The present economic downturn occasioned by dwindling oil prices in the international market, has not only led to frantic calls for economic diversification, it has also opened our eyes to our deeply flawed laws currently inhibiting business competitiveness and obstacles on the way of investors – foreign and local – who genuinely want to invest in the country. The concomitant negative effect of these deeply flawed and obsolete laws over the years had seen the whittling of businesses in Nigeria at a geometric rate and the permanent lockdown on long term investments in our potentially huge non-oil sector. Therefore, it has become imperative to remove the anti-business obstacles if the urgent quest to navigate the economy away from hitting the rocks due largely to over dependence on revenue from crude oil exports is to be achieved.

For many reasons, most Nigerians seek for higher education outside the shores of Nigeria.

After the Supreme Court decision that the Code of Conduct Tribunal, as presently constituted, has the jurisdiction to try Senate President Bukola Saraki, the case has continued. Since then, several legal luminaries including Prof. Ben Nwabueze, SAN; a former justice of the Supreme Court, Samson Uwaifo; and Mr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, have faulted the apex court judgment on the grounds that it established a wrong precedent as the CCT was not meant to prosecute criminal matters. However, it appears that those legal opinions have been treated as mere academic and, therefore, do not really matter. The decision of the Supreme Court is final and anyone who seeks a redress would have to turn to God.

THE mixed reactions that had trailed the statement by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, to the effect that the current fuel scarcity would end in May, offer an opportunity for constructive introspection.

A statement issued recently by one Taiwo Olatunbosun, the Ekiti State Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), labeling the governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, a threat to national security because of the governor’s statements and posture to the leadership style of the Buhari-led federal government is not only ridiculous and hypocritical, it is risible and shocking. It goes a long way to further prove the well known fact that this government is not only intolerant of dissenting views, it would do all and anything to quell them even if it means applying “extreme measures” against vocal individuals and institutions of the opposition.