FOR a year that nearly did not start, 2012 had its high moments, like Nigerians waking up on January 1, only for their ululations of “Happy New Year” to be abbreviated on learning they might have to sell some of their kids if they wanted to fuel. If you think it was a joke, ask those who pawned their wards to raise the return fares from their villages to the cities after new fuel prices threw budgets – except governments’ – out of control. The more enthralling details of the year follow in order of their irreverent peripherals to the lives of Nigerians who learnt the important lesson that with government, almost anything is possible.

This is the untold story of the hardship faced by the abandoned families of the Hercules C-130 Crash of 1992 (some 20 years ago). Though they were promised quite a lot, most of the widows are still languishing in despair as the Federal Government their husbands served has abandoned them to their fate.

India is on fire and the anger on the streets is boiling over as protesters defy ban on demonstrations, water cannons and tear gas attacks from the Police, to register their disapproval of the gang-rape of a medical student last week in New Delhi, on a moving.

WITH the announcement by the Ministry of Finance two weeks ago of N22.6 billion bailout package for 84 stockbrokers that got involved in margin trading, some stakeholders who clamoured for the injection of funds into the capital market are already rolling out their drums to celebrate. However, some believe that the bailout may have been misapplied, and may not actually provide the reprieve as anticipated in some quarters, NKIRUKA NNOROM writes.

He was a Squadron Leader, SL, in the Nigerian Air Force.That fateful Saturday afternoon of September 26, 1992, he had driven in the company of his junior brother, from the Air Force Base, Ikeja, to the Military/VIP Wing of the local airport.
There, a Hercules C-130 air plane was waiting for its human cargo.