Worried by the worsening fuel scarcity in parts of the country, the Senate Thursday mandated its joint committee on Petroleum Resources ( Upstream and Downstream ) to investigate the remote and immediate cause of the scarcity.
The mandate followed a motion by the Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Abdul Ningi (Bauchi Central) who drew the attention of the Senate to the biting fuel scarcity in the country.
Ningi told his colleagues that it is obvious that the fuel crisis is creating immeasurable hardship for Nigerians.
The Senate, he said, should take it as a matter of priority to find out what is behind the lingering fuel scarcity.
The Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, has ordered Zonal Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and Command Commissioners of Police to beef up security around all key and vulnerable points nationwide.
The IG directed that critical infrastructures like filling stations, major hotels, National and State Houses of Assembly, Eagle Square, Abuja, and other public places should be protected ahead of the May 29, 2015 inauguration of new administrations in the country.
Arase, in a statement on Thursday by the Force Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu, explained that this was necessary to ward off possible plans by insurgents to carry out violent and coordinated attacks on various installations and public places during the hand-over ceremony.
Some People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains in Nsukka, Enugu State, have described the resignation of Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, the party’s National Chairman, on Wednesday as a welcome development. In separate interviews with newsmen in Nsukka on Thursday, they said that the resignation would pave the way for the party to move forward.
Mr Alpho Nweze, the PDP Chairman in Nsukka Local Government Area, said that the resignation would provide the party the opportunity to re-organise and reposition itself for the tasks ahead. He added that it would enable the party to find out why PDP performed poorly in the 2015 general elections. “His resignation is a welcome development as it helps in reorganising and moving the party forward.”
The Primate of Anglican Church, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, has called on Nigerians to be patient with the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, saying it is “very difficult” to fix the country within four years.
Okoh said this while speaking with journalists in Abuja on Thursday.
While advising Nigerians to be patient with the incoming administration, the cleric said Buhari should be given a year to study the situation and set the agenda properly.
He said, “Nigerians should be patient with Buhari, otherwise, he will worsen things if Nigerians push him to the wall and rush him into action. Let us give him a year to study the situation and set the agenda properly. It is difficult to fix Nigeria within six months.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria has called on the incoming administration of Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency in the country’s oil and gas sector on assumption of office if the myriad of problems there are to be addressed.
The senior oil industry workers said there was no sub-sector of the oil and gas industry that was not going through one teething problem or the other, drawing down the sector and the entire national economy.
President of PENGASSAN, Francis Johnson, said there were many issues that required urgent attention from the incoming government to ensure that the industry was repositioned for efficient and effective delivery of its benefits to Nigerians.
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