WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Ukraine's place is in NATO, alliance chief says North Atlantic Treaty Organization chief Stoltenberg said Ukraine's rightful place was in the military alliance and that membership and security guarantees for Ukraine would be high on the agenda of its summit in July. REACTION ON NATO * Germany's defence minister rejected a quick decision on Ukraine's membership, saying, "The door is opening a crack, but this is not the time to decide now." * Ukrainian President Zelenskiy told Stoltenberg on his visit to Kyiv that it was time for NATO to offer his country membership and that Kyiv needed…

Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has shared a total of N714.629 billion as March 2023 federation revenue to the federal, state, and local government councils and other relevant agencies in the country. This was disclosed in a communiqué issued at the end of the FAAC meeting for April 2023. The amount includes gross statutory revenue, value-added tax, exchange gain, and electronic money transfer levies. A breakdown of the figure showed that the federal government received N276.141 billion, states received N232.129 billion, local government councils got N95.243 billion, while the oil-producing states received N35.102 billion as derivation (13 per cent of…

No fewer than 3,298 inmates across the custodial centres in Nigeria are on death row, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has revealed. The Service’s Public Relations Officer, Abubakar Umar, who made the disclosure, yesterday, in Abuja, however, said the term ‘condemned criminal’ had been abrogated. With the emergence of the NCoS Act 2019, which made the prisons correctional centres, the term ‘condemned criminal’ was abrogated as it was stigmatising, he explained. He said the service preferred to use a more friendly term of ‘Inmates on Death Row (IDR)’. He pointed out that death sentences were not always carried out immediately…

The Federal Government has asked the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Isah Jere, to proceed on retirement. In a letter from the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board, dated 17th of April, 2023, and addressed to the NIS boss, the Federal Government directed him to hand over to the most senior officer in the Service. This directive is coming following the allegation that the outgoing NIS boss was making efforts to get another extension to his stay in the Service. Jere has had his retirement extended for a year, from last year April to April…