Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has started testing the waters with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). It is urging stakeholders to begin the implementation of the legislation in the upstream sector of the country’s oil and gas industry. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, said at a 2-day upstream stakeholders’ forum organised by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in Abuja that the process of ratifying the first set of regulations was on. Sylva said the regulations would govern the sector in line with Section 216 of the PIA and that the forum was convened to…
Author: Akanimo Sampson
Seeming desperate power seekers are currently plotting to compromise the integrity and neutrality of the armed security forces in the do-or-die scramble for power in the country ahead of 2023. To this end, some vested interests in the Akwa Ibom State wing of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are plotting to hold the party’s governorship primaries in a military facility with a veiled intent of outsmarting their opponents. The plot is already generating serious concern in some quarters, with some worried political observers claiming that the military may have become a willing tool in the hands of politicians with deep pockets…
In Rivers State, 13 All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirants are currently backing the choice of Tonye Cole, an architect, as the party’s preferred aspirant for the 2023 gubernatorial race. In a statement by the Coordinator of Progressives Aspirants Forum, George Tolofari, he claimed that 10 aspirants agreed and signed a unity accord to support any one of them that will emerge either by consensus or election at the primaries. Three other aspirants from the Riverine-Ijaw extraction later indicated interest in the race after the press briefing making them 13 aspirants in all. The statement continued that last week 19 APC leaders…
Political stakeholders in Bayelsa West Senatorial District are maintaining that zoning of National Assembly seats among the two local government areas, Sagbama and Ekeremor remains sarcosant. Spokesman for the stakeholders in Sagbama Local Government Area, Richard Kpodoh, is calling on the National Executive of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to resist any lobby by the Bayelsa chapter of the party to breach the zoning arrangement or risk a protest vote at the general elections. Kpodoh who made the call while speaking to newsmen in Yenagoa on Sunday, said the call has become imperative to pave way for the victory of the…
For this 2022 planting season, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) says cassava farmers are being encouraged to access and benefit from improved cassava planting materials. According to the Institute, experts from the Building an Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed System, Phase 2 (BASICS-II) are sharing insights encouraging cassava farmers to access and benefit from improved cassava planting materials for this year’s planting season. They highlighted these during a recent webinar for experts and farmers, organized with the GIZ Green Innovation Centres for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIAE) and IITA Cassava and Maize Value Chain Project. More than 200…
African Union Commission (AUC) is busy discussing a partnership deal with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). To this end, a top official of the Commission has visited IITA to wrap up the deal. AUC’s Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Prof. Mohammed Belhocine, has visited IITA Headquarters for the purpose. He was accompanied by the Pan African University Institute of Life and Earth Sciences Ibadan (PAULESI) staff and other dignitaries. The purpose of the visit was to discuss partnership opportunities with the Institute’s management team and meet with the researchers and scientists involved…
ExxonMobil, an American oil and gas super major says around 200 million cubic feet per day of natural gas produced from its Permian Basin facilities at Poker Lake, New Mexico have been independently certified and received the top grade for methane emissions management. The certification from MiQ helps the company meet customer demand for energy produced with fewer emissions. ExxonMobil is the first company to achieve certification for natural gas production associated with oil. “This certification further validates the steps we have taken to reduce methane emissions, which is part of our plans to achieve net zero Scope 1 &…
Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations says the soaring use of data has profound implications not just for trade and economic development but also for human rights and peace and security. She was speaking at this year’s e-Commerce Week organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) which is drawing the curtain this Friday. “How we deal with data will have a huge impact on our ability to achieve the sustainable development goals’’, Ms. Mohammed said. Data are no different from other global commons and public goods, she said, hence they should be…
African Development Bank (AfDB) has announced that across 40 African countries, the African Development Fund (ADF) invested $45 billion in 2,750 operations. In a brochure titled 50 Voices, 50 Stories: Celebrating the impact of the African Development Fund over five decades, the Bank said so on its website. According to AfDB, since the creation of the fund in 1972, it had been an important source of concessionary resources and technical support to low-income African countries. Continuing, the Bank said the fund had in the past five years, helped to connect 15.5 million people to electricity, supported 74 million Africans with…
Despite the growing anger by operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Imo State following the provocative invasion of their Command along Okigwe Road in Owerri, the state capital, by some heavily armed personnel of a sister security agency, their Commandant General, Ahmed Abubakar Audi, is busy suing for peace. Audi has therefore, directed personnel of the NSCDC Imo State Command to remain calm and not take laws into their own hands following the invasion. Civil Defence’s Spokesman, Olusola Odumosu, in a statement says Audi is maintaining that security is a collective responsibility and every agency…
Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State is one of the unending plural presidential aspirants in Nigeria seeking to succeed the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. Of the crowd eyeing the country’s number seat at a time of worsening insecurity, Udom appears to be the only one seeking to replicate his administration’s peace initiative in Akwa Ibom at the national stage. There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria under the watch of President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is locked in a low-intensity war from all fronts. Apart from the war of the non-state actors like…
Head of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) e-Commerce and Digital Economy branch, Torbjörn Fredriksson, and Founder/CEO of Proton Technologies, Andy Yen, have spoken about what is needed to strike a balance between the opportunities and risks of digitalization and a data-driven world. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has made digital technologies and an internet connection even more important in our daily lives, as people and companies have moved even more online to work, learn, socialize, shop and do business. But not everyone is reaping the benefits, especially the 2.9 billion people still without an internet connection. A heavier…
The zoning arrangement released by the Akwa Ibom State Executive Committee of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 general elections is causing a lot of unease in the state, a predominantly PDP state. The are growing fears that if the party fails to contain the deepening acrimony thrown up by the bended zoning arrangement, it might witnessed so much protest votes at the polls. Apparently worried, the State Legal Adviser of PDP, Akpadiaha Sunday Ebitu, is protesting against zoning. This is contained in a statement by Dr. Joshua Ndoho, the Director General of Akpadiaha’s Campaign Organisation. The PDP legal…
Nigeria’s foremost environmental rights advocacy group, Environmental Rights Action (ERA) says divestment is a major issue in the Niger Delta, the main oil and gas basin of Nigeria. ERA also doubles as the country’s wing of Friends of the Earth (FoEN), a global federation of environmental rights advocacy groups. Executive Director of ERA, Chima Williams, a lawyer, says it is a fact that divestment has become a major issue as the oil majors abandon their toxic onshore facilities and go offshore where they evade monitoring. The environmental rights activist explains that the exclusion of communities and community concerns in the…
A socio – political organisation in Akwa Ibom State, Good Governance Advocates Group (GGAG) says the manner political elite in the state are eschewing ethnic and vague zoning politics so far is a thing of delight to it. Organising Secretary of the group, Anietie Udo-Udofia, who said this in Uyo, the state capita, claimed that the group hitherto watched with dismay, the indecorous exhibition of hate speeches and attempts to hoodwink the youth of the state to join in a fight they neither knew had fizzled away. “It was very shameful to watch and listen to our hitherto revered political…
This is a season of unease for Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU) as youths of Obio Akpa community are troubling the institution for scholarship awards. To demonstrate their seriousness on the issue, the aggrieved youths embarked on a warning peaceful protest by barricading the university’s main gate. The protesting youths blocked the entrance of the university, displaying placards with the inscription such as: “We need scholarships, we need employment, give us our CLO, bring back our rights” . They lamented that since the death of the former Community Liaison Officer( CLO) they have been requesting that a new one be…
Prices of some basic food items in Nigeria are still running riot thus widening the hunger situation in the country. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says food prices rose by 40 percent as of February 2022 year-on-year. According to the data agency, the average cost of beans (different colours and species) per standard measure, rose by 50.1 percent from N331.48 to N497.54, during the review period. On a monthly basis, the price of beans recorded an increase of 3.34 percent from N481.47 in January 2022, to N497.54 in February 2022. As of February 2021, the average cost of 1kg of…
Fleeing her home at seven months pregnant was not what 30-year-old Mariel had planned for her family during last Christmas festivities. But, as Super Typhoon Rai barrelled down on the small fishing village of Saint Bernard, in the Southern Leyte province of the Philippines, it was her only option. According to her, “our house was gone, we could smell petrol fuel leaking from the fishing boats, and the wind was howling. I wanted to run to the mountains with my two young children.” The third largest storm ever to hit the northern hemisphere, Rai demolished homes across the islands, splintering…
Signs that the 2023 presidential race in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will be full of uncertainties have started to manifest as Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) is rising against some of the perceived front runners Against the run of the perceived popular play on the social media space the obviously aggrieved Arewa youths are opposed to Bola Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari. As a result, they are warning that they do not want any of them to emerge as the presidential flag-bearer of APC. AYCF’s National President, Yerima Shettima,…
Women and girls are more than one million of the two million people currently displaced within South Sudan. Latest information filtering out of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says they are at high risk of gender-based violence and forced and child marriage. Many parents turn to child and forced marriage as a safeguard from grinding poverty, especially during a crisis and when they can’t afford to send young girls to school: UNICEF estimates that half of all girls in South Sudan are married before the age of 18. Thirty eight years old Nyachar Gatneay Rial, told UNFPA, “I used…
