IN the beginning: The story of Nigeria’s Nollywood is like Ben Okri’s “river” in his novel, The Famished Road, “which becomes a road and branches out to the world.”

This is the chronology of a now inconclusive sting operation conducted by the Department of State Service, otherwise referred to as the SSS, involving House of Representatives member and Chairman, Committee on Subsidy Management, Lawan Farouk, and oil and gas magnate, Femi Otedola. The complicity of both men in this latest scam signposts a deeper mentality of dishonourable conduct that is pervasive in Nigeria.

Nigerians, especially prominent citizens, now collapse and die mainly due to their ignorance of preventable diseases.

As tears from victims’ families of the DANA air crash continue to flood property and human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu listed conditions under which they and residents as well as landlords of the crash site will be adequately compensated. Excerpt:

Before the crash in the densely populated Lagos suburb of Iju Ishaga penultimate Sunday June 3, Dana Air operators pride themselves in offering the highest levels of safety and service. They are not expected to say anything less than that, at least to attract the confidence and trust of air travellers.

Calm seemed to have returned to the Lekan Ogunsola mortuary of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja where families of the victims of the Dana Air crash converged in order to identify the remains of their loved ones.

The Nigeria Football Federation has appealed to kidnappers of Nigerian midfielder Christian Obodo to free the player and save the nation’s football family of anguish.

AFTER the civil war, Nigerians in their droves headed for Lagos in search of the proverbial Golden Fleece. The military government of the time, through it populist programme, hosted the All African Games, World Boys Scout Convention and the Festival of Black Arts and Culture, FESTAC.

Against the backdrop of the hue and cry that reports of past investigations into air crashes are never made public, this report digs deep and discovers that the reason for this can be traced to the embarrassing disparity between the reports of the National Transport Safety Board, NTSB, of America, and those of Nigeria’s ministry of aviation.

As they gazed into space, feelings of numbness and despair were written all over their faces. At one time, they would jump-up and scream in disbelief.