The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced the promotion of 109 management staff and redeployed 24 others in a major shakeup which the top management said is meant to reflect operational realities and ensure sustained performance and profitability. One of those redeployed is the Group General Manager, Public Affairs Division, Alhaji Garba Deen Mohammed and was replaced with a veteran journalist, Ndu Ughamadu.
In a podcast to members of staff, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, said that the changes were informed by the desire to consolidate on the restructuring exercise through realigning jobs with requisite competences and experiences in line with international best practices, while taking deliberate measures to ensure fairness and equity as well as the capacity to deliver. Baru said: “As you might have heard, His Excellency Mr. President has approved the High Level Organogram of the Corporation and appointment of Staff into various positions. Most importantly, the changes were done in the spirit of entrenching professionalism and accountability which is a cardinal principle of our 12 Business Focus Areas which are hinged on the slogan moving NNPC Forward…Together.” While calling on staff members to support the ongoing restructuring efforts, the GMD noted that the NNPC has made some progress in the implementation of the 12 Business Focus Areas. “We can now deliver crude to our refineries, we have stabilized fuel supply across the country, Frontier Exploration Services and Integrated Data Services Limited have mobilized to the Benue trough and will soon resume activities in the Chad basin.” [myad]
Turkey has issued a travel warning to its citizens against traveling to the United States of America, citing the ongoing protests against the election of Donald Trump as President.
“Turkish citizens should stay away from demonstrations in the US cities, take necessary security measures at their homes and work, and inform security officials immediately in possible racist abuse or attacks.”
A statement on the foreign ministry’s website said that the alert especially applies to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle, Oakland and Portland.
Anti-Donald Trump demonstrations “occasionally featured acts of crime and violence,” the statement said, adding that “based on demonstrators’ social media posts, it’s clear the demonstrations will likely continue for some time.”
The move came after the US State Department issued its travel warning on Turkey in October, ordering family members of consulate employees in Istanbul to leave the country due to threats against US citizens.
At the time, Turkey’s foreign minister criticized the move and said that the American decision was wrong.
“Istanbul or Ankara is not more unsafe than any US state. On the day that the Americans announced this security measure, 12 people were killed in the city of Chicago alone.”
Turkey, along with several other countries in the region, have repeatedly complained over Western hypocrisy and unnecessary meddling when it comes to issues of human rights. [myad]
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has confessed that for Nigeria to get out of the oil economy, it needs oil.
“As we move to diversify our economy, we are acutely aware that we need oil to get out of oil.”
Professor Osinbajo spoke today, Monday at the presentation of three books written by the minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu in Abuja.
The Vice President regretted that because of various challenges such as the deregulation of the downstream sector and its continuing challenges, vandalism of pipelines and export facilities and the critical drop in production, gas to power issues, the urgent imperatives of local refining, cash call problems and the plans to exit that regime and empowering indigenous operators, “our window of opportunity to benefit maximally from the petroleum industry is narrowing.”
He said that the increasing breakthroughs in renewable energy use and the incredible speed of the expansion of the use of electric vehicles all point to the fact that “the party might be over sooner than we expected.” [myad]
Words, spoken, sung and written, are a veritable garden of creativity that the organizers of the monthly Guest Writer Session have tended, nurtured and celebrated in all their fecund and variate glory for the past eight years.
The October 29 evening’s stroll through that garden led us to the sharp sweet aroma of an author’s first flowering, through the earthy sounds of deep thinking, soul rocking modern folk music and on to the thorny cacti of desert-born poetry.
With her reading from “The Crippled Eagle” her debut, Doris Malgwi gave warning of her determination to master the garish, often blood red petals of her chosen metier, the crime thriller also known as pulp fiction. A genre that makes little or no claim to elitist status, the crime thriller is typically fast-paced, high adrenaline ‘action’ homily on crime and corruption in high and low places and Mrs. Malgwi and her heroine , a Baju girl with guts named Kaingchat, delivered on all fronts.
It is not this writer’s place to give “The Crippled Eagle”a blurb but publishers Omojojolo Emotion Press packaged her opus quite elegantly and Mrs. Malgwi gave her yarn of derring-do and danger a sheen that marks her as a name to watch out for. It would be remiss of one not to point out that the novel shares a somewhat less savoury trait of the pulp fiction genre, less than perfect proofing and editing. It is not so bad as to mar the thrilling experience but a poodle popping up on the very first page where a puddle was meant to be is a distraction. The kind that will not show up we hope in here eagerly awaited sequel to her exciting debut.
