Author: Lekan Adeyeye

THE Ekiti State Government has applied to be joined as a co-plaintiff in a suit against the Federal Government at the Supreme Court of Nigeria on the naira redesign policy and the deadline issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for the swap of old notes for new ones. The Ekiti State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Dayo Apata, SAN, filed the application for joinder at the Supreme Court on Friday seeking three reliefs. The suit with the number SC/CV/162/2023 has Attorneys General of Kaduna State, Kogi State and Zamfara State as Plaintiffs while the Attorney General of…

MINISTER of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, has assured the people of the country that the FG has taken a big step to nip in the bud the ravaging fuel crisis in the country. Mr Sylva assures that there will be a massive distribution of the product as from now. The minister made this known after his tour of some selected petroleum dispensing outlets in Lagos on Friday. He said that he came on the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari, to assess the situation of things with regard to distribution and adherence to price regulation. The minister said…

FOLLOWING the naira scarcity occasioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s currency redesign, the Special Adviser Media and Publicity to the President, Femi Adesina, has revealed he is affected by the policy. In an article titled ‘Living on a shoestring budget,’ the presidential spokesman said he has been spending N20,000 for one week. According to Adesina, he has been surviving despite the new naira scarcity affecting the country. “The Central Bank of Nigeria later secured a ten days extension of the deadline from President Muhammadu Buhari, which has now been further extended by a Supreme Court ruling,” he said. “But…

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a Presidential Transition Council for facilitating and managing the 2023 transition programme. The President also signed the Executive Order No. 14 of 2023 on the Facilitation and Management of Presidential Transitions. This was disclosed in a statement by Willie Bassey, Director of Information for the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on Thursday. The Transition Council will be inaugurated by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on Tuesday 14th February, 2023 at 12 noon at the Conference Hall of the SGF, according to the statement. It said the members…

AHEAD of the February 25 and March 11 general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday revealed the action to be taken if hoodlums snatch the Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS) on election day. According to the electoral body, the BVAS, the technology that will be used for the accreditation and authentication of voters come 2023, will be deactivated from the backend so that whoever snatched the device won’t be able to manipulate votes. “If a BVAS is snatched, we have a system in place that can deactivate that particular BVAS,” said INEC Deputy Director of Information and…

THE Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has apologised to Nigerians for the over three months of pains caused by the nationwide fuel scarcity. The Group CEO, NNPCL, Mele Kyari, who spoke during an interview on Channels Television’s special election programme The 2023 Verdict on Tuesday monitored by News Point Nigeria, assured the public that the “glitch” will be resolved to everyone’s relief. “I apologise for the situation. On behalf of all of us, the stakeholders in the oil and gas industry. Definitely, not surely exclusive. Having said this, it is unfortunate. It’s a glitch – we are responsible to…

ONE person has been feared killed and many injured following a riot on Tuesday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital over the scarcity of the new naira notes. Following the introduction of the redesigned N200, N500, and N1,000 notes by the apex bank, Nigerians have continued to experience nationwide scarcity of the naira. Some area of Abeokuta also witnessed some protests by angry residents as they lament the hardship the situation has subjected them to. The crisis was said to have been commenced at a branch of GTbank in the Asero area of Abeokuta, where customers had queued since 4am…

GHANA Forward, Christian Atsu has been rescued alive after bring trapped under the rubble following the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday, which has led to the loss of over 4,000 lives. News Point Nigeria reported that the Ghanian player was among those still missing as at Monday afternoon after 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep with series of aftershocks, and then a 7.5 magnitude quake later which skyrocketed the death toll with dozens of buildings destroyed. Although found alive, Daily Mail reports that Atsu has sustained injuries as confirmed on Tuesday by the Vice…

THE Supreme Court of Nigeria is set to deliver a judgement in the legal dispute over the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial ticket for Yobe North. News Point Nigeria reports that, the APC is challenging the nomination of Bashir Machina as the party’s candidate for Yobe North Senatorial District. The party is insisting that Ahmad Lawan, Nigeria’s Senate President, was the authentic Senatorial candidate for Yobe North for the forthcoming general election. At the last hearing of the appeal, the counsel for the party, Sepiribo Peters argued that the primary election held on 28 May last year which produced Machina…

