Barely 48 hours after the Lagos state governor, Mr. Babatunde Fasola (SAN) condemned the attack on the Atlas Cove jetty in Lagos by Movement for the Emancipation of Niger /Delta (MEND), president and founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr Frederick Fasehun has cautioned that a repeat of such incident in any part of Yoruba land will attract severe retaliation.

It was a two-week of intense activities as Nigerian artists, writers and political activists, including, governors trooped out to honour the Nobel Prize laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka.

The agreement was due for negotiation in 2004 but the government refused to renegotiate until pressure from the unions compelled it to set up the Gamaliel Onosode- led Committee in 2006.

When I arrived from Kaduna in a military uniform and immediately I started singing, people were happy and decided that I wouldn’t go back to the army.

ABUJA – Indications emerged, yesterday, in Abuja that the five-man inter-agency panel headed by the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, investigating the $190million Halliburton scandal has been ordered by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to submit an interim report on or before Monday.

IN his official reaction to Sunday’s bombing of the Atlas Cove Jetty by men of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND), Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, yesterday, warned the militants that the action must never repeat itself as the state was quite ready to respond to “this new security threat appropriately”.

If customers are demanding 20 per cent, no bank would want to do overnight lending of 11 per cent in the interbank, as required by the conditions attached to the guarantee. The interest rate cap in the conditions for the guarantee does not reflect the realities of the market, he said

I really have not thought about it, but I don’t feel much different because I knew this would come. I knew it would come to this point. ‘Militants not fighting for me’

“Those killed were Nigerians, like the militants, adding that the olive branch waved by the Federal Government should be embraced as a lasting solution to their agitations”

The leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Mr Henry Okah, who was released  from detention yesterday,  has declared that his release will not change the situation in  the Niger Delta unless the Federal Government address the root cause of crisis in the region. More later…

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent by email to the media, saying its fighters launched an attack on the Atlas Cove Jetty in Lagos state overnight, the first in the area since the group began its latest campaign in May.

As at the time of filling this report, it was not possible to get the reaction of the Director of Naval Information, Commodore David Nabaida. But the Chief of Naval Staff, CNS Ibrahim Ishaya, the Flag Officer Commanding Western Naval Command, Ola S. Ibrahim were on groung to assess the extent of damages. They all kept sealed lips over the attack.

The government, it was learnt, is considering that the price of PMS should be allowed to increase within the range of N89.78 to N93.73 per litre, depending on the location, coastal or hinterland, reflecting cost-saving measures recently approved by the government and additional measures derived from the reports of two consultancy outfit on the review of PPPRA template.

Three members of the Delta Waterways Security Committee (DWSC), Warri in Delta State, the Reverend Duke Akpososo, Mr. Henry Ayanruoh and Ambassador Austin Oniyesan, weekend, called on the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta to stop bombing oil pipelines in the state because of its adverse economic effect on the government and the people.

He advised the federal government to allow importation of three million Import Licence quantity of 50kg bagged cement by licence holders, by new entrants; abolish import licence regime for all bulk cement bagging plant (Terminal Operators) and ensure duty waiver on all forms of imported cement till 2015; abolish import licence on Gypsum imports.