The Deputy Senate President, Dr Ike Ekweremadu, has advocated a single-term presidency of five or six years for Nigeria and other African countries to deepen democracy and good governance.

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday explained how President Muhammadu Buhari is rejuvenating the country’s economy thus making it an investors’ delight as specific efforts to enable the private sector to thrive is yielding results. Prof Osinbajo stated this at the Financial Times Africa Summit in Claridge’s Mayfair Hotel, London noting that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, in the past months, had been working assiduously to improve macroeconomic conditions.

Nigeria on Monday prepared for its first major prosecutions of suspects linked to the Boko Haram conflict in closed-door trials at a military base. The defendants have all been arrested and detained since the start of the Islamist insurgency in the country’s northeast in 2009. The justice ministry announced last month that some 1,670 detainees would go on trial at a civilian court at a military base in Kainji, in the central state of Niger.

President Muhammadu Buhari has written the Senate to seek approval for external loan to the tune of $3 billion and an additional $2.5 billion Eurobond or Diaspora bond issue in the international market. In a letter read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the president said the bonds would be channelled towards funding of the 2017 budget while the loan would be used in refinancing of maturing domestic debts.

The wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has called for a probe of how the budget for the State House Medical Centre is utilised.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has finally reacted to the allegations raised by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu against its Group Managing, Maikanti baru, as baseless and accused the Minister of exaggerating and conjuring figures to buttress his claims.