Author: straightnewsng.com

Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who’s been staring disbelievingly at Donald Trump since the first day of his bungled presidency, finally called it quits today after months of internal wrangling with his boss. With multiple news organizations reporting on Thursday that Mr. Trump was preparing to dump the former Exxon Mobil CEO after he had fallen out of favor with the mercurial president, the man leading the State Department preempted the public shaming orchestrated by the White House by making a hasty exit from the troubled Trump administration. But if Mr. Tillerson appeared to be an ineffective and impotent Secretary…

The non-academic staff unions in Nigerian universities Wednesday called off their three-month-old strike. The suspension of the strike, which began on December 4, was announced by Samson Ugwuoke, the chairman of the Joint Action Committee of the unions. “Based on extensive consultations with our various organs, we hereby announce the suspension of the strike action embarked upon by JAC with effect from today, March 14,” Uguwoke said at a press conference in Abuja. It would be recalled that the unions had embarked on an indefinite strike on Dec. 4, 2017 over failure of the Federal Government to fully implement 2009…

Federal Government is targeting to mobilise at least $25 billion or its equivalent in Naira in private investments, Senator Udo Udoma, the Minister of Budget and National Planning has said. Speaking at the launch of the Focus Labs for the nation’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Tuesday, Udoma further stated about 240 projects have so far been screened for the labs. Udoma noted “My answer is that we have no choice. We actually need multiplies of $25 billion or its equivalent in Naira, of new investments to create enough jobs to address the…

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Tuesday, stated that rehabilitation of the country’s refineries would commence in the second quarter of 2018. Speaking at the African Refiners Association’s conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Mr. Anibor Kragha, Chief Operating Officer of Refineries and Petrochemicals in the NNPC, said the corporation was in the final stages of talks with a consortium, including top traders, energy majors and oil services companies, to revamp the refineries in an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on imported fuel. Kragha said: “We believe that by the second quarter of this year we will start getting…

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has directed candidates who have taken the 2018 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations, UTME, to visit the board’s website for their results. Fabian Benjamin, head of media, JAMB, gave the directive at a news conference in Bwari, Abuja, Tuesday. Benjamin said the results had been scrutinised and released on www.jamb.org.ng, adding that such candidates were free to visit the Board’s website for their results. He also explained that the results would be released in batches to enable candidates who have already taken the examination to check them. Ishaq Oloyede, JAMB registrar, recently said unlike…

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Coalition for Nigeria Movement, CNM, Monday, said that the speculation that the platform has adopted the Social Democratic Party, SDP, as its political platform was not true. A statement signed by Omoruyi Edoigiwerie, a member of its National Steering Committee, in Abuja, read: “The attention of the Coalition for Nigeria Movement, CNM, has been drawn to the speculation that it has endorsed the Social Democratic Party, SDP, as its political platform. ”It is imperative to categorically state that such insinuation is completely false. We urge all Nigerians to disregard it,…

The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, Tuesday released results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, for private candidates in the 2018-First Series in Lagos with 17.13 per cent pass in English Language and Mathematics. This is even as the results of 1,021 candidates, representing 9.03 per cent of the total candidature for the examination are being withheld in connection with various reported cases of examination malpractice. Speaking at WAEC national office in Lagos, Mr Olu Adenipekun, the Head of Nigeria Office, said: “A total of 11,721 candidates registered for the examination, out of which 11,307 candidates sat the…

Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has chided President Muhammadu Buhari for saying that he was unaware that the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Ibrahim Idris, did not carry out his orders regarding the security situation in Benue State. The party said such admission shows that the President is running an incompetent and uncoordinated government. “President Buhari had irredeemably indicted himself for not knowing that the man tasked with the security of the nation failed to take orders from him (the Commander-in-Chief), the party observed and stressed that such unpardonable gaffe was responsible for “government’s wrecking of the nation’s once robust economy as…

The House of Representatives joint committees on Finance and Petroleum Resources Downstream Tuesday walked out officials of Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, over improper representation. This is just as Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of Finance, Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State, Petroleum, and Maikanti Baru, the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, failed to show up and were also not represented. Peeved by this development, Babangida Ibrahim, APC, Katsina, the joint committee chairman, in his ruling, declared that the committee would start a full-scale public hearing on the issue. Ibrahim said: “We must get to the…

Oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Eni have voluntarily filed to US authorities internal probes into how they acquired a giant field in Nigeria as the companies seek to fight corruption allegations in Europe and Africa. According to Reuters, the filings to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) do not mean US authorities are investigating Shell or Eni. But the move shows the companies are trying to pre-empt questions from the United States as they face one of the oil industry’s biggest-ever graft trials in Italy to begin in May in Milan, a…