Author: The Nation

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva has emerged victorious in a case of defamation he filed against Jackson Ude of Pointblank News in the United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

An electronic copy of a settlement agreement entered by Sylva and Ude to discontinue the case filed in the court presided over by Joseph F. Leeson Jr. showed that Ude agreed to take down, delete and destroy all articles and publications alleging any criminal or other misconduct by Sylva appearing on Pointblank News website and his social media accounts.

Read Also:Nigeria loses 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily to theft, says Sylva

Part of the agreement said: “Thereafter, if Sylva reasonably discovers any article or publication violative of this agreement still existing, Sylva will inform Ude first and give Ude reasonable notice (no longer than one week absent extraordinary circumstances) to delete before such may be seemed as a breach.
“Ude will not directly or indirectly engage in any act either to harass or spread false information against Sylva.
“Ude will not directly or indirectly publish any false or defamatory information about Sylva, with liquidated damages of $25,000, per any such publication and attorney to the winner of any litigation therefrom”.

Sylva and Ude were asked to within seven days execute the necessary stipulation to dismiss the defamation lawsuit.

The agreement was jointly drafted by Sylva’s lawyer, Michael Cilento and Ude’s lawyer, Benneth Amadi.

The Bayelsa Police Command has commenced investigation into the murder of two persons by suspected cult members in the State.

The incident occured two days ago at the Ogbogoro community in Yenagoa Local Government Area.

It was gathered that the deceased, Tuesday Fati, 30, and Famizibe Clarkson, 25, were allegedly murdered in their homes in the community by the suspected cultists.

Read Also:Police arrest six suspected bandits in Imo

Spokesman for the command Asinim Butswat confirmed the incident.

In a statement on Saturday, Butswat said the command had commenced investigation into the accident to unravel the circumstances surrounding the killings.
He said: “The deceased identified as one Tuesday Fati, aged 30, and one Famizibe Clarkson, 25, were murdered inside their apartment at Ogbogboro community, Yenagoa on August 12, 2022, at about 0330 hours.
“Preliminary investigation reveals that the victims were killed in what appears to be suspected cult activities. The corpses were evacuated and deposited at mortuary of the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, for autopsy.”
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Adamawa Governor Ahmadu Fintiri has expressed excitement over the performance of candidates from the State in the 2022 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

In the results released earlier this week, 43,000 students who sat the exam in Adamawa, recorded 78 per cent success with credits in at least five subjects, including English and Maths, and having the basic requirement for university admission.

Fintiri, who returned to Yola on Saturday after a trip to Rivers State, told newsmen at the Yola International Airport: “I am excited and elated. I promised the people that I was coming with a very serious reform in the education sector. Hitherto, we were mostly coming second or so to the last (among states). I resolved that we would change that narrative and the resolve has started yielding result.

“Last year we had 74 percent and this year we have 78 percent. Kudos to the students and and we will continue to push further and do more reforms and have things get even better.”

Fintiri, who arrived Yola in the early afternoon of Saturday from Port Harcourt where he met with Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike over the crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) directly involving Wike and the party’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, said reconciliation had started in earnest and is progressing successfully.

Read Also:2022 WASSCE: WAEC withholds 365,564 results

“We are focused and the reconciliation is up and progressing. I am the chairman of the reconciliation committee between Atiku and Wike on Atiku’s side, and I can assure you that we will get over it,” Fintiri said.

Expressing optimism for a positive outcome of the reconciliation process, Fintiri added, “We will continue to talk. Politics is about talking with one another. It is about understanding. We have started the process. Very soon we will be crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s to signify that the reconciliation is over and PDP is out and ready for success.”

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The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has opposed the planned privatization of public healthcare facilities in the country.

The Congress also rejected the move by the Federal Government to privatize the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

It argued that Nigerians had never benefitted from previous privatizations by past governments.

The Congress made its position known at the end of its National Administrative Council (NAC), Central Working Committee (CWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on Friday in Abuja.

Addressing journalists, TUC President, Festus Osifo, said: “As TUC, we take a complete exception to this. The NEC of TUC frowns at this, because the privatization that was done in the past, where has it led us to.

“Nothing meaningful has ever come out from the previous privatization processes, especially the power sector.”

The TUC President, while speaking on the lingering strike in the university system, called on the Federal Government to place value on education in the country.

