Author: straightnewsng.com

By Akanimo Sampson Total, a French major energy player, which produces and markets fuels, natural gas and low-carbon electricity is currently bracing to export its first Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) cargo from Gydan peninsula, Russia by 2023, while the second and third train to start up by 2024 and 2026. Total, Novatek and the other project shareholders have approved the Final Investment Decision (FID) for Arctic LNG 2, a major LNG development in Russia, with a production capacity of 19.8 million tons per year. The news came as the Board of Directors of the French oil major, reviewed the outlook…

A six-year-old Nigerian student has emerged Africa’s youngest Microsoft Specialist in the Certiport international certification examination. Master Damilare Akano alongside 200 other students participated in a month-long summer camp tagged: ‘Nextgen IT Experts’ organised by a Learning Systems Institute, New Horizons in Lagos recently. The pupils were trained in various information and communication technology, ICT, courses like Microsoft, Multimedia, Robotics Engineering, Drone Technology, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Coding, among others. He came top in the Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2016 examinations with a score of 871 out of 1,000 points. He was followed…

By Akanimo Sampson Favour was ready to start her first year of university when a man approached her mother with a proposition for her to study abroad. “He managed to convince my mother that he could get me a scholarship in Italy. All I had to do was give him the necessary documents for him to process the paperwork,” she said. She, however, remembered that once they arrived in Libya, things changed: “The pusher man gathered all the women who were in the truck and handed us over to another man. The man took us to Qatrun, a city in…

As the planned sale of the Bayelsa State Oil Company Limited (BOCL) by the state government continues to generate controversy, a renowned social and environmental activist has called on members of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to intervene, deliberate and take a drastic decision on the issue. Straightnews had on September 19 published an exclusive story headlined: Alleged Plans By Dickson to sell Bayelsa Oil Firm Shares foiled” and quoted Barr Orua Mark, secretary/legal adviser to BOCL, alleging plans by Governor Seriake Dickson to sell shares in the government-owned company. Mr. Morris Alagoa, in a telephone interview with our…

With the unveiling of two new container handling equipment, the cargo handling timeline by the Ports and Terminal Operators Nigeria Limited, PTOL, has now reduced drastically, according to PTOL’s Chairman of Board of Directors Chief Dennis Okafor. Present at the commissioning ceremony at the new stacking yard of PTOL, which has stacking capacity for an additional 1,000 containers were Chief Dennis Okafor, chairman, PTOL board of directors, Chief Mike Nwaukoni and the Company Secretary, Barrister Chioma Okwuanyi. Nigerian Ports Authority was represented by Engr. Yunusa Ibrahim Anji. An elated Okafor spoke of the board’s plans of having PTOL as the…

By Akanimo Sampson Heavy rains and flash floods across 16 states in Sudan have sacked 346,300 people this September, according to the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC). So far, approximately 41,514 homes have been destroyed and 27,742 have been damaged. Heavy rains are expected to continue and worsen in the coming weeks in River Nile, Red Sea, Al Jazeera, White Nile, North Kordofan, North Darfur and Khartoum States. As of September 17, six people had died of Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD) / Cholera, and at least 94 cases have been reported. Every year, floods and emergencies related to seasonal climatic shocks…

Over the years, Akwa Ibom State government has been embarking on the construction of Ibom Deep Seaport as a way of boosting its revenue and decongesting other ports in the country. The project, initiated by ex-governor Victor Attah, modeled by ex-governor Godswill Akpabio and fired by Governor Udom Emmanuel, occupies 2,565Ha of land area of the 14,517Ha. The approximate location of the project site scaled from the British Admiralty Chart No. 1387 are Latitude 04 32’ 35” N: Longitude 080 14’ 07” E. and UTM coordinates 415168 m E; 502,199 m N (UTM Zone 32N). The project site is strategically…

Akwa Ibom governor Udom Emmanuel said his administration inherited a whopping N32 billion gratuity arrears from the previous administration. Though Emmanuel who came to power in May 2015 did not give give period and a breakdown of the arrears, gratuity is usually paid public servants in civil service, public secondary and primary schools and local government civil service commission. The governor who interacted with journalists in the state on Tuesday to round-off the 32nd anniversary celebrations of Akwa Ibom State debunked the notion that his administration was owing pensions to retirees. However, investigation carried out by Straightnews shows that the…

By Akanimo Sampson Former 2011 Presidential running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), one of the coalition parties that formed the All Progressives Congress (APC), Tunde Bakare, has said that he will succeed his political associate as the 16th President of Nigeria in 2023. His 2023 presidential dream is coming to the open as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is busy denying that it did not provide N90 billion to finance the election campaign of the APC during the last controversial presidential election. The FIRS claimed in a statement…

By Akanimo Sampson On Monday, a young climate crisis activist, Greta Thunberg, opened the United Nations Climate Action Summit with a seeming angry condemnation of world leaders, including Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, for failing to take strong measures to combat the menace of the climate crisis. At the event, Buhari promised that his administration will tackle climate change in Nigeria, and accordingly revealed how his administration planned to reverse the negative effects of climate change in the country. “I wish to reiterate Nigeria’s commitment to its obligation under the Paris agreement, the aspirations enshrined in our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)…