About two weeks ago, there was jubilation at Okota-Itire and its environs when the Okota-Itire overhead bridge was commissioned by the Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola. Indeed, most traders and artisans in the area did not transact businesses on that day as they thronged the venue with different placards expressing their appreciation of the good works done by the state government.

IT was a horrifying night on Monday in Awka, the Anambra State capital when seven persons, including a three-month-old baby were crushed to death by a trailer carrying a 40-feet container and heading to the commercial town of Onitsha .

Succour has come the way of five widows of Amagu-Ikwo in Ebonyi State as a philanthropist and youth leader in the state, Mr. Chinedu Ogah, through his Chiboy Foundation, has built five units of two-bedroom apartments, one each for the five indigent widows who more or less previously lived under thatched roof huts that leaked water during rainy seasons and quite discomforting for human inhabitation.

The service of songs was part of an elaborate funeral programme organised for the late media guru, Dr. Stanley Macebuh who passed on last March at the age of 67 and was buried at the weekend.

Nigerians are said to be hardworking people who have little time or no time for something as essential as leisure. But when they do, a boat cruise is not your everyday form of leisure or relaxation – not even in Lagos, a city that is surrounded by water -ocean, islands, lagoons, etc.

Just when some Nigerians were getting agitated about the ability of President Goodluck Jonathan to be his own man, he shocks Nigerians with his choice of vice presidential nominee in the person of Architect Mohammed Namadi Sambo, the governor of Kaduna State. This report presents the pressures Jonathan has had to stave off.

A glance at the one-storey building located at 9, Oloje Street in Papa Ajao area of Mushin, Lagos would not give a clue of any recent tragedy. Just last week what was considered a strange fire, engulfed a two-room bedroom flat located on the ground floor at the back of the building, consuming the entire members of the Madus family.

Ooooh good God, what kind of mess is this? Is this the way we are going to continue to suffer in this area because of one lousy road rehabilitation which the contractor has abandoned for months now. Can someone somewhere do something fast before we all run mad,” complained an apparently angry motorist along the Idimu-Egbeda Road which is presently under rehabilitation.

He had spent a lot of money planning for the naming ceremony of his son, while his relations in Akure had assured him of their readiness to grace the occasion. But the ceremony later turned to a mourning session when six of his relations became victims of an outbreak of violence.

THE use of powerful explosives such as dynamite in settling political scores first reared its head in Bayelsa in 2001 when the state assembly complex was blown up by unknown persons in the wake of the power tussle between the then speaker and now senator and the erstwhile governor of the state.

WHEN Daniel Kolawole Olukoya registered at the Saint John Primary School, Akure in 1964, neither the headmaster nor even the young boy had any idea of what the future held for him. Like other pupils, the little Daniel just wanted to start a foundation for his education.

TILL date, the situation of the girl child in Nigeria and Africa remains critical, due to a lot of factors. Even though the 1990 African Charter on Human Rights and Welfare of the Child underscored these unique factors, the girl child is far from the special safeguard and care prescribed by the charter.

Despite the pockets of protests that have greeted the envisaged introduction of tolls along the Lekki -Epe expressway, the concessionaire, Messrs Lekki Concession Company (LCC) Limited last week insisted that barring unforeseen delays, the rehabilitation and upgrade of the 49.4 kilometre expressway will be completed before the end of 2011.

Ebonyi State is called “The Salt of the Nation” for the simple reason that the entire stretch of the state harbours a rich deposit of natural salt under the earth.

I strongly disagree with pastors who don’t allow courtship. I say there must be courtship but we must teach them how to court