ABIA State government, yesterday, openly put the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Goddsday Orubebe, on the defensive, by accusing him of neglecting the state and treating it as not part of the region. The government made its position known when Orubebe led a delegation of senior staff of his Ministry, including the Minister of State, to Government House, Umuahia.

SOUTH African Court, yesterday, sentenced former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Mr. Henry Okah, to 24 years imprisonment, having been found guilty on 13-count charge of terrorism. The charges related to two car bombs in Abuja, in which 12 people were killed and 36 injured on October 1, 2010, on the anniversary of Nigeria’s independence, and another two explosions in Warri, earlier in March, 2010.

Arsons, bombings, killings, prison breaks, kidnappings have become routine; hardly a day passes without killings in parts of the country. Damaturu, Gombe, Maiduguri, Mubi, Potiskum, Yola, have held headlines for bombings. The incidents spread to Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Niger, Sokoto States, joining the perennial killings in Plateau State. The most embarrassing of the incidents remain the bombing of the nation’s 50th independence anniversary in Abuja and the targeting of elite military and other security offices.

Chief of Naval Staff, CNS, Vice Admiral Dele Ezeoba, yesterday, warned the officers and men of the Nigerian Navy against complicity in crude oil theft in the Niger Delta, saying anyone caught will have himself to blame.

Tragedy struck,Monday, at Odogunyan area of Ikorodu, Lagos, when a factory worker with African Steel Mill was electrocuted after the company allegedly denied him access to its toilet facilities.