Showdown looms as Senate queries FG over unapproved subsidy payment

The Senate is set for a showdown with the Federal Government over the alleged payment of N26 per litre to subsidise the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol.
The Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), which was on Thursday mandated to investigate the current crisis over supply of the product, on Friday, asked how the government was maintaining a pump price of N145 per litre when the landing cost of the commodity was now N171.
President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, had on Thursday directed the committee to cut short its recess and “immediately” convene a meeting with stakeholders in the petroleum sector over the current scarcity of petrol.

AFRICAN CULTURAL PROTECTION FROM INTO EXTINCTION

Obiano is committed to governing Anambra well

Rowland Odegbo

Since the governorship election in Anambra state was won and lost not much in terms of the discussion still dominates public discourse. Everybody appears to have moved on. Both the winner and the losers have since adjusted to the reality of the time. The state has also adjusted to the continuity train and shut its doors firmly against possible abandoned projects.

Suspected kidnapper caught chanting incantation, spewing alligator pepper on toddler’s head

A suspected kidnapper was caught while allegedly chanting incantation and spewing alligator pepper on a toddler’s head
The 30-year-old man, Tunde Adebiyi, who allegedly attempted to hypnotise and kidnap a toddler, was on Friday arraigned in an Ebute Meta Chief Magistrate’s Court.
Adebiyi had appeared before Chief Magistrate Mr. Tajudeen Elias on a charge for attempted kidnap, which he pleaded ‘not guilty’ to.

Fuel scarcity: Stop punishing Nigerians, PDP tells Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari, as Minister of Petroleum Resources, to find a quick solution to the lingering fuel scarcity now ravaging many parts of the country.

It called on the President to stop punishing Nigerians.
The PDP, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary,  Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, on Friday, in Abuja, insisted that it was wrong for the President to sit in his comfort zone and put the blames of the fuel scarcity at the doorsteps of marketers, while Nigerians continue to suffer untold hardship.

PRESIDENCY 2019 OBIANO HAS NO INTEREST

Okey Maduforo

Contrary to the rumour bruited in some quarters that the Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano is nursing an ambition to contest the 2019 presidential election in the country the members of the public have been urged to discountenance such stories as they are handiwork of mischief makers.

It has been confirmed that the governor has no such plans rather he is more interested in improving the welfare of his people and expanding the frontiers of development in the state. What the governor achieved in his first term in office is nowhere close to what he intends to do in his second term and as such does not want to be distracted by idle rumours of the type making the round.

In the same vein the story that the governor is threatening that the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) will take over the remaining four states of the Southeast zone during the next election was unfounded. The word threatening is alien to Governor Obiano who in the face of provocation during the just concluded governorship in the state maintained dignified silence. The governor is urbane and understands

Factional group: Buhari plans to be sole candidate in 2019, says PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party has alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari is planning to be the sole presidential candidate in the country during the 2019 elections.

It argued that this was the reason agents of the All Progressives Congress were bent on causing dissatisfaction among PDP members ahead of 2019.

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, who spoke with journalists in Abuja on Thursday, said those who opened an “illegal office” of the party at the Asokoro District of Abuja were being deceived.

BREAKING: Osun workers declare strike over half salary

Workers in Osun State have declared their intention to begin an indefinite strike following  the refusal of the state government to revert to paying them  full salary and arrears despite the receipt of the third tranche of N6.3 billion Paris Club loan refund.

The workers under the umbrella of the Osun State Joint Public Service Negotiating Council gave the strike notice  in a statement issued on Friday following an emergency meeting of labour leaders on Thursday.

Cyril Ramaphosa, Possible Successor To Jacob Zuma of South Africa

Ramaphosa became deputy president after his election to the position in the ANC in 2012. At the time he was wooed by President Jacob Zuma’s camp to give the slate “credibility” when then ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe contested Zuma for the top post.

Before that he was the chair of the national planning commission that produced the National Development Plan, the country’s blue print for growth towards 2030.

HIS UPSIDE: Ramaphosa founded one of the biggest and most powerful trade unions in the country – the National Union of Mineworkers.

Trump nears tax victory as US Senate passes overhaul

The US Senate narrowly approved a sweeping tax overhaul early Wednesday, putting President Donald Trump on the brink of his first major legislative triumph nearly a year after he took office.

Hours earlier, Trump’s $1.5 trillion deficit-busting tax cuts cleared the House of Representatives, but a rare last-minute snag over parliamentary rules will force the lower chamber to vote on the updated package once again Wednesday.

The deepest rewrite of the US tax code in three decades provides dramatic tax breaks to corporations, and families at all incomes levels will see their income tax drop starting next year, with the largest benefits going to the wealthy.