The record speak for itself. I can give you copies of the budget. They asked for two BMW armoured cars in their proposal. All members of the Committee rejected it outrightly without amendment. We knew that nobody needs armoured cars as far as NCAA and the law establishing NCAA is concerned

At the Digital Dialogue in Dubai penultimate week, experts in digital broadcast came together to deliberate on the June 17, 2015, digital migration deadline set by the International.

The answer is a simple no. But if you ask me if Nigeria can be ready for Digital switch over by the prescribed date, my answer will be different. It will be yes, it is possible. And that answer is based on the hope that we start work today.

COULD it be true that the 13,000 teachers, recruited by the Rivers State government and told to assemble at the Liberation Stadium, Port Harcourt, on Wednesday, for their posting letters were to be asked to embark on a protest march against the rumoured second term ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan that day as alleged by the state Police Command? Or was the claim an attempt by the police to smear the image of the state government as speculated in several quarters.

The world as described by the poet decades ago is still applicable today as the world’s literary community was, yesterday, thrown into deep mourning following the killing of Prof. Kofi Awoonor, 78. The former UN envoy was among the 39 killed during a terror attack on Westgate Mall on Saturday in Nairobi, Kenya. He died from injuries sustained in the attack.

Did anybody recognize Hon. Binta Garba last week? She was unmistakable. You couldn’t have missed her in the recording which revealed her wrestling and hard-hitting abilities. Ask Hon.Hafiz Adenowo from Oyo State: He not only got his cloths torn by Binta, a few slaps were added.

Earlier this year, I was approached to do some media consultancy in Nigeria. I’d just left the BBC after 18 years, to set up my own business, so this seemed a great opportunity. I spoke to a number of friends and former colleagues. I’d heard many stories about Nigeria, seen the reports on Boko Haram and had my own impressions of sub Saharan Africa.

THE Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is approaching its third reading, but its secure passage out of the legislative mire and into law is not yet guaranteed. The chance of failure, though, is now getting slimmer.

In realisation of negative perceptions about Nigeria, a group concerned about the situation launched a campaign to promote the country. Ada Stella Apiafi is the National Coordinator of I-Nigerian Campaign under an initiative called The Nigerian Renaissance Project. She speaks, in this interview, on the need for Nigerians to project the nation in good light.

Senate President David Mark’s quest for a vast land where he is said to be planning a university in his native Otukpo, Benue State, has pitted him against peasant farmers in Asa III, who claim that the retired military officer-turned- politician wants to deprive them of their farm land, their only means of livelihood.

Once again, Senator Yerima is in the news, claiming Islam as the basis for his argument that a girl automatically transforms into an adult of ‘full age’ once she is married, with the attendant responsibilities that relate to the renunciation of citizenship, irrespective of her age or mental capacity. Because the Senator from Zamfara State has gone public with his personal comprehension of the Shari’a, it has become necessary to respond publicly to his utterances.

Senator and former Governor Ahmed Sani, the Yerima Bakura, has finally had his way. The Nigerian Senate has bowed to his will and agreed to be silent about the age that young girls can get married in Nigeria. What this means once it is followed through and enshrined in our laws and Constitution is that girls that are as young as nine years old, provided they are deemed as having been ‘’physically developed enough’’ by their suitors, could be lawfully bedded and married in our country. That is the sordid level that we have now, as a people and as a nation, degenerated to. I weep for Nigeria and, perhaps more appropiately, I weep for the Nigerian girl-child. Yet we have no choice but to live with this new reality and to accept it as it is. After all, our representatives in the sacred halls of the Senate were not sensitive enough or ‘’man enough’’ to shoot down the whole thing, to stand firmly against the unholy agenda and to say boldly and firmly that, ‘’come what may’’, our children must be protected from sexual deviants and reprobates.

Bad news has its way of arriving not in soothing drips but as a brutal, in-your-face truth that leaves the rest of your day effectively over. A telephone call; a voice: “Have you heard …?”

NZE Akachukwu Nwankpo is the Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Technical Matters and secretary of Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE –P. Last weekend, at his home town, Okija, Anambra State, Nwankpo narrated how he missed being ordained a reverend father in the Catholic Church at a time people in his community were almost counting him as one of their indigenous priests.

Just like the winds, time has passed but it is still like a dream, the passing away of Prof. Celestine Onyemobi Onwuliri, who died in the ill- fated Dana Airline crash of June 3, 2012.