THE Benenibowei of Gbaramatu Kingdom Warri South-West Local Government Area, Delta State, Chief Godspower Gbenekama, weekend, challenged the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Solomon Dalung, who claimed to have held talks with Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, in Oporoza, last week, to publish the name and identity of one of the members he met with.

We in the capital market have always had cordial relationship with the Federal Government. We owe the Federal Government constant engagement in order to articulate policy issues that would move the market forward. The regulators and we the operators are the technical people . But we need the endorsement of the government and its patronage at every stage for the market to move forward. Several meetings, including public hearings had been held to x-ray the capital market and re-position it for global competitiveness. Many committees had been constituted as ad hoc or standing one. These committees usually have government representatives. Engagement with the government is a continuous exercise.

Well, what I can say as the National Coordinator of the CNDE, is that we are both surprised and not too surprised over the recent spike in oil facility attacks. We are not surprised because there are certain things that the government needed to provide in the Niger Delta but it has not done so up till this moment. These are the issues that gave birth to the Presidential Amnesty Programme. We are surprised that instead of addressing those germane issues the government merely tried to appease some people and allow the issues to fester.

With the oil sector contributing 20 percent to the Nigeria’s economy in recent times, the current economic challenges confronting the country can be exploited to facilitate the goal of being one of the 20 biggest economies by 2020. This however depends on how the citizens respond to the challenges and continued focus on developing the non oil sector especially agriculture. These views were expressed by the Director General of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo in a recent interaction with finance correspondents where he also explained the rationale for external borrowing to fund the 2016 budget.

BORN in Kaduna on August 25, 1946, Archbishop (Professor) Adebayo Dada Akinde spent his formative years there even though his parents were of Egba (father) and Sierra Leonean (mother) extractions. Akinde, an electronics engineer and computer scientist, earned a B.Sc. degree in electronics from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University).