No garden worth its name would be without song and on this stroll it was singer, composer, songwriter and baker, Ashida that wove the magic of impassioned folk song and social commentary into the ambience. Baritoned and deep thinking Ashida Dele brings to mind the hopeful subversives of the hippy era in a way that is young and fresh and now.
Much like the pioneer folk song Noble Laureate, this gift to the music industry from Ondo state layers his unique development-focus into the hybrid of highlife and what is best termed Middle belt soft rock. Indeed the strains of the high plateau on which he spent much of his youth were plain to be heard from his guitar play, and in the cadence of his vocals.
A true minstrel of his times, Ashida asks the deeper questions of us. In his rendition of his latest single “ Africans “ he asks us to reconsider the murky direction we seem to be charging towards and the frenzied pace we are scurrying nowhere with.
Then came the desert blooms. The impassioned poetry of Musa Idris Okpanachi transited the audience from the pondering of the errors of our ways as a society to staring bleakly at the agonizing consequences of not learning from our myriad mistakes.
His offering from the strikingly named collection of his poems “Music of the Dead” was a vivid blossom of the pain and triumph of parenting and persevering in the Boko Haram ravaged north-east.
The love song “Shareef” was emblazoned with the rich vocabulary of a doctorate in English language and spoke in intensely personal tones of a universal that is the bedrock of humanity . The love of parent for son, and the hope of one generation for the continuation of the lineage.
The intensity of his imagery misled a few in the audience to hear erotica in passion, to input the sensual into the paternal. Given the context of the poem that Dr. Opkanachi shared during the question and answer session the coquetry that they imputed to the poem most have hurt and inspired in the same breathe.
He explained his third son Shareef had battled back to life from a devastating motorbike accident in the city of Maiduguri at a time whence tragedy was all around and the music of the dead … gunfire, explosions and artillery fire … was all too often the lullaby that his injured son and his care givers fell to fitful sleep.
I do believe though he found solace in the acclamation with which his work was received and the near stampede for autographed copies of it.
And so our stroll through the fecund, rich garden of Nigerian modern literary creativity for that evening yet not before a lucky many won editions of works from contemporary poets, authors and songsters in the monthly raffle draw. Fruit from the garden as were. Thankfully the tour , courtesy of the Abuja Writers Forum , repeats itself every last Saturday of the month in case you ever wish to sample the garden’s delights.
The management of Osun State University, Osogbo has dismissed a lecturer in the Department of Languages and Linguistics, Dr. Olabode Wale Ojoniyi for allegedly engaging in illicit sex with a female student, Miss Mercy Ikwue.
A member of the Governing Council of the university who preferred anonymity said that the appointment of Ojoniyi with UNIOSUN was terminated after the conclusion of the investigation on the sex tape that captured the lecturer’s illicit sexual affair with Mercy.
The randy lecturer appeared nude in the video, caressing the student.
According to the video, Ojoniyi was seen struggling to have sex with Mercy, unknown to him that the student was recording his actions.
Students of UNIOSUN said that Ojoniyi was a dubious lecturer even as they celebrated his dismissal.
The council member who is also the provost of one of the colleges in UNIOSUN said: “I’m not supposed to disclose our decisions and the rationale behind such decisions to journalists or anyone. Our oath of office does not allow that. Let me just tell you that Dr. Ojoniyi was sacked because of the disgrace he brought to this university.
“The Chairman of the Governing Council, Mallam Yusuf Ali, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and all of us felt disgusted over the reckless action of Dr Ojoniyi and no reasonable and sane person would allow such shameless individual to remain in this citadel of learning. That was why he was dismissed.
“The termination of Dr. Ojoniyi’s appointment followed due process. His offence was punishable under the Code of Conduct of Staff of Osun State University, part II, articles 15 and 23. Therefore, his sack was the best decision so as to ensure sanity in the system.” His conduct derogated his status as a lecturer and betrayed his academic qualification as a PhD holder. In fact, he has come to the end of his carrier in the academics. He may even be handed over to relevant state authority for prosecution.
Dr. Ojoniyi did not deny being the one in the video but insisted that he wanted a trial that would be broadcast live in national television.
When asked whether he was aware of the termination of his appointment, Dr. Ojoniyi said the truth would soon come out
The US President-elect, Donald Trump, has made it clear that the first thing he would do when he mounts leadership in January is to deport three million undocumented immigrants.
