Pepsi, the official beverage partner of CAF for all major competitions, has thrown its weight behind Heartland Football Club of Owerri and Kano Pillars FC to excel in the 2009 CAF Champions League.

In a statement by the group’s Chairman, Professor Gabriel Yomere said that if Nigeria is to be truly a federation, it must jettison the present political arrangement.

In the past, the health sector in Cross River State frequently features in the news for the wrong reasons due to the alarmingly high maternal and infant mortality rates recorded every year.But the good news presently is that the State government has decided to take  the bull by the horns in stemming  the unfortunate trend. […]

MTN World Golf Championship action moves to Benin this weekend as the newly refurbished golf course in the ancient city play host to the South-South regional qualifiers, where over 200 amateur golfers are expected to vie for honours.

At a Stakeholders’ Forum, July 20, organized by the Delta State Government in Asaba to sensitize the people on the National Gas Master Plan, the participants and representatives of host communities were agitated by the issue of ownership and what the host communities and indigenes stand to gain by allowing the Federal Government and multinational companies to exploit gas in the state.

President of the group, Dr. Ebipamone Nanakumo, who spoke to Vanguard from his United States base, accused the Federal Government of further aggravating tension in the troubled region and called for the immediate reversal of the said obnoxious and unacceptable policies and plans of the Nigerian government.

They claimed that “new oil and gas companies, like Mid Western Oil and Gas, Platform Petroleum, Pillar Oil, Energia-UPDC, Sterling Global, Chorus Energy and a host of others have discovered huge deposit of Non-Associated Gas (NAG) in the upland areas of Ndokwa and Ukwuani local government areas which can be confirmed with the relevant authorities, making Ndokwa/Ukwuani the rightful hub for the central processing facility (CPF).”

The groups also faulted the downgrading of the old Petroleum Training Institute, in Delta State in favour of Kaduna Petroleum College, adding that “the Federal Government should as well re-locate oil wells in the region to the North to complete the circle of domination and marginalisation.”

It warned that “if President Yar’ Adua reverses the upgrading of the PTI by former President Obasanjo, another President is likely to down grade the Petroleum Institute in Kaduna, thus setting in motion a vicious chain of unhealthy friction in the nation’s polity.”

In a statement signed by Mr Biukeme Benibo on behalf the group, the Egrangbene people stated that the decision of the state at its last security meeting to place a ban on an illegal, unpopular “king” from parading himself as Pere of Egrangbene community has saved the community from bloodbath and chaos adding that the move by a few lawless elements in the community, allegedly sponsored by a businessman based in Warri to expand his oil business and other interests, was rejected by larger Egrang-bene community.

I think the bill is a little bit insensitive to the yearnings of the people of the Niger Delta and the oil producing communities. One important instance of this is that all over the world, royalty is an amount paid to the owners of the land.

The Foundation advised the President to be careful with the sycophants that surround his administration who hide under party affiliation to mislead the government and suggested that the principle of compara-tive advantage should guide the government’s decisions.

The council, led by Senator Fred Brume with Chief Gabriel Ofotokun as Secretary, noted at the end of its meeting in Ughelli that the anomalous biases in the control and management of the PTDF have been a major tool of injustice, oppression and neglect in the affairs of the oil industry in the Niger Delta.

Former governor of the state, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who was represented at the meeting by an aide, Professor Tunde Samuel, said that the ultimatum, apart “from being totally unwarranted and an abuse of the constitution, in essence seeks to punish the people of Lagos State for being democratic.”

KWARA State Governor, Dr.Bukola Saraki, has said at the ongoing International Agribusiness Summit and Expo, that if Nigeria must achieve socio-economic development, “it must embark on well-articulated strategy of developing the capacity in agriculture.”