The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) on Friday threatened to stop the importation of petroleum products over yet-to-be-paid N256 billion subsidy claim by the Federal Government. The Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Mr Obafemi Olawore made the disclosure at a news conference in Lagos. Olawore said that the last time the government paid marketers N100 billion subsidy claim was in February and it was paid in Sovereign Debt Note (SDN). He said that the post-dated note would mature at the end of April. The secretary-general said that before the N100 billion SDN was issued, the government was indebted to…
Author: Wale Adebayo
Two parallel leadership have emerged after the election of new officials of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Kaduna State. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workers held two separate congresses on Thursday in Kaduna in which each faction elected its leaders. Incumbent NLC state Chairman, Adamu Ango, was re-elected in the election conducted at Gamji Park in Kaduna, during which 1, 500 delegates participated. Ango’s faction is backed by the NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Waba. Also elected were James Friday as Vice Chairman 1, Bulus Chiroma, Vice Chairman 2, and Emmanuel Wudiri as Treasurer. The rest…
Nigeria’s newly-appointed Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, has pledged to hold senior police officers responsible for any breakdown of law and order during rescheduled elections in Taraba, Imo and Abia States on Saturday. Governorship elections will hold in specific areas of the three states after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the April 11 elections inconclusive. Mr. Arase, who was appointed on Wednesday to replace Suleiman Abba, said the police were doing everything possible to create an enabling environment for the repeat elections. He said the force would not allow anybody to cause a breakdown of law and order…
The Lagos State Government on Friday said it rescued no fewer than 62 babies abandoned across the state in the last one year. Dr. Adesegun Oshinyinka, the Permanent Secretary in the Office of Youths and Social Development, gave the figure at a news conference in Ikeja. He said that 34 of the babies were male, while 28 were female. The permanent secretary said that the babies had been taken to some registered orphanages where they were being given adequate care. Oshinyinka said cases of abandoned babies had become too many and appealed to mothers to always take responsibility for their…
Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist and member of the Kardashian family, ended months of speculation Friday night when he announced during an ABC television special that he can now be identified as a woman and was making the transition from male to female. “For all intents and purposes, I am a woman,” he told Diane Sawyer in an interview. “People look at me differently. They see this macho male, but this female side is part of me, it’s who I am. I was not genetically born that way.” The announcement made him among the highest-profile people to publicly come…
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on Thursday said countries across the African continent are happy over the outcome of the presidential election in Nigeria, which saw Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress floor incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. Mr. Obasanjo said his checks in a number of African countries suggested they were as happy over the result of the election as majority of Nigerians are. The former Nigerian leader referred to his estranged political godson, President Goodluck Jonathan, as a moving train, who was providentially stopped from collapsing Nigeria. “I have visited six countries since the election, they are…
Frontline Ijaw leader and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, has debunked rumours that he collapsed following President Goodluck Jonathan’s defeat in the March 28 presidential election. Clark is Jonathan’s self-styled political “godfather”. The elder statesman, who left Nigeria Friday night for London, spoke with journalists in Abuja, declaring that it was wrong for anyone to think that he would die, after Jonathan lost the polls to Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress. He said some people had been carrying the rumor that he collapsed when he heard about the outcome of the presidential election.…
The Senator-elect for Kogi West Senatorial District, Otunba Dino Melaye, has described the recent move by the outgoing Senator, Smart Adeyemi, to challenge his victory at the National Assembly Elections Petition Tribunal as “normal action expected of a defeated and frustrated man”. In a statement signed by his media aide Gideon Ayodele, the senator-elect said that for every polling unit, Senator Adeyemi and the PDP had their agents, who attested to the fact that the election was free, fair and credible. Senator Adeyemi in the petition filed by his counsel, Mr J.O. Olatoke, SAN, claimed that Melaye was not duly elected…
The erstwhile National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has reminded the party of his earlier warning in 2013, about the possibility of suffering defeat in the 2015 general election, if its leaders did not mend their ways. In a statement in Abuja on Friday entitled, “PDP – Were You Not Warned?” Tukur reminded his co-PDP leaders of the speech he read at the PDP National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of Thursday, June 20, 2003, which he presided over, as the party’s helmsman. Quoting copiously from that document, the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) Chairman said he had warned his fellow…
The gale of defections sweeping across the country has hit the Bayelsa State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as some members have dumped the umbrella party and pitched tent with the All Progressive Congress. Bayelsa is the home state of outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan. Prominent among the defectors are the member of the State House of Assembly representing Yenagoa Constituency, Alfred Egba; his associates, Sonme Ogilogi and a former commissioner in the State Independent Electoral Commission, Tom Egba. Mr. Egba, a close ally of former Governor Timipre Sylva, said Friday, he decided to dump the PDP because the party…
