.AT the formation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in1998, only few pundits gave the party a chance at sustaining the emerging democratic culture in Nigeria. Twelve years later the nation is set on the longest and most stable era of her democratic history. Most of the credit for this goes to the PDP

ON September 15, 1963, during the American civil rights movement, the American terrorist group Ku Klux Klan, which uses twisted Christian language to support its racist ideology, set off a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, where civil rights activists often congregated. The bomb killed four little girls coming out of their Sunday school class and wounded 22 other people.

FIVE years ago, the CIA predicted that in about 10 years ,Nigeria would cease to be a united country, or that it might simply become a “failed state.” Back then, many of us dismissed the prediction as conjecture, mere Western opinion. We even went as far as calling it a form of prejudice against Nigeria.

BRING them Home -Nigerian Knowledge Workers (NKW) – Worldwide! For more than 7 decades, they have been lining up for travel and immigrant Visa at the dead of the Night. In their millions, they travel by Air, sea and land through the deadliest Deserts of the world.

INTERESTINGLY, Government will continue to cater for the schools’ staff salaries, while the Missions will be in charge of general administration.

THERE are three levels of high fraud that the removal of subsidy will tackle. The first is fraudulent payment on phoney import of PMS. The product is fraudulently certified as imported into Nigeria but is actually diverted to other countries in West Africa.

It is a novel initiative; a multi-sectoral model predicated on the internationally-acclaimed Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] of Eradication of Extreme Poverty & Hunger, Gender Equality & Women Empowerment, Reduction of Child Mortality, Boost to Maternal Health, Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases, Environmental Sustainability and Global Partnership in Development.

Heroes are sometimes helped by the mood of their age. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, emerged on the national scene at a time Nigerians thought they were long past the era when a few politicians thought the voice of the people did not matter with regard to who their leaders should be.

DEMOCRACY guarantees freedom of expression to the individual. On that score it is impossible, when the going is tough for the nation, to ask any blabber to shut up. We may, therefore, not request that Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, an erstwhile Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, should stop ventilating his ill-digested and inchoate viewpoint on the currently challenging issue of the removal of oil subsidy.

“The newest member of the UN family was born today,” Mr. Ban told the Assembly after it passed the resolution setting up the new UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. “This is truly a watershed day,” he declared.

THE removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government as a deliberate policy aimed at conserving and maximizing the oil wealth of the word’s sixth highest petroleum producer/exporter, has attracted national and international discourse since the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration made its intention known to the public.

There is no controversy about the ownership of the Benin-Ore Road commencing from Dawson Road (beginning at the Akpakpava Road junction) through Urubi Road, Uselu-Ugbowo Road onto Oluku, then to Ekiadolor junction and Ohosu (Ofosu) which is the boundary with Ondo State.

The inevitable trial before any great man, nation or organization is the responsibility to exist among smaller men, nations or organizations of similar bearing, calling or stature but who are not fortunate to be counted among the great.

ON December 9, 1962, a son was born in the then little known village of Ukana Ikot Ntuen of Akwa Ibom State. Yet, only the gifted could read the symbolic signs illustrating that he was born to run. But six months later, he was to step into the furnace of life that was to orientate him in resilience and critical social responsibility. He lost his father before he knew him as a breadwinner.

Recently, in an interview granted the Vanguard newspaper, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Edo State Governor, referred to his predecessor in office, Sen. Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor as incompetent.