He said: “TUC as a body is here to protect our national interest. We will do everything possible to ensure that we engage the government, and also engage ASUU as well to find an amicable solution.

“You will agree with me that where there is will, there is always a way.

“The value that is placed on our university system is the reason why we are here today.”

He condemned the N1.4 billion spent on the purchase of vehicles for the Government of Niger Republic.

The TUC President also said that there was no need for the government to continue paying for fuel subsidies as the impact was clearly not felt by Nigerians.

Osifo suggested that the money meant for fuel subsidy could be used to meet the demands of university-based unions.

He further called on governments to as a matter of urgency take steps to address the security challenges in the country.

The labour leader noted that comments of Kaduna Governor, Mallam Nasir El – Rufai that bandits were running a parallel government in the state was a direct manifestation of failure of the security network nationwide.

Read Also:How Lagos is expanding healthcare access to residents

Osifo said such admittance, coming from a state governor, should be a wake up call for the President, Muhammadu Buhari and the entire security team to act swiftly and remedy the situation.

The TUC president said: “Only recently, the Kaduna State Governor Mallam Nasir El-rufai complained that bandits are running a parallel government within his state by collecting tax returns from local communities, especially farmers, such a scenario shows that we have lost it as a nation, NEC in Council hereby call on the Nigerian government, the President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from lamentations and act swiftly.

“We also use this opportunity to call on the Nigerian military and the entire security chiefs to act swiftly otherwise tomorrow might be too late.”

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company(NNPC) Limited has said the signing of the new Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) is a key milestone achievement which would unlock opportunities within the Nigeria upstream sector.

It noted that the execution of the PSCs would deepen investment and development of Nigeria’s rich petroleum resources and ensure that the trifold mandate of the NNPC Ltd to ensure energy availability, sustainability, and accessibility was achieved.

The Group Chief Executive Officer NNPC, Mele Kyari stated this during the signing of agreements with international oil companies in Abuja on Friday.

In a bid to increase the production of crude oil in the country and increase revenue, the NNPC Ltd and international oil companies operating in Nigeria had signed various agreements.

The agreements would see to the production of about 10 billion barrels of crude oil and generation of over $500bn revenue to all parties involved.

NNPC officials and their counterparts from the IOCs including Shell, Chevron, Texaco, Sinopec, Sapetro, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, among others, renewed their agreements in five Oil Mining Leases that included OMLs 128, 130,132, 133, and 138.

Read Also:Financial crunch: States, NNPC on collision course

The agreements renewed by the parties were Production Sharing Contracts, as well as Dispute Resolution Agreements, among others at a signing ceremony held at the Abuja headquarters of NNPC.

Speaking at the event, Kyari said: “The signing of the new PSCs is a key milestone achievement by NNPC Ltd which would ultimately unlock opportunities within the Nigeria upstream sector.

“The execution of the PSCs will deepen investment and development of Nigeria’s rich petroleum resources and ensure that the trifold mandate of the NNPC Ltd to ensure energy availability, sustainability, and accessibility is achieved.

“Ultimately, the new PSCs will provide an inflow of Foreign Direct Investment, expanded access to affordable energy, job creation and socio-economic development.”

The NNPC Ltd chief explained that the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 gave NNPC the legal backing to renegotiate all its existing PSCs in conformance to the provisions of the new Act within a one-year period.

The PIA became law on August 16, 2021 after it was signed into law the same day by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The PIA in Section 311(2) stipulated that new PSC agreements under new Heads of Terms will be signed between NNPC Ltd as concessionaire and its contractor parties within one year of signing the PIA into law, giving a deadline of August 15, 2022.

The NNPC Ltd chief noted that this provision paved the way for the resolution of lingering disputes which created investment uncertainty and stifled new investments in the nation’s deep offshore assets.

According to him, the NNPC leveraged on the near end term of the PSCs and the parties’ interest to renew the PSCs as a negotiation currency in bringing the contractors to work towards trading the past for the future.

“These renewed PSCs would provide several benefits such as improved long-term relationships with contractors, elimination of contractual ambiguities especially in relation to gas terms, enable early contract renewal, among others,” he stated.

The Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, Bala Wunti, who spoke during the signing, said: “Cumulatively we hope to produce and monetise over 10 billion barrels of oil with these signatures that we had today.

“And this by no means will give significant revenue for all the parties. We expect over $500bn of revenue for all the stakeholders.”