The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is currently shopping for $1 billion to revamp Nigeria’s biggest refinery located in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. To realise its plans, the nation’s oil company is already in high-level discussion to raise the money via a prepayment deal with trading firms. If the financing is successful, the long overdue rehabilitation of the refinery should reduce Nigeria’s hefty fuel import bill. It would also mark Nigeria’s second oil-backed financing since the COVID-19 pandemic that has added to the difficulty of finding investors as fuel demand is sapped by lockdowns and renewable energy is gaining ground over fossil fuels. The money would be repaid over seven years through deliveries of Nigerian crude and products from the refinery once the refurbis...
The people of Ogbe-Ijoh Community, an Ijaw ethnic group in the Warri South Local government area of Delta State, on Tuesday, protested the new electoral Wards creation by the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission (DSIEC). The Protesters, who alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission failed to incorporate their ethnic group into the new wards in the local council; said that their proposed ward has met all DSIEC’s requirement for ward creation in the state. They accused DSIEC and Delta state government of sidelining them in favour of the Urhobos and Itsekiris of Warri South Local government area. Earlier, the Ogbe-Ijaw Youths had in a position paper signed by Comrade Nathaniel Oronomoni, chairman Ogbe-Ijoh Concern Youths Warri Kingdom; Comrade Lot Loyibo, Coordinator ...
Despite the global efforts to end preventable newborn deaths by 2030, through the Sustainable Development Goal 3.2, experts have raised the alarm that Nigeria loses over 250,000 babies yearly due to preventable and treatable causes, even as the country ranks second highest globally in infant deaths. According to a Professor of Paediatrics at the College of Medicine University of Lagos, and Clinical Lead, Newborn Essential Solution and Technologies, NEST360, Professor Chinyere Ezeaka, with current slow progress, it may take Nigerian 100 years to meet the goal. Ezeaka identified causes of newborn deaths in Nigeria to include prematurity, infections, birth asphyxia, congenital abnormalities among others, she said these would be reduced with the wide-scale adoption of comprehensive newborn car...
The Executive Secretary/CEO Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF), Mr Abdurrazaq Balogun, has blamed the rising crime across Lagos in the past weeks to the damage done to police assets and the number of lethal weapons in the possession of non-state actors. Balogun disclosed this during the 14th Town Hall Meeting on security, organised by the LSSTF, with the theme, “Lagos security: Resilience in the face of adversity,” held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island. Balogun noted that an estimated 80 per cent of the operational vehicles used by the police in the last 13 years were donations from the LSSTF. Balogun observed that there was a decline in donations to the fund, which has been dismal compared to what it had received in the previous years, a challenge he attributed to the outbreak of...