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The House of Representatives has summoned the Minister of Interior, Lt-Gen. Abdulrahman Danbazzau(retd), and the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Prisons Service, Mr. Peter Ekpendu, over an alleged assault on a female member of the House. Security aides attached to the convoy of Mr. Ekpendu allegedly descended on Mrs. Onyemachi Mrukpor and slapped her for overtaking the convoy of the CG. A motion on the incident, which was moved by the Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Leo Ogor, was unanimously endorsed by members at Thursday’s session presided over by the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara. “The member was battered under the watch of the CG of prisons. Her offence was that she overtook the convoy of the CG within the premises of the National Assembly. “The CG of prisons is invited to explain why he should not be committed to prison in violation of Section 16 of the Legislative Houses, Powers and Privileges Act.” The law stipulates a penalty of N400,000 fine or a prison term of si...

It is alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has replaced Dr Ibe Kachikwu as the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Reports say his replacement, Maikanti Baru was the Group Executive Director of the corporation before his appointment. Kachikwu may have been removed from the post to pave way for him to face the state duties, especially in the face of lingering fuel crisis.

The Federal Government has said that reports of Nigeria’s currency deal with China were speculative and unfounded. The minister for Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, clarified that contrary to widespread belief, Nigeria had no currency swap deal with China during the last visit by President Buhari to the country. Onyeama made the remarks at a briefing with State House Correspondents after Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC)’s meeting. The minister explained that China was under pressure to internationalize its currency based on the strength of its economy. The minister said “It’s not really a swap. What it takes is that as the Chinese economy goes strong, there is some pressure on them from the trading partners, international financial institutions. They agreed that the money should be internationalized. So, they started that for a while. They were protecting it also. They did not allow it to be fully exchangeable. But now, their economy is fully strong, they are looking f...

The Accountant-General of the Federation, AGF, Ahmed Idris, says the federal government plans to begin payment of staff salaries by the 25th of every month as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari. Mr. Idris, who disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday, said “this is going to be given a test, I believe, by this month”. The AGF also said the government was working on a new arrangement, which, if approved, would ensure payment of the salaries before the monthly meeting of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee, FAAC. According to him, salaries are usually paid after the FAAC meeting, where revenue accruing to the federation’s account is shared among the federal, state and local governments. “There is a standing instruction of Mr President to pay salary on or before 24 or 25 of every month and we will try as much as possible to comply and to abide by that. “We are taking a step further to make a provision whereby we can acco...

Last October, Nigeria’s biggest indigenous oil and gas company, Oando Plc, made history for the wrong reason when it announced a loss of N184 billion in the 2014 financial year. The loss was the biggest ever recorded by any Nigerian company. While its shareholders bore the brunt of the bleak financial year, the company’s group chief executive, Wale Tinubu and his deputy, Omamofe Boyo, might be doing just fine as they had for years incorporated and operated a cluster of shell companies in notorious offshore jurisdictions. Mr. Tinubu seems to be making so good a return from his shell companies that in 2008 he agreed to pay a front as much as $20,000 monthly to manage all of his offshore transactions. Details of the offshore assets of the two top bosses at Oando Plc were among the revelations contained in the leaked massive internal data belonging to Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The revelations are products of an investigation, spanning over a year by the International C...

The Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions on Monday summoned Danladi Umar, the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), who is presiding over Bukola Saraki’s corruption trial. Mr. Saraki, the Senate President, is facing 13 counts of false assets declaration and fraud before the CCT. According to The Nation newspaper, Justice Umar‎ was asked to appear before the Committee “unfailingly” by 2 p.m. on Thursday. The invitation came hours after the judge ruled that Mr. Saraki’s trial would sit daily between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., with a one hour break in between. The Senate president’s lawyer had argued for the trial to hold only when the Upper Chamber is not in plenary, but Mr. Umar insisted that Mr. Saraki, and not the Senate, was on trial. The letter of invitation requested Mr. Umar to “come personally” with 12 copies of any submission he wishes to present. The Senate Committee said it was inviting the CCT chairman following allegation of bribery agai...

Ekiti State Gover­nor, Ayodele Fay­ose, has described the All Progressives Congress (APC) Nation­al Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the party’s Deputy National Chairman, Chief Segun Oni and other critics of his letter to Chinese Government to stop the $2 billion loan sought by the Federal Government as political hypocrites. Odigie-Oyegun, Oni and others had criticised Fayose for writing the Chinese Government to stop the loan and other scathing remarks on President Muhammadu Buhari. Reacting to their com­ments on Monday, Fay­ose described President Buhari’s non-signing of any direct loan agree­ment with the Chinese Government during his visit as a vindication of his position. He maintained that what Nigeria needs is the collaboration of the government of China in the area of technol­ogy transfer, rather than granting loan which will be mismanaged under the guise of building in­frastructure. In a statement issued in Ado Ekiti on Monday by his Special Assistant on Public Comm...