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President Muhammadu Buhari has returned the controversy-ridden 2016 budget to the National Assembly, pointing out areas of concern in the document and demanding adjustment. The spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Abdurazaq Namdas, (APC-Adamawa State) confirmed this to journalists on Thursday. “I can confirm to you that we are in possession of the letter from the president identifying grey areas,” Mr. Namdas said. He said the leadership of the House and that of the Senate as well as their respective relevant committees would meet on the development. He, however, refused to mention the “grey areas” saying they would be made known to Nigerians in “due course”. The National Assembly passed the budget on March 2 and later transmitted it to Mr. Buhari for assent. Apparently with the omission of certain projects and addition of others not proposed by the Executive, Mr. Buhari has since withheld his assent. One of such projects is the Lagos-Calabar rail project counted as

Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) Ahmed Idris, yesterday revealed that Nigeria has collected more than N2.7 trillion ($13.57 billion) through the Treasury Single set up by government to consolidate all states revenues in an effort to improve fiscal transparency. He further stated that these monies belong to Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, and meant for their operations and not for sharing or for any other purposes as being reported in some quarters. According to Idris, the TSA has helped government to have a firm and full control of its resources, block leakages, helped it reduce the cost of borrowing and to monitor spending in the MDAs. President Muhammadu Buhari, who was elected on an anti-corruption ticket and who has said he believes government officials have stolen around $150 billion from the public purse in the past decade, ordered all state accounts to be merged into one last August. Speaking at an interactive session with journalists in

My issue with Wizkid...why I took the case to the police I'm sure many of you have read that the police is now involved in my issue with Wizkid. Yes, I reported his public threat to me two Sundays ago to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police and I want to explain why I did it! Please pay attention and keep an open mind. I've read a lot online from people saying I don't like Wizkid. Even Wizkid himself thinks I don't like him. Why he or anyone would think so is puzzling to me to be honest. Apart from his achievements after he started insulting me online a few weeks ago...everything else, every success Wizkid has recorded in the last 3/4 years is on LIB. All the awards, all the record breaking feats, his sold out concerts, his foreign magazine features, and collaborations, everything that has built him up to the young man he is today is on LIB. Please verify! Search my blog. Please continue... I was a huge Wizkid fan. The only song I danced harder to than his '

Donald Trump is a rookie candidate — a potential superstar of vast promise, but making rookie mistakes. The nominee Republicans need for the fall campaign is often hard to make out amid his improvisations and too-harsh replies to his critics. New Yorkers vote Tuesday. What to do? Here’s how we see it. Should he win the nomination, we expect Trump to pivot — not just on the issues, but in his manner. The post-pivot Trump needs to be more presidential: better informed on policy, more self-disciplined and less thin-skinned. Yet the promise is clearly there in the rookie who is, after all, leading the field as the finals near. Trump has electrified the public, drawing millions of new voters to the polls and inspiring people who’d given up on ever again having a candidate who’d fight for them. That’s the work of the Donald Trump we know — a New Yorker, born and bred. A plain-talking entrepreneur with outer-borough, common-sense sensibilities. Trump is a do-er. As a businessman, h

Nigerians are certainly not happy about many aspects of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Since Buhari became president on May 29, 2016, it has been from one mis-step to another while the Nigerian economy nosedives, the citizens are suffering the pain of a 9-month long fuel scarcity, a dwindling currency, being locked out of the world banking system, an unending insurgency in the North East, and a escalating attacks on rural communities in the North Central by terrorist Fulani herdsmen, and the pain of false hope sold by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 elections. The lastest news item to draw the anger of Nigerians is the decision by the first lady of the country, Mrs. Aisha Buhari to launch a book on beauty therapy on the 2nd anniversary of the kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls. The book launch which was a high society event was chaired by her husband, President Muhammadu Buhari who was represented by the husband of Mrs. Buhari’s ‘side-kick’, the Vice P

Some recent media reports have distorted comments made by former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala regarding how lack of political will negatively impacted national savings over the past few years. Contrary to the slant given by these loud headlines, Dr Okonjo-Iweala did not indict the Jonathan administration in which she served. Rather, she was referring to what many Nigerians already know: the strong opposition by some governors to the Jonathan government’s efforts to save in the Excess Crude Account and the Sovereign Wealth Fund sabotaged this important national priority. The governors’ criticism of Dr Okonjo-Iweala’s many calls for the country to save for the rainy day are still fresh in the minds of Nigerians. It will be recalled that this opposition culminated in the Governors taking the Jonathan government to the Supreme Court in furtherance of their position that the Federal Government had no right to “compel” them to save. Several knowledgeable persons including

During the Jonathan administration, an outspoken opposition spokesperson had argued that Nigeria was on auto-pilot, a phrase that was gleefully even if ignorantly echoed by an excitable opposition crowd. Deeper reflection should have made it clear even to the unthinking that there is no way any country can ever be on auto-pilot, for there are many levels of governance, all working together and cross-influencing each other to determine the structure of inputs and outcomes in society. To say that a country is on auto-pilot is to assume wrongly that the only centre of governance that exists is the official corridor, whereas governance is far more complex. The question should be asked, now as then: who is governing Nigeria? Who is running the country? Why do we blame government alone for our woes, whereas we share a collective responsibility, and some of the worst violators of the public space are not even in public office? The President of the country is easily the target of every criti

