Columnists

THE recent face-off between the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and an Onitsha-based company over fake shaving sticks, once again, brings to the fore the issue of product counterfeiting in Nigeria and the unending battle against the malaise.

IN recent times, so many Nigerians talk about corruption and how corruption will soon kill Nigeria as a country. I have also listened with glee to the resonate voice of the ruling party on how they want to curb corruption in Nigeria.

THE controversy over ‘bulk metering’ and the ‘fixed charge’ in electric utility charging for services, seems to have no end to it. While those who know the way the industry works watch with horror, many Nigerian newspapers report that, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has complied with a resolution of the Senate on billing by asking DISCOs to discontinue bulk metering forthwith.

ONE world, one prosperity or one poverty. That is the lesson of the migrant crisis now in Europe. In a globally integrated world, we all have a shared destiny on the long run.

TWO fundamental factors have made the Nigerian economy maritime based. First is the fact that we are a nation in love with foreign goods. As reported by the National Bureau of Statistics recently, our reliance on foreign imports has been on an all time high between March 2012 to February of 2015.

IT is 10a.m. on any Saturday in the 1950s in Port Harcourt. Kio is visiting his friend Reni whose Lebanese/Syrian father owns a textile shop in Port Harcourt.

AMBASSADOR Anthonio Oladeinde Fernandez was described in various terms by various people the world over as an international wheeler-dealer; a diplomat extraordinary with the financial status of a billionaire; an industrialist at large; a pragmatic international negotiator and peace maker, among other descriptions.

HOW do you reward a country that made it possible for you to read wonderful books in magic blaces (places to those who follow the western alphabets!

PRESIDENT Mohammadu Buhari’s government is now 100 days and even though I align with most Nigerians, who opined that 100 days is too short in the life of a government, it is important to make some clarifications as regarding the administration.

VERY early in 1983, I took a job at a newspaper in Lagos which did not exist. That was during the tumultuous Second Republic government of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which had in 1979 taken political control from the military.

ORDINARILY, there are enough homegrown troubles to deal with and talk about. But everyday, events happen around the world that have immediate and distant consequences on situations at home.

LAST week, OBJ was in Aso Rock Villa to see PMB. Some said it was the 6th (I sense some exaggeration here) since the latter was declared winner of the March 28 presidential election.