At the University of Benin where he was popularly known as TKO, after his initials, Professor Thomas Kehinde Obidairo was one of the least expected to engage in a brawl or even post a Technical Knock Out on anyone. However, what he lacked in physical aggressiveness, he more than made up for in his academic calling, pioneering academic departments and ventures in the Universities of Lagos, Benin, the Lagos State University and the National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN.

PDP will continue to exist as one major party in Nigeria. The Makarfi-led faction is the authentic party that emerged from the Port Harcourt convention the last time. The party met in Port Harcourt and decided to have a Care-Taker Committee and that was headed by Makarfi. Modu Sheriff – Sheriff joined PDP barely two years ago and now wants to be chairman. That is not possible.

PROFESSOR Ladipo Adamolekun, 74, an Awoist, erudite scholar and administrator, is not happy with the state of affairs in Nigeria and has urged urgent solutions. According to him, the clamour for restructuring of the country is fast becoming a slogan in the face of a failing state. For the giant of Africa to return to the era when Nigeria worked with features such as educational excellence, meritocracy and strong institutions, the former University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) lecturer said we must practice fiscal federalism with the centre losing most of its powers to the federating units.

This is the concluding part of Rev. Samson Olasupo Adeniyi Ayokunle, the new National President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN’s, interview, in which the cleric outlines the challenges ahead of him and calls on the Federal Government to hasten to restructure the nation and revamp the economy because the people are hungry.

The Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, in this piece, says those who wrote the Constitution appeared to have in mind only a Nigeria awash with petro-dollars. Nigerians are witnessing two scenes of a drama. Scene one is the drama of clamour and resistance – clamour for restructuring and resistance to restructuring of the federation, that is, if Nigeria can be called a federation in the proper sense of the word.

It’s a combination of what some people have described as financial wizardry and foresight. I will take the foresight part first. During his first term of office, the governor, realising the great potentials of Ogun State, being the gateway to the rest of the country and even the West African sub region, decided to ensure that the state is able to attract the brightest and the best from all over the world. In order to achieve this, he embarked on massive infrastructural development projects, building roads, bridges and opening up the state for massive foreign and local investments.

Technical Director of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC) Dr Daniel Igali who is also the President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF) has never ceased to exude confidence that Team Nigeria will do the nation proud in the forthcoming Olympics in Rio, Brazil next month. The Sydney 2000 Olympics wrestling gold medallist spoke extensively on his expectations from the quadrennial Games.

If you are not conversant with the family issues you can’t become the Ojora, you can’t just come from London and contest for the Ojora stool; you have to be an apprentice. I worked in the family office for 30 years; so I’ve been dealing with the family cases by going with the elders to meet the lawyers; so I have knowledge and experience. If you sue me now and I look at the suit and what you are claiming, I will just laugh. I will even advise my lawyer on what to do because it’s what I’ve been doing for the past 45 years; so I know everything. You can’t talk about anything regarding my family land now that I don’t know.

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).

Though it is not known to many Nigerians, the Office of he Vice President is actually saddled with the task of providing the economic roadmaps in conjunction with relevant bodies for the president’s approval. And so, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo wouldn’t stop at nothing to help his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari succeed in putting the country on a sound pedestal. For one year now, both men have come to appreciate their passion for the country and Osinbajo’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande who follows and greatly understands the passion of these two leaders shares with select few Newspapers a vivid insider’s account of what the Economic Team located in the Vice President’s office has been doing, the gains of the Social Welfare Scheme of the government amongst other things. Vanguard was there.

To begin with, I never lost the election. Everyone who followed the 2015 Delta Central Senatorial District election in Delta State expected me to win in a landslide, which I did. But the electoral thieves, who believe they can rig their way into office every four years brazenly invaded polling units and ward collation centres to change the results. Like every criminal, they left credible evidence at the crime scene. At the senatorial collation centre, we found out that parties that did not participate in the election were awarded votes. On this criteria alone, we annulled so many unlawful votes and I was ahead by over 16,000 votes. Ordinarily, I should have been declared winner that day but when you have the entire machinery of the state government deployed against you, things don’t come easy. As a consequence, we had to go for a supplementary election which they rigged again. That was how Chief Ighoyota Amori was unlawfully declared winner.