“Northern Nigeria is a large and heavily populated country, full of vitality and promise. In such a large country there is inevitably a great deal of diversity, but in this diversity, as in your great country, lies our strength.

Officially, the programme is called State Grant to Low Income Entrepreneurs. It is not charity, it is not patronage, it is not a case of anybody pitying anybody. It is neither the Villagisation in Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa nor Stalin’s Collectivization in Soviet Communism.

The Ibibio nationality recently invited Nigerians to celebrate the mandate they freely gave to Chief Godswill Akpabio in May 2007 to govern Akwa Ibom State.

LAST Tuesday, immediate past Governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, was guest lecturer at the inaugural Independence Anniversary Lecture organised by Business Hallmark Newspapers.

A panel of the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu is expected to lay to rest today the long-drawn legal battle by Dr. Emmanuel Andy Uba who is seeking the revalidation of the governorship mandate given to him by the people of Anambra State in 2007.