Category: FEATURES

If you want your news to sell in Nigeria nowadays, speak about someone wearing something nice or that the person has been gagged and disgraced on the basis of allegations. This is the sorry state the country has been reduced to as a result of the well publicized anti corruption war of the country. People like me thought the war was going to be one that will strengthen the efficiency of the systems towards the delivery of services to the people but this one appears very differently as it has…

So there’s this argument that Nigeria re-cycles leaders and that the reason we have remained stagnant as a nation is because politically elected leaders are basically the same faces that have been on the scene for quite a while now. They are too old, we argue. They are not abreast with the technological orientation of this twenty first century, and that their decisions are mostly archaic, bereft of any touch of modernisation. Are there no other people good enough to lead our states, constituencies, ministries and parastatals? We ask. Are…

The Buhari administration and the whole APC government is turning out to the the biggest disappointment in Nigeria’s history. Our people have a saying that the Friday that would be good you would see it since on Thursday, maybe even on Wednesday. After over a year now I can comfortably say a thing or two about President Muhammadu Buhari extensively. I have information that even people in his administration have been complaining about his complete lack of direction and being out of tough with the reality that is Nigeria. Recently…

As Nigeria’s fiscal situation continues to deteriorate and the gulf between the official and black market currency rates yawns ever wider, the finance ministry is trying to cut costs wherever it can. The latest target: government travel. There is good reason for this focus. According to figures released by the ministry, travel was the single biggest government line item from 2012 to 2014, at N248bn ($1.25bn) for the three years combined (the ministry did not provide annual figures). This is equivalent to an extraordinary 18 per cent of total government…

Graduates of the UNHCR/AUN Vocational Skills Training (Plastic Bag Recycling) Project have expressed desire for further assistance from the humanitarian community and government so as to enable them set up petty businesses as they return to their camps. The female IDPs made the request in a chat with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) during their graduation ceremony on February 25, 2016, in Yola, the Adamawa State capital. Recognising that the project has benefited them immensely, because they were idle before the project started, Zainab Abdulahi requested the organisers…

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) have empowered 49 female internally displaced persons (IDPs) by training them in various skills. The economic empowerment training for the female IDPs, drawn from five camps in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja – Durumi, Kuje, New Kuchingoro, Orozo, and Wassa camps – was aimed at enhancing the beneficiaries’ vocational skills in such areas as catering, sewing, hairdressing, knitting, bead and jewelry making, tie and dye, food preservation, and confectionary. Whereas the training and supervision was conducted by…