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The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday justified the 45 per cent increment in electricity tariff, which took effect on Monday, stressing that the action remained the only way to enhance stable power supply in the country. Fashola, who stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power, explained that an Act of the National Assembly actually empowered the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to increase tariff, hence it would not be able to stop the implementation of the new tariff regime at this stage. He explained that the rise in the cost of procuring raw materials to generate electricity was one of the reasons for increasing the tariff and that the best way to sustain the current stable power supply in the country. He said, “Electricity is a product; it is made from raw materials; some of the raw materials are gas, power plants; they are also related. So, the issue of tariff is the single issue of price; when the ...

 Lionel Messi will not chase a second Olympic gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Games in August, Argentina coach Gerardo Martino said on Monday. Martino added he did not want the Barcelona forward, who will captain Argentina at the Centennial Copa America in the United States in June, to suffer burnout after a demanding season. He can take three over-age players in his U23 squad to the Rio Games but Messi, who helped Argentina win their second Ol ympic title in Beijing in 2008, will not be one of them. “Messi won’t go to the Olympic Games because there is a lot of competition for the national team this year,” Martino said with World Cup qualifiers also in mind. “We have the Copa America, the Olympic Games and after that four rounds of the qualifiers,” he told Radio La Red. “The reality at Barcelona shows the season will be long. I want to win very much but not at any price, nor for throwing the players on to the pitch for them to die there.” Messi led Argentina t...

 The Police in Nasarawa State on Tuesday apprehended a former councillor of the Otukpo Local Government Area, Mr. Sunday Aboh, for allegedly buying stolen cars from armed robbers in the state. Parading the suspect and 14 others in Lafia for committing various offences in different locations in the state, the Nasarawa State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Ismail Numan, stated that the former councillor of the Otukpo LG A was particularly arrested in connection with a stolen vehicle which he received from suspected criminals. According to him, four suspected robbers had on November 22, 2015, snatched a Toyota RAV 4 from a woman in Masaka, in the Karu LGA. He said investigations by the police led to the arrest of the suspects in a hotel on December 3, 2015, adding that an Acura saloon car and two locally-made pistols were recovered from them. The PPRO said before their arrest, the group had on November 11, 2015, robbed one Rev. Father Christopher Omaku in Mara...

Elder statesman, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, says former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a former maximum ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, made corruption attractive to state governors in the country. Braithwaite said the former helmsmen’s policies and actions elevated corruption in governance, adding that many state governors were merely emulating them. The human rights activist said this during a telephone interview with our correspondent on Tuesday. He was reacting to a statement credited to Obasanjo in which the former president slammed state governors for living like emperors – to the detriment of the masses. Obasanjo, who spoke at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Ibadan, on Monday, said, “Nigeria is a country where some governors have become sole administrators, acting like emperors. These governors have rendered public institutions irrelevant and useless.” But Braithwaite said, “Obasanjo is not sa...

  The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, appeared before an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday and said he had no information on the contracts for the rehabilitation and modernisation of railway in the country. The railway contracts reportedly gulped over N1tn between 2010 and 2015, with additional funding from the rested Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme. But Amaechi told the committee, which is chaired by a lawmaker from Edo State, Mr. Johnson Agbonayinma, that he would not be useful to the investigation because he was not in the office when the contracts were awarded and could not speak authoritatively about them. “I don’t know about the past contracts but I can talk more on our progress and what we are doing now,” the minister said. He said on resumption of office as minister, he ordered an audit of projects being carried out in the ministry to establish their status. Amaechi added that a full report of the a...

  The Independent National Electoral Commission has shifted the State and National Assembly rerun elections in Rivers State to March 19, 2016. INEC had initially fixed both rerun elections tentatively for February 6, 2016 through the outgoing Resident Electoral Commissioner of the state, Dame Gesila Khan. But the state INEC Public Relations Officer, Antonia Nwobo, said signals about the change in the date for the exercise came after a stakeholders’ meeting at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja. Though no reason was given for the postponement of the rerun elections, INEC’s decision may not be unconnected with the position of most political parties that the time given to them to prepare for the exercise was too short. Nwobo said through a text message sent to our correspondent on Tuesday, “Please, be informed that the Independent National Electoral Commission headquarters at a meeting with stakeholders on February 1, 2016, has approved that rerun elections in Riv...

