Public Affairs Analyst

Last Friday, May 22, 2020, news broke that the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had signed Executive Order 10 granting financial autonomy to the 36 state Houses of Assembly and the judiciary. What a heart-warming news! According to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, the Executive Order No. 10 of 2020, makes it mandatory that all states of the federation should include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets. According to the AGF, “A Presidential Implementation Committee was constituted to fashion out strategies and modalities for the implementation of financial autonomy for the state legislature and state judiciary in compliance with Section 121(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended).” He said consideration was given to all other applicable laws, instruments, conventions and regulations that provided for financial autonomy at the states.

“We have all got to learn to live with this virus, to do our business with this virus in our presence, to have social relations with this virus in our presence and not to be continuously having to be in a lockdown because of the widespread infections that can occur” – The WHO’s special envoy for COVID-19, David Nabarro, on “Hardtalk” on British Broadcasting Corporation on April 21, 2020 On February 6, 2020, a couple of weeks before the index case of the Italian who tested positive for COVID-19 in Nigeria was discovered and made public, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced the dates for the Edo and Ondo governorship polls. According to the chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the Edo governorship election would hold on September 19, while that of Ondo State would hold on October 10. The INEC chairman said the declaration was in pursuance of the provisions of Section 178(2) of the 1999 Constitution that states that INEC cannot hold elections earlier

“The President has approved that this administration should implement the Oransanye report. It has reviewed the whole of the size of government and has made very significant recommendations in terms of reducing the number of agencies and that would mean merging some agencies” –Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, on Channels TV on April 30, 2020. Since the news broke on the plan by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to implement the Steve Oronsaye’s presidential committee report on restructuring and rationalisation of Federal Government parastatals, commissions and agencies, heated arguments have ensued on the desirability or otherwise of the proposal. My position on the matter is that the directive may be diversionary and may amount to wasting of precious time to achieve little results. Indeed, there are serious issues with the implementation of the report and it may well be better for the Buhari regime to actually set up a new committee to achieve better resul

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board was established in 1978 by the military government of General Olusegun Obasanjo. According to the information gleaned from its website, the Board among other things was empowered to: conduct matriculation examination for entry into all universities, polytechnics and colleges of education (by whatever name called) in Nigeria. It also has the power to appoint examiners, moderators, invigilators, members of the subject panels and committees and other persons with respect to matriculation examinations and any other matters incidental. JAMB also has the mandate to place suitably qualified candidates in the tertiary institutions after having taken into account the following:   the vacancies available in each tertiary institution; the guidelines approved for each tertiary institution by its proprietors or other competent authorities;   the preference expressed or otherwise indicated by the candidates for certain tertiary institutions and course