Speaking to CBS News in his first TV interview since his election victory, Trump confirmed that he still plans to build a wall along the US border with Mexico.
He said that some parts might end up as more of a “fence.”
Asked how many people he planned to deport, he said: “what we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers.
”Probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate,” Trump said.
“But we’re getting them out of our country, they’re here illegally. After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about who are terrific people. It’s very important we secure our border.’
Asked if he would accept a fence along the border instead of a wall, he said: “For certain areas I would, but certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I’m very good at this, it’s called construction.”
There are an estimated 10.9 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, many of whom have spent most of their lives in America. [myad]
Kafayat, wife of a lecturer at the Lagos State University (LASU), Lagos, Suraju Oyekunle has dumped him and moved on to marry a bricklayer, Mr. Fatai Alimi.
The 36 year old Kafayat, who had married to the lecturer for 13 years, is now pregnant for the bricklayer who is 34 years old.
The woman has openly confessed to being in love with the bricklayer, whom she said she preferred to spend the rest of her life with, the report said.
She was said to have packed out from her matrimonial home in October when her husband travelled out of town, and then moved in with Mr. Alimi. Fatai lives in the same Igando community where she and her husband lived in Lagos.
She said that she prefers the bricklayer’s smaller apartment to her husband’s house, and she took along with her a 12-year-old son she had for her husband.
Fatai Alimi was said to have been arrested by the police, and arraigned in court on Thursday for conduct likely to cause breach of peace, after the woman’s husband lodged a complaint against him.
He pleaded not guilty before a magistrate, who granted him bail in the sum of N25,000. He was remanded in prison custody pending his meeting the bail conditions.
This was even as Kafayat vowed to do all she could to secure freedom for Fatai Alimi.
While in court to bail Fatai Alimi, Kafayat reportedly said she left her marriage because she and her husband were unable to get another child during their 13 years in marriage, and that the husband was not taking good care of her.
She said she became pregnant for her new lover a few months after they met, and that with him, she was now living in peace.
Kafayat said that her bricklayer lover, despite his low social status, was better off than her husband of 13 years in everything. She said her family remained in support of her relationship with Fatai Alimi, the bricklayer.
Fatai Alimi is scheduled to appear again in court on December 12. [myad]
When Brexit happened, the most notable Western newspapers which write the global space such as The Economist, The New York Times, The Guardian and Die Spiegel each had a different name for it but not an overarching concept. Now, a democratically compliant electoral process in the US has produced a president nobody wants but whose electors are in clear majority. So, what is happening?
To attempt an answer to the question of what is happening, it seems we have very little alternatives to Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society thesis. Adding 9/11 to a list of similar catastrophes in the past, he came to the conclusion that the world has entered the risk society phase. In that phase, we have reached where the consequences of ‘our’ actions are things we lack the language to capture. By Beck’s argument, 9/11 was not a declaration of war, a criminal act and certainly not a coup. The Risk Society is vulnerable to what he called uncontrollable threats that have spatial, social and temporal dimensions.
Uncontrollable because we are dealing with threats that cannot be located in space or threats that have no origin. Where do you locate terrorists or climate change? In which country?
“All the distinctions that make up our standard picture of the modern state – the borders that divide domestic from international, the police from the military, crime from war and war from peace – have been overthrown…Foreign and domestic policy, national and international co-operation are now all interlocked” he argued. But he also argued and, in his own words, “September 11 exposed neoliberalism’s shortcomings as a solution to the world’s conflicts. The terrorist attacks were the Chernobyl of globalization. Just as the Russian disaster undermined our faith in nuclear energy, so September 11th exposed the false promise of neoliberalism”.
He implicated the power to frame. Beck asks the question: who defines the identity of a transnational terrorist? His answer is that it is neither judges nor international courts but powerful governments and states, a process in which many boundaries collapse. But then, Beck showed how the post 9/11 saw the return of the state. And when asked, state officials justify it on primacy of security. From there, he arrived at the clincher: A state can neoliberalise itself to death”
The leading Western states have neoliberalised themselves to death, weaving uncontrollable risks into the heart of their collective being. Now, they are witnessing the slow but painless termination of the uncaring, unfeeling individualism they institutionalised at home and compelled others to absorb abroad. There are many of such signs already but let’s restrict it to the more recent ones.
