Splash Instablog

Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja: The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation of not remitting $3.8bn (about N748.6bn at the current official rate of N197 to a dollar) and N358.3bn to the Federation Account in 2013 in its latest audit report. According to the report, the NNPC also received a total of $12.9bn from the Nigeria Liquefied and Natural Gas Company between 2005 and 2013 but did not remit anything to the Federal Government. The report also stated that the country recorded a loss of revenue of N20.4bn and $5.966bn in 2013, adding that oil and gas companies underpaid the federation by $599.8m in the same period. The Chairman of NEITI, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who disclosed this on Monday while presenting the 2013 audit reports of the agency in Abuja, stated that 41 oil and gas companies and 16 government agencies participated in the audit. Citing the audit report, Fayemi said some revenues that should have gone ...

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, welcomes Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, center, prior to a dinner at the historical Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Monday, May 23, 2016. World leaders and representatives of humanitarian organizations from across the globe are converging in Istanbul for the first World Humanitarian Summit. He said the invitation to Akinci aimed to diplomatically upgrade the breakaway north of the island, which only Turkey recognizes as an independent state and maintains more than 35,000 troops there. Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a coup aiming at union with Greece. The dinner was held as part of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul. Anastasiades, who attended the summit, was invited to the dinner but refused to go after he was told Akinci would also be there. Anastasiades said he remains committed to the yearlong peace talks as long as "rules o...

Human remains retrieved from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 have burn marks and are very small in size, suggesting an explosion on board may have downed the aircraft in the east Mediterranean, a senior Egyptian forensics official ...

Syrians soldiers inspect damaged buses at the scene where suicide bombers blew themselves up, in the coastal town of Tartus, Syria, Monday, May 23, 2016. A series of rare explosions including suicide bombings rocked coastal government strongholds in Syria Monday, killing several people and wounding dozens more, state media and opposition activists said. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks. Gunfire could be heard Tuesday in the city of Tartus as the funerals got underway. Shooting in the air is a traditional sign of mourning in parts of the Middle East. The victims being buried Tuesday include three children from the Hammouda family, killed in the town of Jableh on Syria's Mediterranean coast. A series of explosions ripped through civilian targets in Jableh as well as the coastal city of Tartus Monday, killing more than a hundred people, most of them civilians. The attacks were the most serious breach of President Bashar Assad's coastal s...

OKOKOLO: Blessing Joseph lies on a sofa, her eyes fixed on the butt of a rifle that she says she won't hesitate to use if Fulani herdsmen come back to her remote village in central Nigeria. The 19-year-old student isn't the only one. Teenagers and even young boys carry machetes and daggers in villages in the Agatu area of Benue state. "My father told me not to go out without holding a cutlass with which I can defend myself if attacked," David Inalegwu, a nine-year-old primary school pupil, told AFP. As Blessing watches, youths pass around a jerrycan of local gin, discussing a spate of attacks in February blamed on heavily armed Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring Nasarawa state. Community leader James Ochoche Edoh said more than 20 Agatu villages were affected near the river Benue that forms the border with Nasarawa. "Approximately 500 people or more could have been killed," he claimed, in an unverified figure repeated by the former leader of Niger...

Reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, may arrest former President Goodluck Jonathan upon his return to Nigeria from his overseas tour over allegations of corruption and misappropriation of billions of dollars during his five-year stay in office may have forced the former leader to go into temporary self exile in Cote d’Ivoire. Several sources close to the ex-president, who confirmed to a national daily that Jonathan had sought refuge last week in the West African country, blamed the heightened attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta by Ijaw militants to what they claimed was “the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to renege on his promise that his predecessor had ‘nothing to fear’ from him (Buhari) after he handed over the reins of power on May 29, 2015”. It would be recalled that immediately after his victory in the 2015 presidential election, Buhari had stated that he would not go after his predecessor, despite allegations ...

The government hopes that removing costly fuel subsidies, causing prices to rise by up to two-thirds at the pumps, will help alleviate a fuel crisis that caused Africa's biggest economy to contract by 0.36 percent in the first quarter of the year. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) decided to go ahead with an indefinite strike, which started on Wednesday, defying an order by the Nigerian Industrial Court to cancel the action due to the risk of civil disorder. Ayuba Wabba, the NLC's president, told journalists in the capital, Abuja, that the union had "resolved to suspend with immediate effect the action". "Congress will resume negotiations with government on the twin issues of the hike in electricity tariff and an increase in the pump price of petroleum products," he said, adding that the union "remains committed to genuine dialogue". The NLC's action had little impact nationwide. A second union, the Trade Union Congress (TUC...