The man whose dare has brought to limelight, Suleiman Hashimu, the Lagos to Abuja trekker finally met with the president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday. Hashimu had made a personal promise in 2013 that should Buhari contest and win the 2015 presidential elections, he would trek from Lagos to Abuja. Following Buhari’s victory in the March 28 elections, Hashimu had to fulfill his promise and on Monday, April 20, 2015, he arrived Abuja from Lagos and got a hero’s welcome at the capital city. Giving details of his journey to the President-elect, Hashimu said he passed through Kwara to Niger and then…
Kogi State Police Command said it has recovered some arms and ammunition from a secondary school, in Adavi Local Government area of the State. State Commissioner of Police, Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi disclosed this to newsmen, yesterday, while briefing on the effort of the command in the past months. According to him, the guns and other weapons were hidden inside the ceiling of one of the classrooms of the secondary school. Police were able to recover the weapons after a tip-off from an informant who revealed that some hoodlums have been visiting the school for a while and planing to foment trouble…
South South Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday described as most uncharitable comments by former Inspector- General of Police and chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Ibrahim Coomassie that the removal of Suleiman Abba as Inspector General of Police was suspicious. Clark noted that Coomassie’s statements were ethnically driven and was aimed at inciting the North against President Goodluck Jonathan. “To say the least, this is the most uncharitable comment coming from a former Inspector General of the Nigerian Police who is conscious of the fact that the Police is a discipline establishment. “It is very wrong of Commassie to…
Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State on Friday visited the President-Elect, General Muhammadu Buhari in his Aso Drive residence, Abuja strengthening speculations he planned to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), on whose platform he was elected. However, speaking to journalists at the premises of General Buhari following a closed door meeting, Obiano dismissed the defection speculation. He said that his mission to the president-elect was to congratulate him. Although he planned to work with Buhari, he remained a member of APGA. Asked whether he had plans of joining the…
Several passengers of Arik Air were today stranded as the Association of Air Transport Association of Nigeria (ATTSAN) and the National Union of Air Transport Employers (NUATE), on Thursday grounded the airline’s scheduled flight operations from the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, to other parts of the country. Speaking to Thisday on the phone from Lagos, FAAN’s Managing Director, Mr. Saleh Dunima, said efforts were being made in Abuja with the two unions to resolve the crisis. “Right now, Arik is discussing with the management of Abuja airport, as soon as they sort that out, they will resume flight…
Representatives of Nigeria, South Africa and other citizens’ groups in other parts of Africa have signed a peace accord to initiate a non-violent process to settle the differences between South Africa and other countries owing to xenophobic attacks in the state. The peace accord, which was initiated by Nigerians In Diaspora Integration Agency (NIDIA), was signed on Thursday in Abuja with the South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Lulul Mnguni, as observer. President-General, NIDIA, Ms. Caro Nwosu, who signed on behalf of Nigeria said that there is no alternative to peace. She expressed support for the efforts of all…
Governor Willy Obiano of Anambra State has appealed to the president-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to help address the problems affecting the South East, and to appoint people from the region into key positions in his government regardless of their political affiliations. The governor stated that the region will support the government of Mr. Buhari, despite the outcome of the March 28 presidential election, which saw him and his All Progressives Congress, APC, losing woefully in the South East. Mr. Obiano made the appeal Friday when he visited the president-elect at his residence in Abuja. The governor said he believed…
The outgoing Nigerian President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has proposed a tour of the Presidential Villa for President-elect, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). The two leaders met Friday behind closed-doors in what would be their second meeting since the March 28 presidential elections, won by Mr. Buhari of the All Progressives Congress. Mr. Jonathan will hand over power to Mr. Buhari on May 29. Speaking after the meeting, President Jonathan told State House correspondents who sought to know what they discussed that a date would be scheduled to take Mr. Buhari on a familiarisation tour of the Aso Rock presidential villa. Although…
The Lagos State Government on Friday said there would be no restriction of movement from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. for the monthly sanitation on Saturday. The state usually imposed restriction on the last Saturday of every month to enable the residents of the state to clean their environment. The Commissioner for Information, Mr Aderemi Ibirogba made the announcement on Friday in Ikeja while speaking with newmen. He said the government suspended the restriction to enable pupils sitting for the National Common Entrance examinations holding on the same day to move freely to their centres. Ibirogba, however, said the restriction…
Retired Maj.-Gen. Emmanuel Bassey has called on the Nigerian Army to carefully document its experiences in the ongoing operations in the North-East with a view to improving on its overall combat efficiency. Bassey, who was the reviewing officer at the pulling out ceremony of 31 retired senior Army officers on Friday in Abuja, made the call in a Valedictory address on behalf of the retired officers. “Combat operation methods and logistics must be reviewed amongst others to enhance combat readiness and efficiency. “There is indeed no substitute to sound professionalism in the conduct of your duties, no matter its nature or…