changes in place because if you put a very heavy structure on a faulty infrastructure, the building will collapse.

I think that fear is palpable because of activities that have been set in the past in the development of democracy in Nigeria, there is this fear that President Muhammadu Buhari who is a product of the APC can most likely use his position as the President of Nigeria to influence judgments in the various tribunals in favour of APC elected officials whose elections are virtually in the courts and in the tribunals.

We don’t want to put any value on the 23 hectare farmland we are cultivating but we can only ask Nigerians to watch out for us in the next few months and years. So, I have sunk in over N1.5 million into the farm and we are still putting in more to move it to the level we want it to attain in the shortest possible time. We are currently concentrating on Soya beans and fish farming. We hope to add more crops and services.

Frankly speaking, dialogue with Boko Haram is essential. Even when you win a war or a battle, that is not the end. You have to dialogue for lasting peace so dialogue with Boko Haram is essential and dialogue with the stakeholders concerned is essential so I will sincerely advise the government to embrace dialogue with all concerned.

The Senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Shehu Sani, says the relationship between him and Governor Nasir el-Rufai, has broken down irretrievably s a result of ideological differences.

Ibrahim James Pam, a Nigerian, educated by the British government under its Chevening Scholarship Programme at the London School of Economics, and currently works as the Resident Investigator for the United Nations in South Sudan, is an expert in the criminal justice system. He had previously worked as Chief Legal Officer with the Nigerian Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Chief Investigator with the African Development Bank and the International Criminal Court at The Hague, helping to develop instruments for checking financial crimes in many parts of the world.

LADIPO Adamolekun is an academic of renown, being a Nigeria National Merit Award Winner. A professor of Public Administration who taught at the Obafemi Awolowo University and worked at the World Bank, Adamolekun now prefers to style himself an “independent scholar.”