Author: David Great

The Defence Headquarters says troops of Operation Delta Safe have (OPSH) destroyed 51 illegal oil refining sites and recovered stolen crude oil and refined products in the Niger Delta in the last week. The director of defence media operations, Maj.-Gen. Edward Buba, disclosed in a statement on Friday in Abuja. Mr Buba said the troops also apprehended 58 perpetrators of oil theft, denying them an estimated sum of N668.7 million. The troops destroyed seven dugout pits, 25 boats, 47 storage tanks, five vehicles, 141 cooking ovens, one pumping machine, one outboard engine, one tricycle, one speedboat, and one tugboat. According…

The Nigerian currency, the naira, dropped to a record low against the dollar on Friday on the official market, close to the rate at which it trades on the unofficial parallel market. LSEG data showed that the currency of Africa’s biggest economy fell as low as 1,160 naira to the dollar, before recovering to around N800. The official exchange rate has been drifting towards the parallel market level as the central bank is yet to clear outstanding foreign currency amounts owed in forward deals. Supreme Court says old, new currency remain legal tender Last week, Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso…

The House of Representatives on Friday in Abuja continued its debate on the 2024 budget, with some lawmakers demanding increased funding for transportation, health, and education. Fredrick Agbedi (PDP-Bayelsa) said that in the transportation area, the people from the riverine areas were the most neglected, adding that no reference was made to their suffering. “We appeared to be a people not considered in the 2024 appropriation bill; the federal government must attend to this,” Mr Agbedi said. “If the people who need our help can be connected by rail, it will solve our problem.“ Mr Agbedi said the state governments…

Fighting broke out overnight between two factions of Guinea-Bissau’s army in the capital and continued early on Friday after armed soldiers from the national guard freed a minister who had been detained for suspected misuse of public funds. The head of the national guard has since been arrested, an army source said. Street life in the city centre appeared to be back to normal by late morning. Gunshots started at around 2300 GMT on Thursday about two kilometres away from the presidential palace in the capital Bissau. An apparent exchange of fire was also heard after midnight in the neighbourhood…

With the resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, Israel’s army published new safety zones for civilians in the Palestinian territory. The military released an interactive map in Arabic with evacuation zones “in preparation for the next phase of the war.” This divides the strip into zones to enable residents to “orient themselves, understand the instructions and move to safety from specific locations if necessary.” Hours earlier, the army had resumed combat operations against Hamas after a week-long ceasefire that had been in place was not renewed for a third time. Rockets were fired at Israel from…

The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has urged Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) across the country to join the anti-graft agency in driving its anti-corruption campaigns to the grassroots. Dele Oyewale, the anti-graft agency’s spokesperson, released a statement in which Olukoyede made the call. Mr. Olukoyede spoke on Thursday, November 30, 2023, in Sokoto at a one-day engagement parley between the EFCC and CSOs drawn from Kebbi, Zamfara, and Sokoto states. According to him, engagement with CSOs has become imperative in the anti-graft agency’s quest to build synergy with different interest groups, and the…

Hamas on Thursday released eight Israeli hostages in Gaza under a last-minute extension of a truce deal, and Israel freed 30 Palestinian prisoners as negotiators sought to renew the pause in fighting again. Israel identified two women who were released first on Thursday as 21-year-old Mia Schem, among those seized at a dance party that Hamas militants attacked on October 7, and 40-year-old Amit Soussana. Photos released by the Israeli prime minister’s office showed Ms Schem, who also holds French nationality, embracing her mother and brother after they were reunited at Hatzerim military base in Israel. The Palestinian militant group…

The Ilorin Division of the Kwara State High Court sitting has sentenced a traditional ruler and two others to life imprisonment for conspiracy and kidnapping. The convicts are the Sarkin Fulani of Kwara, Usman Adamu, his brother, and Gidaddo Idris. They were tried and convicted of kidnapping Abubakar Ahmad in 2022, collecting N1 million as ransom before releasing him. Mr Ahmad was held hostage for 20 days. The director of public prosecution (DPP), Idowu Ayoola, Messrs Adamu and Idris for conspiracy to kidnap and kidnap. In her judgment, Justice Adenike Akinpelu held that evidence adduced by the prosecution proved that…

Senate majority leader Opeyemi Bamidele says the N9.9 trillion recurrent expenditure of the N27.5 trillion 2024 budget is too high, as it constitutes 43 percent of the budget. Mr. Bamidele said this at the opening of the debate on general principles of the budget at plenary in Abuja on Thursday. He said the total fiscal operations of President Bola Tinubu’s government would result in a N9.8 trillion deficit, representing 3.88 percent of the estimated GDP, saying that this was above the three percent threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. Mr Bamidele listed budget highlights as an oil price…

The officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), in collaboration with security agencies, on Thursday, uncovered an alleged illegal oil refining warehouse in Mabushi, Abuja. The warehouse, located opposite the Mobile Filling Station along Ahmadu Bello Way, Mabushi, was thereafter demolished by the Department of Development Control, FCTA. The director of the department, Mukhtar Galadima, said that the refining warehouse was discovered during the ongoing city cleaning exercise. Mr Galadima said the warehouse, covering about three to four plots of land designated for commercial purposes, had been converted to illegal operations where oil like diesel and other petroleum products…