Author: straightnewsng.com

President Muhammadu Buhari, Thursday, said Nigeria lost an estimated $157.5 billion to illicit financial flows from 2003 to 2012. Buhari quoted from the 2014 Global Financial Integrity Report in his address to the High-Level National Side-Event organised by the African Union Development Agency and New Partnership for Africa’s Development, AUDA-NEPAD, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday in New York. At the margins of the 74th United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, under the theme, “Promotion of International Cooperation to Combat Illicit Financial Flows and Strengthen Good Practices on Assets Recovery and Return to Foster Sustainable Development, he noted…

The House of Representatives Thursday recommended a 10-year jail term for consumers and exporters of donkeys. Apart, the House will inaugurate its 105 standing committees next week. The committees and their heads were named July 25 by the speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, before the House embarked on its two-month recess. The Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase (APC-Plateau), who announced this at plenary Thursday, also said the leadership of the House would meet with chairmen and their deputies and give a direction on how the committees should conduct business, going forward. The House upon resumption of plenary Thursday, mandated all ad hoc committees…

Angered by a barrage of petitions and setting the ranch ablaze by unknown persons, Akwa Ibom government may have backed out of plans to establish a ranch in Uruan Local government area of the state to accommodate 2,000 cows from Mexico, a South American country. Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, had in May 2017 revealed plan by his administration to kick start the project, explaining that the cow importation was to ensure fresh milk for Akwa Ibom people as against evaporated milk. “Fresh milk is more nutritious and will enhance good health and growth among the people of the…

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…