First of that would be Brexit – Britain’s self-expulsion from the EU last June. Brexit must be a manifestation of that condition which Ulrich Beck would call the risk society. How else does one explain it when the leading colonial power by which the world defines Europe suddenly finds itself out of the EU – the most advanced and functional model of the cosmopolitan state today. The first global hegemon is no longer a member of the only three remaining empires in the world: the American, the Chinese and the EU. These are beside some of the knotty security, cultural, economic and global governance implications of the outcome of a referendum that came to see the light of the day in the country that boasts of some of the best universities and think tanks in the world. So, what might have happened?
The second is the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election. Today, America has basically ended up with a president they would wish were not the one but a president who has been popularly elected. How could that happen? This time, the best source of evidence in support of Beck’s Risk Society must come from Leslie Gelb. Leslie Gelb is many things in the American establishment. Most remarkably, he is the author of Power Rules, a very interesting book in its attempt to construct a plausible model of global power configuration for the great power transition from US led world order to a world of multiple centres of power – China, Russia, India, Brazil and one or two more, all sitting in the hall of great power to decide global order. Such a person must, in the African parlance, be a big man. Not if he has also been the President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which is the think tank’s think tank. In March this year, Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of National Interest, another conservative but interesting read too, interviewed him. Two questions are very interesting from the 2000 words + interview. They first asked him why Hilary Clinton should fear Robert Kagan. Kagan is one of the neo-con scholars who was ready to defect from the GOP if Donald Trump won the ticket.
This is what Gelb had to say: She should fear Robert Kagan because he provides an intellectual basis for her worst instincts. Her instincts are to solve problems by force, to assert American might. And then most of the problems we’re facing now—the lead of our foreign policy should not be force. Force has got to be there, and it’s got to play a role, particularly in the issue of terrorism, fighting terrorism. But basically, it’s got to be diplomacy and economics, and organizing alliances for action to tackle these problems. That’s got to come first. And Kagan really doesn’t put much store in organizing coalitions to tackle problems—it’s all about assertion of American might”.
No reader would have missed it. Gelb ended up providing a portrait of Hilary Clinton even as much as he gave an insight into Kagan. If you have read any of Kagan’s writings, particularly the essay he did in 2000 with his fellow traveler, William Kristol titled “The Present Danger”, then you would love Gelb’s answer.
But Gelb wasn’t done yet. Two questions they asked him on Donald Trump, his answers to all of which needs capture here:
Editor: Donald Trump is the Republican front-runner. He seems to espouse what might be called an “anti-neocon foreign policy.” What’s your take on Trump’s foreign policy as far as one can be discerned?
Gelb’s reply came as follows: Well, it’s hard to discern it. He is in no sense a foreign policy expert or a plausible thinker on foreign policy. He has a shotgun approach to it. And sometimes it’s kooky. And sometimes it kind of bears out the lessons of the last fifteen or twenty years. He, too, is quite cautious about getting involved in another—U.S. getting involved in a major way in a land war in Syria. And yet, on the other hand he keeps talking about building up American military power as if he’s going to use it to solve these very same problems. I think he hasn’t begun to come to terms with what he himself believes, if he believes anything.
Editor: Who do you think his likely foreign-policy advisers or officials would be in a Trump administration? Any idea?
Gelb answers: That’s a good question. He mentioned Richard Haass most of all. I imagine that’s the result of his having had several conversations with Haass. I don’t believe he’s read anything Haass has written, because I don’t think he reads. But I think he would look to people like that. I don’t think that there’s any ideological group that he would depend on. He mentioned retired General Jack Keane as another person he talks to or admires. Keane is a very smart guy, very conservative and very strong on the use of military force. But he’s a serious man, and he’s the kind of guy who ought to be involved in conversations with the president.
But I don’t think Trump has given this much thought, who would be his foreign-policy team, and when he does, it’s not going to be his picking one person who then picks, you know, the next twelve. I think Trump would be involved in it all, and it would be—how should I put it?—eclectic.
How might we summarise Gelb’s insights? ‘Future impossible’ might not be a bad idea. Neither Hilary nor Trump was, in Gelb’s estimation, heeled to be president. Yet, Gelb is not only one of the most informed of the American intellectuals of statecraft, the United States of America affects everybody – from the media products you consume to the system of government you run in countries far away from North America to just about everything. The wise old Julius Nyerere got it right: we should all vote to elect the American president because America rules the world. It must, indeed, be the Risk Society where things happen which we have no language to capture it even though they are the direct outcomes of things ‘we’ have done in the past. Call it nemesis, synthesis or blow back, there is a convergence there. How do ‘we’ get out of it? What if the world starts by making it a season of migration to the Scandinavian countries where they put human beings first before capital.