There were indications on Tuesday that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s interrogation of a former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Adesola Amosu (retd.), had reached a dead end. It was learnt that the commission had asked Amosu and others, who are still being detained over the $2.1bn arms deal, to refund some money or contract sums traced to them. Findings showed that the former Chief of Air Staff was be ing interrogated in connection with 10 contracts awarded by the Nigeria Air Force between 2014 and 2015, totalling $930.5m. It was gathered that the EFCC’s operatives met a brick wall when the former NAF chief refused to make any commitment to return any money or contract sums, which had been allegedly traced to him. A source, who confided in one of our correspondents on Tuesday, said as part of moves to recover the funds, the commission was making the signing of an undertaking to refund money as a precondition for granting the suspects administrative b...

The Defence Headquarters on Tuesday vowed that some suspected Pro-Biafran militants, who hijacked a merchant vessel off the coast of Nigeria on Friday would be treated as criminals and saboteurs. The ship, believed to be an oil tanker, was said to have been hijacked by some militants, who issued a 31-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to release the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu. While some maritime industry sources claimed that the vessel was an oil tanker seized about 160 kilometres off the Bakassi Peninsula near the border with Cameroon, the Defence Headquarters revealed on Tuesday that the ship was seized about 7.5 nautical miles off the Port of Cotonou. The suspected pro-Biafran militants had hijacked the foreign merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its crew if the Federal Government failed to release Kanu. It was learnt that the 31-day ultimatum by the militants was given at the weekend by one ‘Gene...

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission has amended the bribery charges it preferred against a former Chairman, House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy, Mr. Farouk Lawan, dropping his co-accused, Mr. Boniface Emenalo, from the case, and turning him into a prosecution witness. Rather than continue to put Emenalo on trial along with Lawan, the prosecution led by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN), on Tuesday presented him before a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Lugbe, Abuja, as its first witness. Emenalo, who remains an official of the House of Representatives, served as secretary to the Lawan-led committee in 2012. Lawan and Emenalo were initially in February 2013, arraigned on seven counts of corruptly accepting sums of money up to $620,000 from a business mogul and Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, Mr. Femi Otedola, in the course of performing their committee’s duty in 2012. Both men were ac...

President Muhammadu Buhari has lamented the declining fortunes of the nation’s oil sector. He expressed his sadness at the ugly turn in the nation’s oil sector at the luncheon organised in his honour on Tuesday by the Ogun State Government. The luncheon held at the proposed site of President Muhammadu Buhari Estate, along Abeokuta-Siun-Kobape-Sagamu Expressway, in Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of the Ogun State. Buhari was on a two-day visit to the state in commemoration of the state’s 40th anniversary. Buhari, who appreciated former President Olusegun Obasanjo for appointing him then as the Minister of Petroleum, said during his three and half years tenure, both the Warri and Kaduna refineries were built. He said, “I want to appreciate the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, for appointing me as the Minister of Petroleum. For three years he tolerated me; I really thank him for that. Within those years, we built the Warri and Kaduna refineries....

The immediate past National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), has filed a fresh application asking a Federal Capital Territory High Court in Maitama to discharge him for the alleged crime of diversion of funds said to be meant for the procurement of arms. The ex-NSA, through his lawyer, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), filed the application dated January 11, 2016, before Justice Peter Affen, urging the court to bar the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission from prosecuting him. The ex-NSA contended that the EFCC which is prosecuting him and other co-accused persons in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria could not continue to prosecute him after a “brazen disobedience” of orders of the court granting him bail on December 21, 2015. He filed the application before Justice Affen with respect to the 22 counts of fraud filed against him and others including a former Director of Finance and Administration in the Office of the NSA, Shuaibu Salisu, and...

  The National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, has warned that participation in the National Service and attendance of Law School simultaneously is illegal and unacceptable.This is part of resolutions at 2016 Annual Management Conference of the Scheme, in Asaba, the Delta State capital. The conference noted that “the NYSC Act provides for uninterrupted service year, and advised prospective Corps members to choose which one to defer between National Service and Law School attendance instead of attempting to combine both. Parents of prospective Corps members have also been advised by the conference to allow their children take decisions as adults and avoid discouraging them from accepting postings to any locations in the country.

Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh has declared that he won’t quit his position despite speculations that the former Nigeria was on his way out of the team. Oliseh, who spoke online with on Monday, denied that he had indicated to the Nigeria Football Federation his desire to move on. “I am not quitting,” Oliseh said.The coach and his players of the home-based Eagles have come under criticism after failing to qualify from the group stages of the 2016 African Nations Championship in Rwanda. The former Eagles captain has stoutly defended their performance in the East African country as he insists that a lot of off-field issues affected them. Some European coaches have already been linked with the Eagles’ job, which Oliseh has yet to declare vacant. An associate of the Eagles coach, who later spoke with our correspondent on Monday said even though Oliseh would remain on his post, a lot of things have to be discussed and changed for the Eagles to make any meaningful impact in the 2017...

There was panic on Monday on Iju Road, Lagos State, after policemen used tear gas to disperse protesting workers at the Linda Manufacturing Company, during which a lady, identified simply as Aina, was hit by a tear-gas canister in the face. The protest, which started at about 8am, was staged by the workers of the company to register their disapproval of the alleged sack of 10 workers.It was gathered that while the police used tear g as to disperse protesting workers from the company, a tear-gas canister hit Aina in the face, damaging the bridge of her nose.Some of the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity said the lady had been rushed to the Ikeja General Hospital where she was receiving treatment. It was learnt that about 10 workers, including executives of the workers’ union in the company, were given the sack. Their letters were said to have been dispatched by courier to their houses on Saturday and Sunday. The General Secretary of the National Union of Che...

 A former spokesperson for ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, says Nigerians should be grateful to a former political adviser to Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, for waking up the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party from slumber. Gulak had, last week, pronounced himself the substantive chairman of the PDP. He said he decided to take over the leadership of the party following the court order of December 16, 2015, which asked the p arty to name someone from the North-East to replace a former national chairman of the party, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu.Okupe, on his official Twitter handle on Monday, said contrary to an insinuation from some quarters, Gulak was not trying to destroy the PDP but to reform the party. Okupe said, “We should all be grateful to Gulak for making himself the alarm clock that woke this party (PDP) from deep slumber. It was a desperate situation requiring an urgent action. I believe now that we have all woken up, we can fix the PDP.”

  The Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, has said the allegation by the former Ekiti State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Tope Aluko, that the military was used to influence the outcome of the June 21, 2014 governorship election in the state, is another ploy by the All Progressives Congress to rubbish the mandate freely given to him by the people of the state. He claimed the such a wild allegation could only come from Aluko, who he refused to appoint as his Chief of Staff “because he could not be entrusted with such a sensitive position.” Fayose, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, wondered when the opposition would stop licking their wounds when the election conducted about 20 months ago had been adjudged as free and fair and applauded by the election observers and the international community.Fayose said, “All these steps are being taken by the APC to silence me because of my criticism of obnoxious policies of the Pres...

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday accused some state governors in the country of living like emperors while demanding sacrifice from the citizens for Nigeria to survive the prevailing hard times. Obasanjo spoke at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Ibadan, where he was the chairman on the occasion. The two-day conference has as theme, ‘‘Getting g overnment to work for development and democracy in Nigeria: Agenda for change’’.The Chairman, Board of Governors of the ISGPP, who is a former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and a professor of international history and politics, John Evans, also delivered addresses among other speakers. Obasanjo said when he became President in 1999, he recognised corruption as a major impediment to the development of the Nigerian state. This, he added, informed his decision to set up the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the...

  Authorities of the various universities in the country have deployed various strategies, including the use of cats, in order to prevent an outbreak of Lassa fever on campuses, findings by our correspondents reveal.From the University of Benin, Edo State; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State; University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State; Enugu State University of Science and Technology to the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the race for hunting of rats has taken a new dimension.Before now, many, particularly animal scientists, did not bother about the danger of co-habiting with rodents, which they considered as part of the ecosystem. For the majority of the students also, provided these rodents did not eat their books and personal belongings, they could afford to allow them to exist on campuses. But this situation has changed. Both the students and the workers no longer see these common rodents as co-partners. In fact, w...

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has again urged the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), to prosecute all indicted people in the June 21, 2014 Ekiti governorship election rigging scandal.The renewed call followed media reports on confessional statements by the expelled Ekiti State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Tope Aluko.The party said it had on two occasions petitioned the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice on the same matter, stressing that the latest revelations had made it imperative for the nation’s chief law officer to act.