Members of the senate and house of representatives are set to resume plenary in renovated chambers.

The legislators will resume plenary on Tuesday (today) after a break spanning more than five weeks.

The parliamentarians had begun their Easter and Eid el-Fitr vacations on March 20.

They were supposed to meet again on April 16, but the meeting was rescheduled.

On Monday, the house of representatives’ leadership, led by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas and his predecessor Femi Gbajabiamila, examined the green chamber.

The renovation of the chamber began in April 2022.

Since then, the legislators have been using a temporary chamber in one of the committee rooms.

In 2019, the national assembly budgeted over N30 billion for the renovation of the complex, but the amount had sparked criticisms.

The sum was later reviewed to N9 billion.

See photos of the renovated green chamber below;

Nigerians have been reassured by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that the current fuel shortage and lines will end by Wednesday, April 31.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr. Olufemi Soneye, Chief Communications Officer of NNPCL, on Tuesday in Lagos.

Soneye claims that the company can currently supply more than 1.5 billion litres of products, enough to last for at least 30 days.

“Unfortunately, we experienced a three-day disruption in distribution due to logistical issues, which has since been resolved.

“However, as you know, overcoming such disruptions typically requires double the amount of time to return to normal operations,” he said.

He said, “Some folks are taking advantage of this situation to maximize profits.

“Thankfully, product scarcity has been minimal lately, but these folks might be exploiting the situation for unwarranted gain.

“The lines will be cleared out between today and tomorrow,” Soneye assured.

Similarly, Mr Hammed Fashola, the National Vice President of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (lPMAN), expressed hope that the queues in Lagos and Ogun would ease off this week, relying on the words of the NNPCL.

Fashola, however, stated that the queues in Abuja might tarry a bit due to the distance to Lagos.

“The information available to us from the NNPCL was that there was a logistics problem, and when that happens, it will disrupt the supply chain.

“That might be a delay in the movement of ships from the mother vessel to the daughter vessel before it gets to the depot tanks.

“Before we can correct that, surely it will take some days. I think by Tuesday or Wednesday, there will be more products available for lifting by marketers.

“It might take time before it can ease off in Abuja, considering the distance to Lagos and the bad roads; Lagos might be calm this new week,” Fashola assured.

It was gathered that stranded motorists and commuters have expressed concern over frequent fuel scarcity in Lagos metropolis.

This has resulted in a few commercial vehicles, which led to a hike in fares.

The situation within Lagos metropolis showed that only a few filling stations were selling, with long queues in most parts.

This was also the same situation within Abule-Egba and environs: Abbatoir Road in Agege, Akowonjo Road, Bariga, Fola-Agoro, and the popular Lasu-Igando Road.

The few filling stations that dispensed petrol had long queues of vehicles stretching some meters.

Across the metropolis on Monday, petrol queues were seen at filling stations like Mobil, NIPCO, TotalEnergies, Forte Oil, and ConOil along Ikorodu Road.

North West at Maryland, Gbagada, NIPCO along Ijede road, Ikorodu, and TotalEnergies at the NNPC bus stop in Ejigbo stretched to about 500 metres from the pumps.

Credit: NAN

Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, says investors are now showing interest in the electricity sector because the federal government increased electricity tariff for Band A customers.

On April 3, the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) approved an increase in electricity tariff for customers under the Band A classification.

The commission said customers under the category, who receive 20 hours of electricity supply daily, will now pay N225 per kilowatt (kW), starting from April 3, up from N66.

Appearing before the senate committee on power on Monday, Adelabu said the federal government could not afford to pay subsidies on power anymore.

“The government will be needing about 2.8 trillion to subsidise electricity this year, and we look at the government budget itself, we look at the provision for subsidy, we discover and confirm that the government could not afford to pay,” he said.

“This government budget is 28 trillion naira. N2.8 trillion is a subsidy for power separately. It is over 10 percent of the budget, which is not realistic for us to ask the government to pay.

“For this sector to be revived, the government needs to spend nothing less than $10 billion annually in the next 10 years. This is because of the infrastructure requirement for the stability of the sector, but the government cannot afford that.

“And so we must make this sector attractive to investors and to lenders. So for us to attract investors and investment, we must make the sector attractive, and the only way it can be made attractive is that there must be commercial pricing.

“If the value is still at N66 and the government is not paying subsidy, the investors will not come. But now that we have increased the tariff for A Band, there is interest shown by investors.”

Adelabu said more than N1.3 trillion is being owed to generating companies.

“There has not been funding for this subsidy. And this has culminated into each debt yearly now for the operators in the industry, especially the generating companies and the gas supply companies,” he said.

“As of the last estimate, we said 1.3 trillion naira is being owed to the five generating companies, while the legacy debt of the gas supply companies stood at $1.3 billion in 2023.

“The total tariff, the total subsidy for the tariff, was supposed to be N720 billion. The government only funded N400 billion living a total of over 300 billion brought forward to 2024.

“And at the current pricing regime, we estimated that it will retain the tariff at current rates.”

Adelabu added that the high indebtedness is the reason the government removed subsidies on electricity tariff.