THE National Assembly, NASS, declared, yesterday, that the Presidency would be ungrateful for the good job it did on the 2016 Appropriation Bill passed into law, last week, if President Muhammadu Buhari actually said he would not sign the document unless it was accompanied by the details.

MINISTER of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, yesterday, said the ongoing fuel scarcity in the country would permanently come to an end by the second week of April.

WORRIED by the unending nationwide fuel scarcity, the Senate, yesterday, summoned the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to appear before it today.

THE ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, was literally divided, yesterday, over whether or not Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, should retain his prime position in the APC-led Federal Government on account of the worsening fuel scarcity and his comments that he is not a magician.

President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, dubbed Rivers State as Nigeria’s most deadly state, even as he offered profuse apologies for the ill-tempered elections conducted under his watch in Kogi, Bayelsa and Rivers states.

The National Assembly, yesterday, passed a N6.06 trillion 2016 budget into law, following a motion by the Chairman, Joint Committee on Appropriations, Senator Danjuma Goje, seconded by Senator Andy Uba, thus reducing the President’s proposal by N17 billion. While the President proposed a budget of N6.07 trillion, the National Assembly slashed it to N6.06trillion. The 2016 budget had been trailed by allegations of padding which delayed its passage.

THE National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, has threatened to review its collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC on conduct of polls, following recurring deaths of corps members on election duties.

THE Independent National Electoral Commssion, INEC, has said that it will not return to Rivers until the state is conducive to conduct elections.
The INEC spoke as the heavy shootings that characterised weekend’s federal and some state legislative re-run elections in Rivers, yesterday, petered out and became a verbal warfare among stakeholders in the polls as the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and All Progressives Congress, APC, traded blames over the issue.

THE orgy of violence, which characterised Saturday’s re-run polls for some federal and state legislative seats in Rivers State continued, yesterday, as the results were being collated.

Ahead of tomorrow’s federal and state legislative elections in Rivers State, tension reached feverish pitch, yesterday, after an Army Major and another soldier were killed in the latest burst of violence.