THE residents of Imoru, Arimogija and Molege communities in Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State have called on the state and federal governments to save them from the incessant attack of unknown gunmen The residents said no fewer than eight members of the communities had been killed in the last two weeks while about 40 hectares of farmlands had been destroyed by the assailants. According to them, the victims were mostly farmers and traders. Speaking about the incident, a community leader, Owolafe Folorunsho, said the recent attack occurred when the farmers repelled the unknown gunmen from destroying their crops…

THE Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has said that the apex bank acknowledges the pains Nigerians are facing in accessing the new naira notes and are working on closing the gaps observed in the circulation process. Emefiele stated during a special briefing at the CBN office in Lagos on Friday. According to the CBN governor, the apex bank will extend cash swaps to microfinance banks and engage 30,000 super agents in the hinterlands as part of new measures to accelerate the circulation of new naira notes. He stated that the CBN is discussing with banks to…

THE Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has alleged a sinister plot to cause a crisis that will lead to the postponement and disruption of the February 25 polls in Nigeria. He stated this at the presidential campaign rally at the Ekiti Parapo Pavilion in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, on Friday. “They want to provoke you to violence, so that election will be disrupted and postponed, and they can cunningly introduce an interim government, that’s their plot. But this will backfire because we are wiser,” the former Lagos governor said. The APC presidential candidate asked…

RESIDENTS of Ibadan, Oyo State have taken to the streets in protest against the hardship triggered by the naira notes swap and the hike in fuel price. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) late last year introduced newly-designed N200, N500, and N1,000 notes and gave a January 31st deadline to phase out the old notes. The deadline was later extended by ten days following the outcry that greeted the policy. Despite the extension, the new notes are scarce and Nigerians are finding it difficult to get the old ones. Also, in several parts of the country, the pump price of…

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari on Friday asked Nigerians to give him seven days to resolve the cash crunch following the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s redesigning of the naira notes. He said this while speaking to the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) who visited him at the Presidential Villa in Abuja to seek solutions to the cash crunch which they said was threatening the good records of the administration in transforming the economy. President Buhari told the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors that the currency re-design will give a boost to the economy and provide long-term benefits. He also expressed doubts about…

GOVERNORS on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are set to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari today (Friday), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, over the scarcity of the newly redesigned Naira notes and the alleged ‘Anti-Tinubu elements in the Villa’ comment. According to a source in the APC Governors’ Forum, who spoke to News Point Nigeria via telephone early hours of Friday, the governors will meet the president to discuss ways of bringing an end to the hardship faced by Nigerians due to the scarcity of the new Naira note. “They will also discuss claims made by…

THE National Union of Air Transport Employees, the Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees have threatened to ground operations at the Nigerian Meteorological Agency over non-implementation of approved minimum wage in two weeks’ time. This was contained in a letter dated January 26, 2023, which was jointly signed by the Secretary-General, NUATE, Ocheme Aba; Secretary-General, AUPCTRE, Siriku Waheed and the Secretary-General, ANAP, Abdul Saidu, addressed to the Director-General of NiMET. The unions, however, described the failure of NiMET to implement the minimum wage consequential adjustment despite its…

AHEAD of the 2023 elections, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday reiterated his commitment to ensuring free and fair elections this year.  President Buhari gave the assurance when he received the Secretary General of the World Customs Organization Dr Kunio Mikuriya who is in Nigeria for a Global Conference on Fragile Borders. He underscored that in spite of the usual excitement and gamesmanship that accompanies campaigns, he will ensure that the elections are conducted in a peaceful and conducive atmosphere. The President further stated that Nigeria and her neighbors must place a higher premium on the effective policing of borders, underlining…

THE Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking to restore the nullification of the participation of Osun’s ex-governor Gboyega Oyetola and his deputy Benedict Alabi in the July 16, 2022 governorship election. A five-member panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice Centus Nweze on Thursday held that the appeal by the PDP lacked merit and directed the counsel to the PDP Kehinde Ogunwumiju to withdraw it. The court held that the PDP could not, under the law,  question the process leading to the emergence of Oyetola and Alabi as candidates of the All…

THE Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has said there are “elements” in the Presidential Villa that are seeking the defeat of the ruling All Progressives Congress in this month’s poll. “I believe that there are elements in the Villa that want us to lose the elections because they didn’t get their way,” El-Rufai said during a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Wednesday. “They had their candidate; their candidate didn’t win the primaries and I think they are still trying to get us to lose the elections and they are hiding behind the President’s desire to do…

THE Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele is before the ad-hoc committee of the house of representatives which is investigating the scarcity of the new naira notes. Details later…