WELCOME TO DAILY NEWS BLOG!!!

The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was thrown into another round of confusion last night when James Faleke, who was the running mate to the late Prince Abubakar Audu rejected the deputy governorship slot ahead of Saturday’s supplementary election. Faleke, who spoke with journalists after hours of meeting with Chief John Odigie-Oyegun-led APC National Working Committee (NWC), said he could not accept the offer because he was already governor-elect.He expressed concern that the party leaders briefed them on the submission of Alhaji Yahaya Bello’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the party’s governorship candidate instead of giving room for an interactive session on how to solve the political problem.He said “The issue of Kogi State was paramount in the mind of national leaders, especially the National Chairman of our party that he wanted a solution to it. “However, we met for about 2 hours as you have observed. Of course, we discov...

 Anambra State government has introduced Kero-Direct scheme to cushion the effects of the hike in the pump price of kerosene in the state. Speaking to newsmen, yesterday in her office in Awka, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Oil and Gas, Mrs. Ngozi Okoye said the scheme was to make the product affordable to the poor masses in rural areas.“There is a Kero – Direct scheme, which the governor, Chief Willie Obiano introduced to make sur e that the product gets to the people of Anambra State at a cheap price. “We are supposed to get five trucks of kerosene every month but when l called NNPC at Abuja, they said the product was not available.”Okoye said that since the scheme started, the state government had only received three trucks that were distributed to the people of Oyi, Orumba, Anambra East, Ukpor, Enugu-Ukwu and Nnewi North at N50 per litre. She denied the allegation that her office diverted the product to certain places other than designated area...

Worried by the continued scarcity of petroleum products in the market, Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo, Monday night, intervened with a crucial call to marketers on the best way to end the current fuel crisis, which had engulfed the country in the last couple of months. The call came as a proposed meeting between the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. IbeKachikwu, suspended a meeting between him and major marketers, scheduled to hold in Lagos Monday.  The Minister told Vanguard that the suspension of the meeting was at the instance of the oil majors, saying, “The meeting was pushed forward to a future date because about three out of the five managing directors of the major oil companies were out of town.” He added that “They requested I give them more time to see how far to regularise products supply in the market, as the scarcity eases.” Kachikwu however disclosed that he is meeting with the independent marketers today (Tuesday) to discuss what they are doing as...

Over seven thousands members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, yesterday,   shut   down markets and all commercial activities in Nnewi, Anambra State in solidarity protest for the release of the Director of Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, who has been incarcerated by  the Directorate of State Services, DSS, for over one month. Members of the IPOB mobilized from Onitsha, Asaba, Awka, Ekwulobia, Awka-Etiti, Enugu, Imo, Ebonyi and Abia states, converged at  Nnewi from where they marched to the house of the late Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to ask for his blessing even in death. This came as constitutional lawyer and leader of eminent group of Nigerians, The Patriots, Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN),  admonished  the  groups to have a re-think over their renewed calls for the state of Biafra. According to one of the commanders, of IPOB,  Mr. Emeka Onwane, the protest was a warning signal to the Federal Government to m...

The police in Lagos have arrested a polytechnic student, Obinna Collins, who allegedly impersonated the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, to defraud some members of the public.Collins, who hails from the Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State, told our correspondent that he impersonated the CP to raise money to pay his tuition fees and meet other needs in the school. According to the police, Collins was trailed and arrested after defrauding one of his victims ─ a woman ─ who he allegedly asked to send N20,000 to his account. Our correspondent gathered that the woman, after realising that she had been duped, reported the matter at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters, which eventually led to Collins’ arrest at a filling station in the Ikeja area. Collins, who claimed to be an Electrical Engineering student of the polytechnic, said he had defrauded only one victim before his arrest. He added that he was looking for money to pay his school expenses. ...

The Federal Government on Monday warned civil servants against stealing of public funds, stating that the fact that some of them complained of poor remuneration was not an excuse to steal from the treasury in order to survive. It also vowed to stop all forms of inefficiency and wastage in the utilisation of the nation’s resources.The government said the rate at which the country’s resources had been mismanaged in the past was a major reason why Nigeria had not recorded any significant progress in the area of capital projects.The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, stated these in Abuja during the inauguration of the Efficiency Unit. She said, “We are going to look up all the causes that make government spending extremely inefficient and we are going to circulate those results to the agencies so that they will get a circular saying this is on paper and if you go above it, the Permanent Secretary or whoever is approving it needs to have a reason for doing so. “We are setting a ben...

A leader of the All Progressives Congress in Bayelsa State, Mr. Bodi Arerebo, has said the governorship candidate of the party, Chief Timipre Sylva, does not need the support of the APC-led Federal Government to defeat the incumbent Governor Seriake Dickson. Arerebo, who was reacting to a statement credited to Dickson, challenged the governor to tell the people what he had achieved in his four years as a governor instead of alleging that Sylva was relying on federal might to win the Saturday election.The PDP leader, who spoke at a news conference in Yenagoa on Monday, said Sylva would win the election “fair and square” considering the ex-governor’s popularity and achievements while in office and his overwhelming followership. He said many Bayelsans, who still expressed displeasure at the way Sylva was disallowed to contest in 2012, had united to return the former governor for his second term. He argued that Dickson’s fear about the use of federal might was fuelled by the fact that h...

