This festival can also be described as a gathering of cocktail enthusiasts as beverage brands and lovers of great cocktails and mocktails alike get to indulge their taste buds at designated hubs. This year, the event has been renamed ‘Lagos Cocktail Week’ and will be different in various ways; for one, we are switching up some of the competitions and encouraging more of our guests to try their hands at making cocktails at some of the different hubs.

The banks have been given opportunities to create wealth for the private sector but they have not been doing so. They have what they call SMIES which they use to reserve 10% of their earnings for the private sector but how many people have accessed that? I dare say the fund is not there for entrepreneurs to even access, not to mention the conditionality. People should investigate properly.

Lilian Ajayi, a young Nigerian professor, teaches Marketing and Global Affairs at the New York University, United States of America and is a regular speaker at the United Nations on youth issues. She was one of the speakers invited by the Presidency to speak on the occasion of the Diaspora Day.

Chief Checkwas Okorie, founder of embattled All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in this interview, calls on President Buhari administration to be creative in addressing Biafra agitation issue.

Chief Chuckwuemeka Ezeife, a former governor of the old Anambra State, blames the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration for the huge support pro-Biafra activists are getting in the South-East.

The Attah of Aiyede Kingdom, in Ekiti State, Oba Abdul-Mumini Adebayo Orisagbemi paid a courtesy visit to the corporate head office of Vanguard Media Limited, penultimate Monday, where he revealed his latest campaign for unity of Ekiti with main goal of getting prominent sons and daughters of the state together regardless of political differences. Orisagbemi, who is one of 16 paramount rulers of Ekiti State. He also hinted of his community’s capacity to boost the Nigerian economy but expressed dismay that despite the large deposit of mineral resources in Ekiti particularly Aiyede, no investor wants to come to the state.

In an interview, President Muhammadu Buhari fielded questions from Aljazeera’s Mehdi Hasan on Boko Haram, alleged abuses by the Nigerian military and his leadership of Nigeria.

Kehinde Adegbite, popularly known as Mallam Yankee is the chairman, The Bank club, Abuja and Yankee Entertainment. He is an entertainment entrepreneur who has worked with several Nigerian artistes and has given many a good platform that launched them into reckoning in the music industry. Mallam Yankee is so visible on the entertainment scene that he is being regarded as the man that transformed entertainment and nightlife in Abuja. In this chat the Abuja baron of nightlife talks about his hard-knocks life in the entertainment industry. Excerpts:

In 2002, the Yoruba movie industry lost one of it’s most vibrant actresses, Funmi Martins who died of cardiac arrest. Her daughter, Mide stepped into her shoes and has since become one of the most sought after names in the Yoruba sector of Nollywood.

The concluding part of the interview with Hon. Kingsley Kuku, immediate past Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, in which he talks about his Economic and Financial Crimes (EFCC) story

It is not about the Boko Haram saying they don’t want Western Education; the body language of the government also suggests that they are not encouraging education the way it should be. I am telling you that we have some local government areas that don’t have senior secondary school and if there is a law compelling them to establish one in each LGA that would go a long way to assist in elevating education in the state.

“So, the President requires other men and women outside his formal choir of party members who can help him think, men and women who are unencumbered by the vagaries of the sweet juices of political power and office, men and women who are not seduced by popular approval, men and women who live for tomorrow, men and women who have ideas about how nations are built, men and women who do not see public trust as a vehicle for vengeance, men and women who live by the law of live and let live, men and women who do not see the exigencies of the moment as our turn to eat.” Some saints in quasi opposition?

“I never said that I was joining APC. I said that at my age I should be an elderly statesman and will no longer play partisan politics. At 89 why should I be playing partisan politics? What is most important to me is the interest of Nigeria. I’m ready to go to prison for the interest of Nigeria. I should be able to advise the younger ones on the interest of Nigeria.”

The view of many Nigerians is that President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial list read out by Senate President Bukola Saraki did not worth the long wait. But Constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Robert Clarke, has a different view.

Captain of industry, Mr. Gamaliel Onosode, Passed on last week. The eldest son of the deceased, Ese, in this interview, speaks on the life and times of the man fondly called ‘the boardroom giant’.