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.

MY take on the removal of oil subsidy is that it should not elicit industrial action from organised labour. This is not because I do not see and appreciate the position of the majority of Nigerians who are already groaning under the deadweight of the subsidy removal.

…The matter is that simple; the government of Nigeria, faced with stiff opposition to its planned withdrawal of the only subsidy it grants the people, resorts to cheap blackmail to coerce their will.

IT is a very instructive observation by some concerned Nigerians that, when the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) failed to force its way politically within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Ciroma branch of the proverbial “Kaduna mafia” was unable to gain the type of foothold it had within the NPN after its struggle with Shehu Shagari in 1979, in 2011, all hell was let loose. When efforts by a few ‘born to rule’’ individuals, to warehouse the office of the president failed, anarchy in the guise of Boko Haram became the next choice.

ON October, 4, 2011, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan sent the 2012-2015 medium-term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and the 2012 Fiscal Strategy paper (FSP) to the Nigerian senate and intimated his plans to begin withdrawal of fuel subsidy with effect from the 2012 fiscal year-January 2012.

…AS an exception, it is not favoured but simply accomodated. However, before it can be accomodated, INEC must show by cogent and verifiable reasons why staggered elections must be accommodated.

THE reason the tribunal cited section 27 of the electoral Act 2010 in its judgment is simply because the intendment of the National Assembly in passing this section of the Act was necessary in the determination of the petition filed by PDP.