Gist Arena

P resident Muhammadu Buhari has held a closed door meeting with leaders from the South-eastern part of Nigeria. The meeting held inside the new Banquet hall of the State House in Abuja shortly after Islamic Friday prayers. The leader of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, John Nwodo, who spoke with State House correspondents after the meeting said they had a “frank and robust exchange” with the president concerning the alleged neglect of the region by successive administrations. “We dealt with problems of development in the South-east, basic capital projects which have for a very long time been neglected not just from this government but for a very long time. “Major arteries of federal highways in the South-east have been in complete state of disrepair. Enugu-Onitsha, Enugu-Port Harcourt, Aba-Ikot Ikpene are virtually impassable. “We talked about the inland waterways and the dredging of the River Niger. We talked about the reticulation of gas pipeline on the South-east. We exp...

T he President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, said on Thursday that the bank had concentrated on the northern region of Nigeria in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s request. Kim and the Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, who spoke at separate press conferences in Washington DC, United States, also advised Buhari to invest in things that would enhance economic growth. Kim said, “You know, in my very first meeting with President Buhari he said specifically that he would like us to shift our focus to the northern region of Nigeria and we’ve done that. Now, it has been very difficult. The work there has been very difficult. “I think Nigeria, of course, has suffered from the dropping oil prices. I think things are just now getting better. But the conversation we need to have with Nigeria, I think, is in many ways related to the theme that I brought to the table just this past week, which is investment in human capital. The ...