Friends, professional colleagues and other well-wishers will join us on Thursday this week to mark the 15th anniversary of TheNEWS.

The event will take place at Planet One Entertainment, Maryland, Lagos.

Apart from wining and dining, we will seize the opportunity to honour certain individuals who have distinguished themselves in their various areas of calling. We call them TheNEWS Icons.

Our criteria are simple: Those that, to a large extent, have contributed to the betterment of the Nigerian society; those whose activities have gained general acceptability; as well as individuals or groups our medium can identify as  influencing positive trends in the past 15 years of TheNEWS’ existence. Above all, there are those whose lives provide moral templates for others.

A large section is dedicated to the profiles of these citizens in this edition.

I want to seize this opportunity to thank those who came to our assistance when we wanted to start TheNEWS 15 years ago. We found out that many Nigerians were willing to, at least, put their money into actualising our dream. Some of them heard about what we were trying to do and actually called us, saying they were ready to help. I remember Chief Femi Adekanye of the defunct Commerce Bank. He told us that any time we were ready, we should just call him. People like our current Chairman, Tayo Adesanya, and Asiwaju Bola  Ahmed Tinubu did the same thing. I did not have any direct contact with Tinubu. It was a friend of ours who told him and he didn’t even see the feasibility report or any other thing for that matter to be convinced. He just said he would support our dream and that was it. There were a lot of people like that who shared in the passion we had about our country and were ready to assist us. And actually did.

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In this week’s edition, we supply details on former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s friends who messed up the power sector. Also, we publish a report on some mind-boggling strategies of election rigging in Ondo State.This is a collector’s item, enjoy reading!