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The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has named Mohammed Al Sada to succeed Nigeria’s Ibe Kachikwu as the organisation’s conference president. Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum, became OPEC president only on Wednesday, replacing Diezani Alison-Madueke. However, a fresh election was made on Friday at the 168th ordinary meeting of the organisation in Vienna, Austria, Kachikwu’s first meeting at the helm. In a statement by the organisation, registering the resumption of Indonesian as an OPEC member, the oil cartel declared the new holders of other offices. “In approving Indonesia’s resumption of its full membership in the organization, the conference extended a warm welcome to its delegation, headed by HE Sudirman Said, minister of energy and mineral resources of Indonesia,” OPEC secretariat revealed. “The conference elected HE Dr Mohammed Bin Saleh Al Sada, minister of energy and industry of Qatar, as president of the conference for one year, with effect fro...

Thirty-two workers have died after an offshore oil platform operated by Azerbaijan's state energy company SOCAR caught fire in the Caspian Sea, the head of an independent committee said on Saturday. SOCAR declined repeated requests for comment from Reuters. "According to our information, 32 workers died, while 42 workers were rescued last night. ... The fire on the platform was finally extinguished," said Mirvari Gakhramanly, head ofAzerbaijan's Oil Workers' Rights Protection Committee. SOCAR said on Friday that the fire on a platform in Azerbaijan's Guneshli oil field had started after a gas pipeline on the platform was damaged in heavy wind. It said rescue attempts were being complicated by a severe storm. One worker called a Reuters correspondent from the platform and said there were 84 people trapped there. The worker did not want to be named. It was not clear whether his statement was now out of date. SOCAR said on its Facebook page on Saturday t...

Over a hundred angry youths attacked Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa state on Friday, December 4, during the final interment of the late Emir of Keffi, Alhaji Mohammadu Chindo Yamusa II. Nigerian Tribune reports that the governor was about entering his official vehicle in Keffi, Keffi local government area of the state when the youths came at him with different weapons, throwing stones at him. Governor Tanko He was quickly rushed into his car as security operatives attached to his convoy quickly intervened. They shot sporadically to scare the youths away. As a result, shops and stores were hurriedly closed down. The youths were said to have started mobilizing themselves after the governor and his entourage arrived for the burial. After the interment, the irate youths started molesting him, calling him names and throwing stones in his direction. Addressing a press conference in Keffi, Alhaji Sani Mohammed, the state commissioner of police ordered the Keffi area co...

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Gabriel Olanisakin on Saturday in Maiduguri said the December 31 deadline given to soldiers to end Boko Haram insurgency was achievable if the members of the civil society accorded troops the needed strategic partnership. The Defence chief stated this while speaking to journalists in Maiduguri after his visit to the heartbeat of the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency. His words: “The public must continue to ensure security consciousness and ensure make it their duty to report any issue that is of security threat on their lives and property”. General Olanisakin said visit to Maiduguri, Borno State, was to inspect the ongoing Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency Operations against Boko Haram. He said the December deadline remained sacrosanct and must be met to end terrorism in the country, even as he said the war against terrorism was, so far, a success. The Defense chief admitted that in the course of executing the war against Boko Haram...

According to The Whistle, the two spat on each other, with the Ghanaian president lashing out at Obasanjo at the African Investment Forum in Westminister, London which held the December 1 and 2. The exchange of words degenerated to insults and name calling as John Mahama openly called Olusegun Obasanjo “an idiot” and a “stupid buffoon”. Obasanjo had openly accused the Ghanaian President and his government of financially contributing $12m to Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign. He also accused President Mahama of blackmailing and collecting bribes from Nigerian businessmen in Ghana, buying numerous properties in Nigeria and South Africa. It however took the prompt intervention of Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni to calm down their tempers and usher President Mahama to a nearby room to prevent the insult degenerating to a boxing war. The forum was attended by African heads of states including like Malawian president, Matata Ponyo Mapon, the prime minister Democratic Republic of Co...

Fellow Nigerians, the roof is on fire. And the owners of the house should not sleep and snore lest they get badly burnt. Please, let no one treat or dismiss this Biafra controversy as humbug because it is very serious and has the potential of spiralling out of control and snowballing into an unprecedented conflagration of unquenchable propensities. War has never been a tea party. I was about seven years old when the Nigerian civil war broke out in July 1967. I was a child but not too young not to know and understand some of what was happening. I certainly felt the tremor of it even in far-away Ile-Ife. We knew something was definitely wrong when we suddenly noticed the inexplicable disappearance of our neighbours and family friends. The most painful for us in my own home was the forceful separation from our prayer warrior and spiritual Guru, Papa Fineface. Papa Fineface had migrated from the Eastern part of Nigeria to Ile-Ife many years earlier. Suddenly like a wisp of smoke he w...

A new twist to the arms deal scandal has revealed another mega scam in the tune of billions of Naira siphoned during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is extending its investigation of arms deals during the Jonathan administration to a N3 billion contract said to have been awarded by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) under the late General Andrew Owoye. According to The Nation, several arms dealers, a military chief and some other officials who served under Azazi have already been invited by the EFCC for interaction on the matter. The arms dealers are being quizzed over the alleged inflation of N3billion contract for the supply of 20 units of K-38 patrol boats to the Nigerian Army by the disbanded Presidential Implementation Committee on Marine Safety (PICOMMS). The agency is also understood to have made a breakthrough in tracking how some of the $2billion arms votes and extra-budgetary funds were wi...