Abuja - The Nigerian Supreme Court will on Tuesday April 29, begin hearing of the appeals against the election of President Musa Yar’Adua of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), filed by the presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC) and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and former Military Head of State, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).

Atiku and Buhari are seeking to upturn the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, which turned down their request to void the election that returned Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as winner of the 2007 presidential election.

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Abuja - President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has directed the Minister of State for Transportation in charge of Aviation, Mr. Felix Hyatt, to immediately investigate reports of maltreatment of Nigerian passengers by the British Airways and other foreign airlines.

This is against the backdrop of protest by Nigerians on board a British Airways Flight 0075 from London to Lagos on March 27, 2008. The President was particularly miffed at the incident in which British Airways officials allegedly ordered over 100 Nigerians off the London–Lagos bound flight.

The passengers were protesting the brutal treatment of a Nigerian deportee aboard the flight.

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Abuja - The House of Representatives has admitted that its Committee on Health has returned the N10m it had collected from the Ministry of Health out of the N300m unspent 2007 budget allegedly shared by its officials in December.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Mr. Dave Salako, disclosed this in Abuja.

Salako’s committee oversees the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which had quizzed the affected lawmakers, House and Senate committees’ officials and their colleagues in the ministry over the scandal.

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Abuja - Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, and her Minister of State, Mr. Gabriel Aduku, an architect, have resigned on the strength of the allegations of corruption in the ministry.

The ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Professor Simon Ogamdi; the Director of Administration, Dr. H. B. Oyedepo; the Director of Finance, Hanafi Muhammed, and 11 other officials have also been sent on suspension pending further disciplinary action against them.

In the meantime, President Umaru Yar’Adua has accepted the supposed voluntary resignations of the Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, and the Minister of State (Health), Arc. Gabriel Aduku.

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Abuja - Things are indeed no longer rosy for former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo , as he was humiliated by security personnel attached to the Presidential Villa, Aso Rock, Abuja, last Sunday.

Ironically,the effort by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to save Obasanjo from further embarrassment at the hands of the stern-looking security-men was professionally rebuffed.

The setting was the dinner hall in Aso Rock where President Yar’Adua hosted the outgone executive committee members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Dr. Ahmadu Ali and the new one headed by Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, to a post-convention dinner.

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