Ajoke, 35 a widow and mother of three young girls sat on her bed, sobbing while packing her belongings away from the flood. Occasionally, when her eyes met that of her three daughters who did not know whether to console their mum or help quickly in removing their belongings from the water to avert further damage.

Natural disasters occur without notice and can happen at anytime like sudden lengthy downpour of rain leading to flooding and displacing of families from their homes.

In Tsaro village in Sokoto, flooding has rendered useless houses which hitherto belonged to the villagers. The houses were destroyed; their farmlands were completely submerged and washed away by intermitent flooding of the village. The living condition is now dreadful.

ABUJA, the Federal Capital Territory has certainly come of age. Established on February 3, 1976, the Territory serves as reachable centre from all parts of Nigeria.

PETROLEUM Tanker Drivers, PTD, branch of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, has said that Nigerians will for now continue to tolerate the tanker drivers, especially on the ever-busy Apapa Oshodi Expressway until the government provides enough parking space for the tankers.

The Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, the agency saddled with oil industry regulation and issuance of depot licences said that NUPENG members under the PTD have defied the Petroleum Act of 2002.

THE perennial chaotic traffic which afflicts the Coconut-Mile 2 axis of the ever-busy Apapa – Oshodi expressway has remained a constant source of nightmare and frustration to road users, stakeholders and residents of the area.

HOWEVER, while responding to Vanguard’s enquiries over the telephone, the Chairman Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, DAPPMA, Chief Sylvanus Okoli, said he was certain that the traffic congestion caused by tanker drivers was as a result of the unusual rush typical of the ‘Nigerian me-first’ approach and nothing out of the ordinary.

SINCE the first commercial production of oil in Nigeria in 1956, it has signalled the beginning of a profound transformation of Nigeria’s political and economic landscape. Since the 1970s, oil has accounted for over 80 per cent of the Nigerian government’s revenue and 95 per cent of the country’s export earnings.

ON Friday, the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank drew the curtain on nominations into the position of World Bank President as Robert Zoellick plans to step down in June.