Blogs

HUNDREDS of Nigerian students studying abroad are now facing the prospect of having to terminate their studies after the interim management committee of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has refused to pay out an additional sum of $3m.

SEVERAL prominent Middle Belt leaders have withdrawn from Nigeria's pan-northern socio-cultural group the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and created the breakaway North Central Peoples Forum (NCPF) to protest the ongoing killings in their region.

JOE Aribo looks set to miss Nigeria's friendlies against Ivory Coast and Tunisia next month after Glasgow Rangers declared that he will be missing in action for between four and six weeks as a result of a nagging ankle injury.

Ayo Akinfe

(1) With oil prices in the doldrums and the Dangote refinery poised to take over as Nigeria’s main source of petrol products, this is the time to cannibalise the NNPC and convert it into an industrial concern

(2) Dangote’s Lekki refinery has effectively made the three dormant NNPC refineries needless. We have to now convert the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries into manufacturing plants churning out finished goods

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated a national steering committee to oversee the development of the Nigeria Agenda 2050 and Medium-Term National Development Plan to succeed Vision 20:20 and the 2017-2020 Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

RECRUITMENT officials in Oyo State have been inundated with applicants as they seek to find staff for the recently-created Amotekun Corps as 47,000 applicants turned up to fill 2,000 positions at the screening exercise in Ibadan.

NIGERIA'S former finance minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has stepped up her campaign to become the next director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by pledging that if she gets elected she will ensure that a coronavirus vaccine is made available to all nations.

MARKET retailers who were borrowed money by the federal government under its Trader Moni programme introduced to reduce poverty across Nigeria are finding it hard to repay the loans extended to them in 2019.

NIGERIA'S attempts to address her chronic electricity supply problems are facing a serious hitch after it emerged that a World Bank-backed power plant electricity is at risk of a default on its loan payments because of a severe dollar shortage.

Ayo Akinfe

(1) A united Socialist Republic of West Africa with a population of 1bn people

(2) It had a gross domestic product of $20trn and an annual budget of about $5trn

(3) English and French were its two official languages

(4) It had 10m standing troops

(5) It had a nuclear capability

(6) It had 50 aircraft carriers, 5,000 fighter jets, 200 submarines, 20,000 battle tanks, 100 navy Destroyers and a military helicopter fleet of 1,500