The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear the appeal filed by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, challenging the majority judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which affirmed the competence of the charges of false asset declaration preferred against him and the jurisdiction of the Code of Conduct Tribunal to entertain the case. It was learnt on Monday that hearing notices with respect to the case had been served on parties.A five-man panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice John Fabiyi (now retired) had on November 12, 2015 ordered a stay of proceedings in Saraki’s trial pending the hearing and determination of the appeal. The Supreme Court had after issuing the order of stay of proceedings directed the Federal Government to respond to Saraki’s appeal brief within seven days.It also ordered the appellant, if he found it necessary to file a reply to the respondent’s brief, to do so within seven days from the day it received it (the respondent’s brief). Saraki had, through hi...

The Peoples Democratic Party says the party and the people of Benue-South senatorial district are solidly behind former Senate President David Mark. It said Mark would win the rerun election ordered by the Court of Appeal.The party, which described Mark as an asset to the nation, said it was sure that the people of Benue-South would give him another resounding victory at the rerun election.The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement in Abuja on Monday, said the confidence of the party of retaining the senatorial seat is even stronger now that the alleged deceit of the All Progressives Congress has become obvious to all Nigerians.Metuh said the inexplicable ruling of the Appeal Court was another evidence of the APC’s dangerous interference with the judiciary.Metuh, therefore, urged PDP supporters in Benue-South to resist any attempt to intimidate them, “especially in their determination to ensure an effective and result-oriented representation in the Senat...

 Her Majesty the Queen of England, Elizabeth Alexandra; President Muhammadu Buhari; Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN); and governors from at least 20 states, ministers and other dignitaries are expected to attend the coronation of the new Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II.The Chairman, Media Committee of the coronation, Mr. Biyi Odunlade, said this at a press conference that started a series of activities lined up for the coronation scheduled to hold on December 7.Odunlade, however, explained that the queen might be represented at the ceremony. He added that guests from many nations of the world had been invited for the ceremony. The Ooni also said he was ready to fast-track the development of Ife with a series of policies, which he said, would make the Yoruba people proud anywhere they found themselves.The monarch, who was represented at the press conference by his elder brother, Prince Adegboyega Ogunwusi, said he would do everything pos...

 The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s Special Task Force on the alleged $2bn arms procurement scandal probe on Monday stepped up its tempo with the arrest of a former Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda. The commission also arrested the son of a former Governor of Sokoto State, Attahiru Bafarawa, and the son of a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Haliru Bello, who is also a former Minister of Defence in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.Investigations revealed that the former minister was picked up in Abuja by men of the 27-member task force on the arms probe set up by the new Chairman of EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, and taken to the Idiagbon House Headquarters of the commission by 4pm on Monday. He was still being interrogated for alleged complicity in the arms procurement deal as of the time of filing this report. A top operative of the commission said the ex-minister of state was picked up because operatives a...

The passion for Biafra is evidently running high among some Ndigbo of South East Nigeria. Since the arrest of the anchor of the fugitive Radio Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu by the State Security Service, there have been reported massive protests of members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the faction-ridden Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) for his release.More louder than the release of Kalu are the calls for the secession of the whole South East region and some parts of the South-South with predominantly Igbo speaking people from Nigeria, in other to actualize the defunct state of Biafra. The deed of the collapse of Biafra and its reintegration into Nigeria was considered a done deal, until around the last decade of the last century that its restoration was first muted amidst the heightened national question related to self-determination in Nigeria that turned many ethnic nationality groups restive.Some elements of the mostly ...

Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) Limited will this week activate all its process in a move to shore up fuel supply in the country. The development was sequel to the completion of repair work at the refinery’s crude distillation unit where one of the columns collapsed and compelled a shutdown of the 210, 000 barrels per day refinery. The situation had worsened scarcity in a market that was suffering supply gaps following the withdrawal of private marketers from importation due to the backlog of debt owed them by the Federal Government. Our correspondent gathered that the refinery experienced a major failure of its Crude Distillation Column last month, while production was on-going, a situation that resulted in a shut-down of all the process plants. The restoration of the plant would normally have required urgent intervention from foreign experts and huge replacement costs. Sources revealed that parts that would have been imported are estimated at N640 million while de...

Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday held a Town Hall meeting with stakeholders to deliberate on the proposed 2016 budget and announced that political appointees in his administration would take a pay cut for change. The proposed budget is about N166bn, comprising N104bn capital and N62bn recurrent expenditure. Addressing stakeholders at General Hassan Katsina House, El-Rufai said previous administrations in the state had reduced budgeting to what he called fictographic art, with scarcely any relationship to reality. He said political appointees would take pay cuts as sacrifice for change while there would be no automatic annual salary increments in 2016 and duty tour allowances and estacode rates would be reduced.“We have called this meeting today to present to you the broad principles informing the policy choices that are reflected in the draft 2016 budget. The budget is anchored on the commitments outlined in the Restoration Programme, the manifesto platform ...

The joint House of Representatives committees on appropriation and finance have invited the ministers of finance and petroleum resources to appear before it today to defend the N465.6 billion supplementary budget proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari. Also to appear before the joint committees are ministers of defence, national planning and budget, sports, Auditor General of the Federation (AGF), DG Budget Office, GMD of NNPC, ES PPPRA, MD PPMC, heads of army, navy and air force, DG National Sports Commission (NSC) and DG Debts Management Office (DMO). President Buhari had on November 18 forwarded the N465.6 billion supplementary budget to both chambers of the National Assembly. Consequently, the House had on November 19 passed the money bill for second reading after a long debate on the matter and referred it to the appropriation and finance committees for further action. A breakdown of the supplementary budget showed that petroleum subsidy payment would gulp N413.3 billion; o...