The senator representing Abia South Senatorial District, Eyinnaya Abaribe, has said the Senate rejected the Gender Equal Opportunities Bill because some lawmakers feared the legislation could give women unfettered freedom to engage in immoral activities. Mr. Abaribe said many senators expressed deep concerns over the blanket freedom the bill would give women because many of them would ignore their immediate responsibilities and turn to prostitutes and homosexuals, urging the proponents of the bill to find a way of replacing some of its languages. Mr. Abaribe spoke during a forum on political rights of women in Nigeria organised by the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC) on Wednesday in Abuja. “The bill was defeated at the second reading when its details were highlighted to the senators,” Mr. Abaribe said. “Some lawmakers started expressing deep worries about some parts of the bill that they think could give women too much freedom and lead them to prostitut

A Federal High Court in Abuja has again dismissed the application by Senate President Bukola Saraki seeking nullification of his ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT. Mr. Saraki is standing trial for alleged false asset declaration and fraud at the CCT, since September last year. The Senate President had approached the court, asking it to put an end to his trial at the Tribunal, describing the trial as a breach of his fundamental human rights enshrined in Section Four of the 1999 constitution and an obstruction to his duties at the National Assembly. But in his ruling, the trial Judge, Abdul Kafarati, held that the CCT is a constitutional body, in the discharge of its legal obligation which should not be interfered with by a court of law. “I find that none of the claims fall within chapter four of the constitution” “This court cannot interfere with the proceedings before the tribunal; it cannot also interfere with the duties of the respondents which have been impos

“Some of you may recall that on the 20th of April, 2010, the National Economic Council under my leadership approved the setting up of a National Sovereign Wealth Fund to secure Nigeria’s future growth. It was further approved that $1 billion be set aside for the fund as seed money. The Sovereign Wealth Fund is a vehicle for growth that this administration conceived of to secure additional capital for growing Nigeria’s infrastructure and putting aside money for the rainy day so that future generations will always have something to fall back on in the event that revenues are impacted by market forces which have been known to be volatile”. This was how President Goodluck Jonathan welcomed the passage of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF, Bill by the National Assembly. The passage marked the conclusion of the clause-by-clause consideration of the contents of the bill by lawmakers and subsequent reading for the third time. The passage of the bill has continued to generate dissenting voices f

Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC, Nigeria’s biggest refinery, has been re-streamed and now producing between three and five million litres daily, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. The re-streaming of the refinery, which had been down for months due to poor maintenance and shortage of crude feedstock, the management said, was aimed at optimising available capacity at the plant to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians in accessing petroleum products, particular premium motor spirit (petrol). NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Garba Muhammad, who confirmed this in a telephone interview with Vanguard yesterday, also said Warri and Kaduna refineries were gearing up for production over the next couple of weeks as, according to him, “we have begun to supply crude to the refineries, but we are waiting to build up crude reserves before we fire them up in the next two weeks or so.” Meanwhile, the Managing Director, PHRC, Dr Bafred Au

The United States government has released a damning report which indicts President Muhammadu Buhari’s government for human rights abuses, injustice, and brutality at all levels. The report, released by the US Department of State, accuses security agencies like the Department of State Security Services (DSS, also called SSS) which report directly to the president of gross abuse of power, human rights abuses, torture, arbitrary and unlawful detentions, and brutality. The 2015 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices authored by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour was published on April 13, 2015. The 18,662-word report highlights the Zaria Massacre which was perpetuated by the Nigerian Army under the command of General Yusuf Buratai and indicates that the Nigerian Army under President Buhari is guilty of genocide not just against the Shi’ites but minority ethnic groups in Plateau. “The army troops killed an undetermined number–possibly hundreds according to some credibl

Prof. Pat Utomi, renowned political economist and President of Lagos Business School, has taken a swipe on President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, describing it as being filled with men who lack vision and the political will to salvage the economy of the nation. Professor Pat Utomi was speaking during the lecture organized by the School of Media and Communications on Tuesday, April 13, 2016 on the theme “Economic Survival in a Period of Dwindling Oil Prices”. He said men who occupy the political class were lazy and interested in filling their pocket at the detriment of the people they were meant to serve. He attributed the economic challenges being faced in the country to the visionlessness of the leaders at the helm of affairs, maintaining that rather than being people oriented, their programmes are repressive. He faulted the developmental policy of the federal government as it is flawed with no clear cut blueprint for national development and growth. According to him, “Nigeri

Herdsmen have unleashed terror on the residents of Central Taraba State, killing scores, a development which prompted other residents to flee the communities to safer havens in other parts of the state. In a swift move to prevent further attack, the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, mobilized a detachment of police officers to the troubled zone in the state. Briefing journalists on the development, the Taraba State Commissioner of Police, Shaba Alkali, on Wednesday, April 13, 2016, in Jalingo, said the herdsmen launched a coordinated attack on the communities, leading to members many residents fleeing their communities into nearby villages. Alkali also said the herdsmen razed many houses, thereby compelling the people to abandon their ancestral homes and taking refuge in nearby towns of Mayo-Selbe and Sabon Gida. Reacting to the development, the Governor of Taraba State, Mr. Darius Ishaka, said his administration would employ every means to bring the perperators to bo

Fiery preacher and Senior Pastor of Omega Fire Ministry, Apostle Johnson Suleman has once again predicted disaster for Kaduna State governor, Nasir El Rufai should he failed to reverse his religious bill. Suleman had in a recent message warned the governor not to pass the ‘license for preaching in Kaduna State’ into law or he would die. But El Rufai in his response told the preacher to tell him the exact date of his death, bearing in mind that death is irrevocable. “If that apostle is truly an apostle, he should mention the day I will die. There is nothing in that law that prevents or infringes the practice of religion. It seeks to ensure that those that preach religion are qualified, trained and certified by their peers to do it,” the governor had said. However, in a latest video obtained by DAILY POST, the Auhi-born preacher, who described the governor as ‘Herod of Kaduna’ said he had no apology over his earlier prophecy. “His days are numbered. It has started with slap, wat