TWENTY – SEVEN States cannot pay salaries.” That was President Muhammadu Buhari speaking at a recent occasion. Restructuring is not a swan song neither is it a mantra. It cannot also be called a slogan. Rather it is a direct appeal to our collective soul and wisdom to decisively reflect and preserve our Nationhood so that, quoting Chinua Achebe in reverse “The centre can Hold”. It is a road to that dream Nigeria that has to be.

THE recent passage of the Child Rights and Responsibility Bill into law in Enugu State by the State House of Assembly was no doubt a welcome development and a major breakthrough for the children of the state.

However, arguments as to what PDP would have done about the current economic situation which APC-led government is not or has not done rather xrayed some economic solutions which could be relevant for discussions by policy makers in Nigeria. These arguments in some comments by some Nigerians were compiled from a Vanguard’s news story, “Economic Recession: Nigerians have realised electing APC was a costly mistake- Usman” Read.

In Akwa Ibom today, apart from Deputy Governor Moses Ekpo, Uwemedimo Nwoko, the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, is probably the only cabinet official in the Udom Emmanuel-led administration that had populist leaning to a point of drawing media attention before getting into government. It was that backdrop that informed mixed reaction by some concerned individuals.

Elections has come and gone, but the gainers are yet to be known in Delta State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

It is no longer news that six important courses at the Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma have failed the accreditation test conducted by the National Universities Commission (NUC). Given the critical role education plays in the development of any society, this is quite unfortunate and sad. This is an embarrassing, shocking development the Edo State government should not have allowed to happen, in the first place, had it decided to get its priorities right. This is because the government had enough time to prepare the state-owned university, by way of strategic and targeted funding, and by upgrading all its courses, ahead of the scheduled and routine visit of the NUC accreditation team.

I never believed that true life is stranger than fiction until I read the case of Joe Fortemose Chinakwe, the young man who named his dog after his hero, Buhari, only to be arrested and detained by the Nigerian Police on the excuse that his actions were likely to breach the prevailing peace in his community of Sango-Ota, Ogun State.

A group, under the umbrella of Concerned Owerri Indigenes, has petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari accusing the Imo state governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha of victimising the indigenes of Owerri by demolishing several buildings in the old Owerri city while nothing was being built.

When the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, re-appointed the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike as the chairman of the 17th August, 2016 National Convention Planning Committee, it was because the party needed a strong and dedicated political strategist with the right skills to weather the storm of the anti-denocratic antics of the ruling party.

Mr President Sir, l did promise last week when this subject was discussed to present “to you a simple but workable formula for the solution to this Niger Delta challenge”, with a caveat: ”if you are genuinely willing to make enduring history in Nigeria.” For now, l can only assume that you read part one of this open letter, and that is assuming that you are better than Olusegun Obasanjo, who admitted publicly, when he was President, that he never read Nigerian newspapers.

A Yoruba proverb says that one does not keep silent when something bad is going on because a house does not burn and fill the eyes with sleep.

The coordinated attack on the integrity and credibility of former President Goodluck Jonathan is unfortunate. That the same hastily cooked up lies were reported simultaneously and almost word for word by some known client media of the powers that be is evidence of the fact that someone powerful is out to get the former President.

he Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, has expressed concern over the state of the economy, saying Nigerians, especially lawyers are suffering under the present economic situation.

When I warned the Nigerian people about what the APC represented and that, if given power, they would be the most reactionary, repressive, vindictive, insensitive, vicious, thin-skinned, paranoid, divisive and, worse of all, incompetent government in the history of Nigeria no-one listened.

MEDIA reports about invasions of business premises by the taskforce of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, could be worrisome. The enforcement exercise by the tax compliance team in shutting down tax-defaulting companies and ordering staff out of the premises is quite discouraging.