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The first Secretary to the Alhaji Lateef Jakande-led Lagos State Government, Chief Olorunfunmi Basorun, speaks to ENIOLA AKINKUOTU about the debate over Yoruba leadership and other political issues You were a top member of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s party, the Unity Party of Nigeria. Do you agree with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s argument that there can never be a Yoruba leader? ADVERTISEMENT The Yoruba leader now, without doubt, is Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and there are many reasons for this. The leadership of the Yoruba, whether political or otherwise, is based on who has advanced the interest of the Yoruba the most in recent times and Tinubu has done this. Firstly, he has fought for the interest of the Yoruba people. He helped Kayode Fayemi to get his governorship bid back in Ekiti in 2010. In the same year, he helped Rauf Aregbesola to get his governorship mandate back in Osun State. He helped Olusegun Mimiko get his governorship mandate back in Ondo State

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, his lawyer Roberto Marrero has said. The popular dissident, a US-trained economist who has been held at a military prison since February 2014, is accused of inciting violence against the government of President Nicolas Maduro and attempting to force his ouster. A court in Caracas, the capital, found Lopez guilty late on Thursday for his role as the leader of a street protest movement which was involved in bloody clashes with security forces in February last year. The sentence was for 13 years, nine months and seven days. He will serve out his sentence in the military prison of Ramo Verde, where he has been held since he turned himself in shortly after the protests. ADVERTISEMENT “If the sentence condemns me you will be more fearful to read it than I will be to hear it, because you know that I’m innocent,” Lopez defiantly told the judge according to a witness, Davi

President Muhammadu Buhari raised on Monday at a Capacity Building Programme for Public Servants the long standing issue of our drooling and deficient work ethic. Buhari lamented that the civil service which was once one of the best in the Commonwealth, today earns a reputation “for inefficiency, low productivity, corruption and insensitivity to the needs of the public”. Whatever reasons may be adduced for the downturn in the nation’s bureaucracy: a downturn which mirrors the familiar narrative of a once great country humbled by predatory leaders, such a diagnosis must include a slumbering work ethic. Let me elaborate. If you do a quick count of public holidays of countries around the globe, you find that the United Kingdom has 8 annually, United States 10, South Korea 16, and Nigeria tops the list with 26. In our case, the figure of public holidays does not include those declared by state governments illustrated by the announcement in Borno State three weeks ago of a

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has confirmed that the country’s “humanitarian” flights to Syria carry military equipment as well as humanitarian aid – after the US and NATO warned Moscow over its involvement in the Syrian conflict. “Russian planes are sending to Syria both military equipment in accordance with current contracts and humanitarian aid,” Lavrov told reporters on Thursday. Russia’s Kommersant daily newspaper said earlier on Thursday that Moscow’s advanced BTR-82A armoured personnel carriers were among arms supplied to Damascus. Moscow has previously insisted in public that its flights to Syria were only for humanitarian purposes. Al Jazeera’s Peter Sharp, reporting from Moscow, said that nothing has changed and the Russians have been supplying the Syrian government for years now. “Going back 60 years, Russia has been supplying Syria with arms, advisors, military equipment. Nothing much has really changed. “Between 2009 and 2011 Russia was supp

The Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, has called on various labour unions in the country to support the anti-corruption crusade of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Ambode said the support would help the government to redeem the image of the country as well as boost the economy. The governor spoke at the Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja, on Thursday during a rally by members of the Trade Union Congress, Nigerian Labour Congress, National Youth Council, and the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights. ADVERTISEMENT Ambode, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Tunji Bello, said Nigeria was at a defining moment of its democratic history, which required all hands to be on deck. He said, “We thank you immensely for the support that you are giving President Buhari. This is what Nigerians need. You are the leaders and opinion moulders; without you setting the agenda, there is no way this country can progress. “The

The head of Burundi’s armed forces has survived an assassination attempt in the capital Bujumbura, police said, adding that at least seven other people were killed in the attack. “There was an attack against the armed forces chief, General Prime Niyongabo, but happily he was unharmed,” Burundi’s deputy police chief, General Godefroid Bizimana, told AFP news agency. He said two attackers were killed in the clash, and a third arrested. Another senior police source said four bodyguards were also killed, as well as a female police officer. “Reinforcements have arrived. We are pursuing the remainder of the commandos,” Bizimana. Another senior police source, who asked not to be named, said the attack appeared to have been “meticulously prepared”. ADVERTISEMENT “It was sudden and violent. Four bodyguards were killed instantly. He managed to survive only because the driver managed to overtake a bus transporting police officers to work, and the attackers could not keep