Gist Arena

Former president Obasanjo paid a private visit to Pres. Buhari at the presidential villa on Wednesday August 5th. Details of their meeting is unknown. More photos below. Photo credit: Ayourb

News report that former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola shelled N78.3million of Lagos tax-payers money on his personal website, has stirred a huge buzz on twitter. In tweets and retweets, commentators have been expressing derision and disgust that the former governor could have approved such a questionable expenditure under his watch. The consensus is that the cost was grossly exaggerated and over-inflated. A WordPress website, like http://tundefashola.com/http://tundefashola.com/should not cost more than N3million, according to expert opinions. The story was broken by BudgIT, quoting a budget report on the website of the Lagos State Public Procurement Agency. The contract was awarded in 2014 to “Info Access Plus Limited”. A Google search by TheNEWS did not turn anything out about the company. Some screenshots below. And before you say it is PDP propaganda, the info was sourced from lagos ppa website. Pls read the docs published ...

In pursuit of his anti-graft crusade, President Muhammadu Buhari may have to beam his searchlight on the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. If the findings and documents obtained by Saturday Vanguard are anything to go by, the NDDC is panning out as a cesspool of corruption. The documents indicate that the agency, which is being supervised by the Presidency through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, has brazenly ignored the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, PPA, in the award of contracts for projects and services, thereby allowing its cronies to smile home with huge amounts of public funds. Over-shooting contract limit The 2007 PPA sets limits on contracts that key officials of the commission can award; what the board can approve; what should be sent to the Bureau of Public Procurement, BPP, and what the Federal Executive Council should handle, in the spirit of transparency and accountability. U...

Dr Mike Okonkwo is the presiding Bishop of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission, TREM, with over 160 branches in Nigeria and across the globe. The top Evangelist who will celebrate his 70th birthday come September 6, in this interview shares his life challenges, his turn around as well as the present anti-corruption crusade in the country. Excerpts. My Parents and career My parents were angry with me for choosing the Ministry. They did everything they could to stop me but I was resolute. They could not understand why of all professions, I chose the ministry. I was working in the bank, and very comfortable. They said I had bright future in the then African Continental Bank, Lagos. And to worsen it all, of all places in the Pentecostal church, they maintained that if I want to answer the call of God, I should go and answer from the Anglican or Catholic. At a stage, they went and arranged for police to arrest me, frame me for something in order to distract me and change ...

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN yesterday pledged to bail out the dwindling textile and garment industry by granting credit facility as well as fight against smuggling of its products with the collaboration with other government agencies. In another development, the CBN said it will sanction the delinquent debtors whose names appeared on the list of debtors published by the banks recently. Addressing newsmen after the Bakers Committee Meeting in Lagos yesterday, the CBN said that delinquent debtors would be sanctioned appropriately. “We will sanction them if they fail to meet up with their obligation with the bank. In few days, the sanctions will be taken and the banks will continue to publish names of delinquent debtors from quarter to quarter,” Mr. Kolawole Balogun, representing the Banking Director supervision , CBN has said.” Meanwhile, the Governor of CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele gave assurance of the apex bank’s commitment to reviving the industry during the...

A major crisis may soon hit the nation’s education sector as no fewer than 32 state-owned tertiary institutions owe their academic and non-academic workers between four and 23 months’ salaries. The workers, many of who spoke with our correspondents on Thursday, complained over the non-payment of their salaries. The workers said they might embark on an indefinite strike if their entitlements were not paid within a short time. The situation made members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, to demand for the payment of their 13 months’ salaries from the Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, and his Osun State counterpart, Rauf Aregbesola. LAUTECH is owned by both Oyo and Osun states. The lecturers also threatened to embark on industrial action if the governments of the two states refused to consent to their demand. Chairman of LAUTECH ASUU, Dr. Oyebamiji Oyegoke, had said that the lecturers had been living i...

Well, I think I’m finally safe to write this article, since I’ve set up my e-mail software to automatically filter out any messages containing swear words. Sincerely, I don’t know if there’s any song that made me change the TV station faster than this one. If I didn’t, I’d have been doomed to have a group of adults with hideous and unsync voices chanting, “ we are the children” over and over in my head for the next six months. And that certainly isn’t all that’s wrong with the song. Michael Jackson would probably be spitting and cursing in his grave right now, like a pregnant woman with whitlow on her ten fingers and toes. What the heck were they thinking changing his beautifully composed piece of art to the most insipid crap ever written? I’m going to tell you this for free; don’t listen to We Are The World by African all stars unless you’re trying to get a bone out of your throat. That is only when the song would be useful. We know that African music isn’t made up of ...