As Nigeria is slipping deeper into the valley of insecurity, much of the momentum for economic breakthrough has been lost, in large part because of the increasing rate of oil theft, illegal bunkering and reckless vandalisation of pipelines across the country.

Following reports of incessant vandalisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC Pipelines which cost the country huge loss of lives and properties, Saturday Vanguard took a journey to a creek in 7thAvenue, FESTAC Town, Lagos where five of the culprits were apprehended by security agents.

…How billions are spent without being accounted for
Last week would not be the first time that the Public Accounts Committee, PAC, of the Senate would unearth massive reckless spending on the part of the executive arm of government. Since 2001, that committee of the Senate had always investigated and reported that huge sums of money were being frittered away.

Obviously shaken and scared, the presidency, with an incumbent who already seemed to have burnt his fingers too early in the governing of Africa’ most populous, diverse nation, midway to the end of first tenure in 2015, he is at daggers drawn with perceived political opponents in the same party.

THE issue of fare disparity by foreign airline operating in Nigeria has once again come to the front burner as Nigerians who travelled recently on these foreign airlines complained bitterly about paying higher fares than their fellow passengers from Ghana, for instance, on the same flight.

OUR attention has been drawn to the Vanguard story of Thursday, April 25, 2012 entitled ‘Vision 20: 2020 target, not realisable – Minister’, which we view as a deliberate misrepresentation of the statement made earlier that day by the Minister of National Planning, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, CON, while briefing the leadership of the Peoples’ Democratic Party on the 2012 achievements of his ministry.

Borno State is Nigeria’s self- acclaimed ‘Home of Peace’. That is the appellation. But you may not be wrong if you now describe it as ‘The Home of Ruins and Pieces’. The truth about the state is that it has become a theatre of a war unleashed by the Islamist group called Boko Haram. Insurgency has been the order of the day in the state, leaving in its trail bombings, shootings and deaths. When the residents are lucky, the death toll is low, but sometimes it can be high. Some analysts blame the problem on the international borders with Chad, Niger and Cameroun which they believe is porous as to allow Islamic extremists from the countries to enter the state at will.

What could have made the British government send a war ship,HMS Argyle, to the Gulf of Guinea and its Ministry of Defence backed the mission by sponsoring a conference on West African Maritime Security and Development?

Before the ‘Baga killings’, of penultimate week, there was My Lai, some 45 years ago.

The My Lai event happened on March 16, 1968, when a company of U.S. soldiers went into the village of My Lai 4, in Vietnam, and committed atrocities never before seen in combat. According to the testimony of one of the soldiers who later testified, “The order we were given was to kill and destroy everything that was in the village. It was clearly explained that there were to be no prisoners.”

Sequel to the kidnap of the Ejigbo Local Government boss, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, Nigerians from different walks of life have reacted to the saga.