Yemisi Izuora Oil prices have rallied in recent weeks as OPEC supply cuts help to rebalance the oil market and with oil prices trading near their highest level in two years, some traders are betting that the price rise could have more room to run. A total of 48,000 contracts have traded over the last few days that would profit most if Brent spikes before Christmas, including several large individual trades. They include 14,000 options giving traders the right to buy February Brent at $71 a barrel, as well as 22,000 for $85 and 12,000 for $80. They all expire on Dec.…
Author: Orientalnews Staff
Yemisi Izuora The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) accomplished all the targets set for 2017, the Executive Secretary, Engr. Simbi Wabote has said. He spoke at the 2017 Practical Nigerian Content (PNC) workshop held at Uyo, Akwa Ibom State and confirmed that both the objectives set by industry stakeholders at 2016 PNC and the ones set internally at the beginning of the year were met. “We have gone through all of them and weticked the boxes.” The Executive Secretary who recently clocked one year in office, recalled that one of his first directives in November 2016 was that operating companies can assume they have received approval for any project if they did not get feedback from the Board within 15 working days. He asserted that this target was met. “We have streamlined our internal processes such that NCDMB is now positioned to review contracts within 100 days, provided submitted…
Yemisi Izuora The National Examinations Council (NECO) has emerged as this week’s inductee into the Freedom of Information (FOI) Hall of Shame as Media Rights Agenda (MRA) accused it of consistently failing to implement the FOI Act and to fulfil its obligations under the Law over the last six years. The National Examinations Council is an examination body in Nigeria responsible for conducting the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations both for candidates in the final year of their secondary school examination, namely the Internal as well as for private candidates who are not part of the school system, i.e. the External,…
Source: Quartz Africa Concerns about safety and security are substantial in Nigeria. Here, crime is high and the police are considered corrupt and inefficient. The structure of law enforcement does not help. Police are run at the federal level despite long-standing calls for state forces. Given that Nigeria has many diverse languages, cultural practices and terrain, the centralized police face many difficulties. These conditions are conducive for vigilantes—civilians who undertake their own crime control. Although vigilantes can be effective in providing safety and security, their use poses several problems. They sometimes take the law into their own hands and dispense justice as they see fit. Yet…
Source: Quartz Africa The already-sullied reputation of some of Africa’s largest police forces is in for more beating. Of 127 countries measured in the 2016 World Internal Security and Police Index, Nigeria’s police force ranks as the worst, just below DR Congo, Kenya and Uganda to make up the bottom four. The index, a collaboration between the International Police Science Association and the Institute for Economics and Peace, focuses on how much resources each nation devotes to internal security, whether the resources are used in an effective manner and whether the public view the police favorably. The index also assesses the current…
Yemisi Izuora With Agency Report The head of the U.N. food agency is telling world leaders that the only way to end global hunger is to end conflicts, which would also free up billions of dollars to build roads and infrastructure and promote economic growth in all developing countries. David Beasley told The Associated Press this week that 19 countries are now in “protracted conflict” which is “more conflict than we’ve ever had” and 80 percent of the World Food Program’s funds are now going into conflict regions. For many years, he said, the number of people facing extreme hunger…
Yemisi Izuora The ministry of agriculture in Jigawa state is making concerted effort towards protecting poultry farmers in the state against avian flu. The state government said part of the measure is the registration of poultry farms operating in the state. Dr Abdullahi Haruna, Director of Veterinary Services, Ministry of Agriculture, who made the disclosure explained that the registration was also in compliance with directives of Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, for states to register all poultry farms. He said the minister had directed states to register all poultry farms operating in their area, adding that the registration was a proactive measure…
Yemisi Izuora Stakeholders in the agriculture sector have called for more serious engagement with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the Nigeria Agriculture Insurance Corporation, NAIC, to discuss operating guidelines of the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme, CACS. They say such engagement would assist to eliminate seeming ambiguities around the guidelines to facilitate better implementation of the intervention scheme. They also called on the Nigeria Agriculture Insurance Corporation, NAIC, to move a step towards establishing enduring business relationship with banks beyond the issue of CACS. Oriental News Nigeria reports that these are some of the considerations sought by participants…
Yemisi Izuora The Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending and Union Bank have earmarked N10bn for agriculture financing in the 2018 farming season. The Managing Director of NIRSAL, Mr Aliyu Abdulhameed, who spoke at the launch of the scheme in Abuja said that the programme was aimed at boosting agricultural productivity and modernisation via increased lending to the sector. He said that the NIRSAL-Union Bank partnership would cover NIRSAL-supported projects in livestock and crop production, agricultural mechanisation, logistics and poultry. He said that under the terms of the partnership, NIRSAL would provide credit guarantees to cover up to…
Yemisi Izuora The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has pledged to promote the development and commercialization of home-grown technology in collaboration with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB). Delivering the Lead paper at the 47thConference and Annual General Meeting of Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers in Port Harcourt, Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, said the effort would be driven by the Research and Development (R&D) arm of the Corporation. Throwing more light on the plan, Dr. Baru said the collaborative effort with the NCDMB was already manifesting with the joint establishment of research clusters…