Meanwhile, the defeat of Hilary Clinton has virtually collapsed the phenomenon of women taking over power in very key states across the world. It would have been a turning point if, by January 2017, a number of the world’s great powers – the UK, the US, Germany and Brazil were ruled by women. Now, the US and Brazil are out of that list. In South Korea, the woman president there seems entangled. The questions that made the phenomenon worth watching were whether gender would have trumped other considerations when you have women running the show in many strategic countries at same time. What would have been the implication for world peace? [myad]
No fewer than 6,000 protesters took to the streets in Los Angeles yesterday, Saturday against the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in the November 8 polls. The protest marked the fifth day of demonstrations in cities nationwide against Trump’s Presidency. Trump, a Republican nominee beat what book makers have described as conventional political wisdom by defeating Democrat nominee, Hillary Clinton in the election.
One of the demonstrators called on Americans to sign a petition on Moveon.org to abolish the Electoral College, saying: “Trump didn’t win the popular vote. I don’t understand why we aren’t pushing that harder.”
Passing a megaphone among them, some demonstrators talked about the importance of finding a direction forward while others said that they wanted a female President, and still others admitted to feeling as if they had let Hillary Clinton down. One woman, who said she was transgender, warned listeners against getting violent, saying: “if we get violent, we get stopped.” Trump’s attacks on people who are in America illegally and his comments about women, among other things, brought many of the protesters to the streets. Hours after Saturday morning’s anti-Donald Trump protest, some of those who took part in it gathered on the steps of City Hall to share their thoughts on the election. Source: Los Angeles Times. [myad]
“I know that all of you here are great patriots in your own way; you could have disappeared and possibly worked in Dow Jones, or somewhere else, or may be Germany or somewhere and you are ever here and you have not checked out. It is a very good thing.” These are the words of the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo shortly before he rang the closing bell at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos. Osinbajo, who commended the top Nigerian business men and women for the good work they have been doing everyday, made t clear that the private sector and government need to work hand in hand at this time to weather through what he called ‘the great challenges.’
“And always, everywhere in the world, the stock exchange very quickly recognizes where there is an economic challenge because you see it, all the indicators show very clearly that there are complications and there are problems. “So, I want us to see ourselves as partners working together to ensure that we are able to take our nation up from where we are at the moment to a great and permanent prosperity.” The Vice President, who also spoke to news men said that the government would continue to create an enabling environment for industry and for businesses to thrive.
“We are trying to work on infrastructure and we are also trying to work on tax incentive and all manner of incentives’ regime that will enable businesses to do better. You know what the immediate challenges are; foreign exchange, power in some cases and all of that. But all of these are issues that we are working on day by day and my interaction today with the council has also helped a great deal in trying to understand some of the more immediate issues that we are trying to confront and I am trying to see how how we can deal with them. “Essentially, we recognize that this is a partnership: Private sector and government. Government deals mainly as a regulator and partner in such a way and ensuring that the private sector does business and does it well and efficiently, because the private sector owns the economy. So for us, this is an important engagement and this where we are, that is why I’m here.” Osinbajo stressed that the most important thing for the country is that there is engagement already on listing, adding that several major companies have already indicated that they want to be listed on the stock exchange.
He said that for the privatized companies, the government is fully ready to encourage listing in the stock exchange.
“It is the stock exchange that is the important driver of economic activity and an important driver of investment, so, for the federal government that is absolute necessity. I don’t think there is any need to wonder whether the federal government would be interested or would want to enable listing but we certainly want to encourage it. That is the reason why I’m here, to promote interest in the market, federal government sent me and I’m doing so.” The President said that incentives will come from the exchange and that the government will encourage an incentive regime.
“We want to encourage business generally. Where there are opportunities, for example, when we think it should be entirely on the advice of the NSE council, when the council for example, or the market makers believe that there are things that can be done to make life easier in some way or there can be things to be done we are happy to listen to those things. “As you know, the President just inaugurated an Ease of Doing Business Council. The whole idea is to look at the entire incentive regime, to look at the infrastructure, look at all of the different areas where we can encourage and enable the business environment.” [myad]
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
