The Federal Government may sanction Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) if it heeds the call by the Ogoni people in Rivers State, Niger-Delta, for the revocation of the license granted the Anglo-Dutch oil giant to carry out oil exploration activities in Nigeria, following the revelations by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, that the company polluted their land and caused life-threatening health hazards.

EVENTUALLY, the Chief Justice of Nigeria wrote a letter to the President, Court of Appeal on 18/02/2010 attaching the petitions and asking for comments on the allegations made and the President of the Court of Appeal was asked to ensure that further action on the judgment is put on hold.

SINCE last month, fierce-looking soldiers, with armored personnel carriers, APCs, stationed at strategic locations, have been on the alert at the oil –rich Ekpan community in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State, following a dusk to dawn curfew slammed on the community by the state government as a result of the uprising and butchery by rival youth groups, which has claimed at least 16 lives.

Although late in the day, the revelations of Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the once dreaded Chief Security Officer, CSO, to the late maximum dictator, General Sani Abacha, in a Lagos courtroom last week created what some are describing as comic distraction to other pressing national issues. Mustapha’s revelations eclipsed the six-year single term controversy and did same to the new deal reach between the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Federal Government of Nigeria on the minimum wage. Upon further interrogation, Sunday Vanguard came across even more startling revelations regarding the role of Yoruba leaders immediately after the death of Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993, Presidential Election.

WHEN, in 1987, an Italian allegedly shipped in 1,079,000 metric tonnes of toxic waste, which he claimed were residual chemicals and raw materials, to Koko in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State, he said it was for a proposed fertilizer manufacturing company in Nigeria, but, as the people found out later, the items were killer materials

SOME years ago, when the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, started its gas master plan in 2007, Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, took an interest in it, knowing that the state has a lot of gas. He got in contact with officials of the NNPC and was invited by the corporation to join a team that went round the United Kingdom, Singapore and other parts of the world on a road show for the Nigerian gas master plan.

Just as it was in the early days of the contest for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, concerning zoning, the talk about a proposed amendment to the 1999 Constitution, (even as amended) regarding tenure of office for the president and governors, is again being denied as a presidential initiative. This story investigates the ambivalence in the Presidency on the matter and discovers that the reason for the tongue-in-cheek posture is a function of the insincerity of the agenda because Nigerian leaders are so used to failing themselves and the nation that even in the face of a glaring opportunity to excel and succeed, they fail to see it

Some of the Senators who shared their perspectives on the proposal for a six-year single term of office have shown the trend the debate on the amendment will follow in the Senate.

Saddled with challenges in his bid to transform the country, President Goodluck Jonathan has come to the realisation that with a renewed anti-corruption war, a sense of discipline may be instilled in public servants with the ultimate goal of blocking leakages within the system.

Principally, but for the Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, and Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers State Governor, the three-day warning strike called by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, would have held! This is a report of how Governor Oshiomhole’s deftness contributed in very large measure to the compromise positions of state governors, the Federal Government and even NLC, thereby averting a strike that would have been too burdensome for Nigeria’s ailing economy. It is a story of intrigues and sophistry of gargantuan proportions. It is exclusive.

TOMORROW is judgment day at the Delta governorship re-run election petition tribunal sitting in Asaba in the case filed by Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru, questioning the victory of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan in the January 6, 2011 poll in the state.

TOMORROW is judgment day at the Delta governorship re-run election petition tribunal sitting in Asaba in the case filed by Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru, questioning the victory of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan in the January 6, 2011 poll in the state.

It is an elementary maxim in law that ‘He who goes to equity must do so with clean hands’! It is equally trite law that ‘he who allege, should not only be able to prove his allegation beyond every reasonable doubt, but should equally establish a prima-facie nexus between the accused person and the alleged offence committed.

SUCH an enterprise will engage our public administrators throughout the continent as they are the repository of our development history and experience. It will require that they revisit and resume their strategic and intellectual preoccupation which was their greatest asset at independence when they and they only were in a position to guide our political leaders through the labyrinth of our colonial administration.

PRELATE of Methodist Church Nigeria, Archbishop Sunday Ola Makinde, is a household name even before he mounted the saddle at the Wesley House, Marina, Lagos after the expiration of the tenure of Archbishop Sunday Mbang. Last Thursday, he played host to some journalists in his office where he bared his mind on the state of the nation, admonishing that the nation must tread softly and tackle the festering menace of Boko Haram with dispatch.