Last Thursday’s special meeting on Sustainable Urbanization and the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda will be complementing a similar high-level meeting of the General Assembly, this coming Thursday, April 28. Officials told a special meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Thursday that the future of sustainable development will hinge on the fate of cities, stressing that the more than half of the world’s population currently live in urban environments, a number likely to rise to nearly 70 per cent by 2050. Both sessions are designed to explore how the UN system can better support countries in…
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has welcomed the call by the disarmament research agency UNIDIR for more women to take their rightful place in international security discussions. Ms. Bachelet said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “had created a new threat to the global peace and security that is the basis for sustainable development and all human rights”; and that the war had compounded negative consequences around the world, particularly for women and girls. Gender-blind agreements The high commissioner cited research that correlates high levels of military spending with poor women’s rights and noted that “none of…
Less than 2,000 members of Malen Affected Land Owners and Users Association (MALOA) have so far signed a petition objecting to the certification of SOCFIN by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The Association which has been questioning the way their lands were acquired from land owners in Sahn Malen by SOCFIN since 2011 said a total of 1,475 of their members signed the petition. In the petition dated March 10, 2022 they claimed among other issues, the certification is in total contradiction to the RSPO criteria and were wrongly assessed by the auditors. The auditors were allegedly provided…
The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) which is serving more than 600 million evangelicals belonging to churches that are part of 143 national Evangelical Alliances in nine regions of the world is calling on churches around the globe to praying for Sri Lanka, a South Asian nation. There are however, over two billion Christians in the world today represented by three world church bodies. WEA is joining the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL) in expressing concerns over the recent deterioration of the multi-faceted crisis in Sri Lanka. NCEASL General Secretary and Chair of the Asia Evangelical Alliance, Godfrey…
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) eCommerce Week slated for April 25 through 29 is bringing together UN experts, governments, business, civil society groups and academics focused on innovative solutions for development in a digital world. Over 60 high-level speakers, 100 sessions and thousands of participants are lined up for the event. UNCTAD is however, the UN trade and development body. It supports developing countries to access the benefits of a globalized economy more fairly and effectively and equips them to deal with the potential drawbacks of greater economic integration. It provides analysis, facilitates consensus-building and offers technical…
One of the outspoken front line civic groups in Nigeria, Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) says the country’s 2022 budget is expected to result in a N7.32 trillion deficit. ‘’There is no indication how the government expects to pay for this deficit’’, says PLAC. According to it, Nigerians and experts are however, worrying that the threat of unrestrained borrowing will again be President Muhammadu Buhari’s next resort in this matter. This is coming as the National Assembly the previous week, reviewed and amended Nigeria’s 2022 N17.126 trillion budget to reflect a N4 trillion subsidy cost for petrol, among other…
Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) says if President Muhammadu Buhari assents to the Copyright repeal and re-enactment bill, it will provide the much-needed comprehensive framework for copyright and intellectual property in Nigeria. The Senate on April 6, passed a bill to repeal the Copyright Act, Laws of the Federation 2004 and re-enact the Copyright Act 2022. The bill is a consolidation of two similar bills on the subject, SB 688 and SB 769, sponsored by Senator Mukhail A. Abiru (APC: Lagos) and Senator Yahaya Abubakar Abdullahi (APC: Kebbi), respectively. The Senate had referred the bills to the Joint Committee…
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) has explained how Technologies of African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is empowering African youths economically. According to the Institute, the youth compact of TAAT has the mandate to empower African youth economically, pointing out that it does this by exposing youth to agribusiness value chains and various profitability mechanisms. The compact, also called ENABLE-TAAT, has recorded recurring success among the youth who make their livelihood from the aquaculture value chain in Zambia. At the end of 2021, ENABLE-TAAT beneficiaries from the “Mkushi Youth Skills” Fish Cluster harvested over 1000 kg of fresh fish from their…
The Republic of Congo will be granting Rwanda 12,000 hectares of exploitable land in at least three departments in the south of the country. However the duration of the concession has not been specified. This is sequel to the two memoranda of understanding and a concession agreement in the agricultural field signed by Congo and Rwanda. The agreements were part of a series signed during the just concluded 3 day state visit of the Rwandan President Paul Kagame to Brazzaville. Congo has 10 to 12 million hectares of arable land, of which less than 5% is used…
Ahead of 2023, Nigerian youths have been challenged to rise up and save the country from a humanitarian nightmare. This is the import of the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, when he lauded young people around the world for raising their voices and mobilising for a better future. According to him, despite war, COVID-19 and the climate crisis, all of which compound the other challenges facing young people today, “young people are…leading the way in the fight against climate change, standing up for racial justice and gender equality…holding leaders to account…[and] are at the forefront of our efforts to secure…
