EBONY9JA MEDIA

This is in view of the downward slide of the economy due to the dwindling export of crude oil, occasioned by the vandalisation of some pipelines by suspected militants in the Niger Delta. Bayelsa state is of one the oil producing states in the country and is also the epicentre of the Niger Delta and its struggle. To strengthen its internal security, Governor Seriake Dickson in two separate meetings with traditional leaders, community development chairmen and heads of all security agencies in the state, mapped out strategies to put an end to the increased spate of insecurity within the state. In separate meetings with heads of oil companies operating between the territories of the state, the issue of kidnapping was also handled as the governor announced the criminalization of any form of negotiation with these militant who partake in hostage taking and kidnapping. With a consensus reached that militancy can be conquered from within, participants at the meeting offered ...

pipeline THE Nigerian Army lost three soldiers in two different boat accidents yesterday in Bayelsa and Delta states respectively, even as another explosion was recorded on an oil facility in Delta State, when suspected militants hit the Escravos-Warri gas pipeline, around Ogbeljoh, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State. In the first incident, two soldiers died in an accident involving a military boat carrying soldiers who were on an operation to carry out anon- the-spot assessment of the destruction of the Escravos-Warri gas pipeline. A source said that incident, which occurred at about 10:00 am yesterday, was as a result of an engine malfunction. However, there were no official confirmation of the accident as at the time of filing this report, as both the spokesman of the Joint Task Force (JTF) Pulo Shield, Colonel Isa Ado and the Commanding Officer of the 3 Battalion, Effunrun Barracks, Major Monday Anzaku, were unavailable. A...

Chibok girls The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) is in a fresh mess. The office, already enmeshed in the $15billion arms deal, is being fingered in the alleged disappearance of $40million(N13.6billion)  approved  by the administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan ostensibly for the  negotiation of  freedom for the Chibok girls. Part of the supposed deal was for Boko Haram to concede to a demand for ceasefire,The Nation gathered on good authority yesterday. The under-the-table negotiation was however botched because the Boko Haram leadership was not interested in the deal. The whereabouts of the cash is now unknown, prompting a probe by the Federal Government. One report suggested that the money was handed over to the president of a neighbouring country, while another said it was in the ‘custody’ of  a former presidential aide. The cash was allegedly drawn from the ONSA by the former top president...

France’s aviation safety agency said Saturday that the EgyptAir A320 that crashed into the eastern Mediterranean with 66 people on board had transmitted automatic messages indicating smoke in the cabin. “There were ACARS messages emitted by the plane indicating that there was smoke in the cabin shortly before data transmission broke off,” a spokesman of France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis told AFP. ACARS, which stands for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, is a digital system that transmits short messages between aircraft and ground stations. The spokesman said it was “far too soon to interpret and understand the cause of Thursday’s accident as long as we have not found the wreckage or the flight data recorders.” The signals indicated there was smoke in the front toilets near the cockpit, an expert told AFP. According to the specialised aviation website Avherald, the ACARS messages read “smoke lavatory smoke” then “avionics smoke...

When the price of fuel was N86.50 per litre, Lagos-based Mr. Raji Olanrewaju used to fill up his Toyota car fuel tank with about N7,000. Now that it is being sold for N145 per litre, he now spends almost N12,000. Two weeks ago when he drove to and fro Ibadan from Lagos (280km, according to Google Maps) to attend a social function, he spent about N4,500 on fuel at the old rate of N86.50. A week later when the new price was announced, he spent around N9,500 to drive to and fro Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, from Lagos (174.6km). Meanwhile, his salary has not increased and so he is unhappy. Although fuel scarcity, coupled with high cost of buying fuel, had persisted in the country since last year, it was last week’s development that made Olanrewaju to understand the new reality. He said, “Food prices have gone up. The amount to fill up my car fuel tank has risen. But my income has not. Now, I have abandoned my car. I have to face reality. I now go to work by public tran...

A member of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, Benedicta Daudu, is currently embroiled in allegation that she cheated in an examination at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), on May 4, 2016, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report today. The Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption, headed by prominent law professor and civil rights campaigner, Itse Sagay, and made up of mainly university professors, is the intellectual wing of Mr Buhari’s anti-corruption war. The mandate of the committee includes advising the President on the implementation of required reforms in Nigeria’s anti-corruption campaign and criminal justice system. Mrs Daudu, an associate professor of law and head of the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law of the Faculty of Law in UNIJOS, was allegedly caught cheating while writing an examination for a Master’s degree in Research and Public Policy in the Faculty of Social Sciences of t...