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Subsidy: Nigerians To Spend N6.7tn On Fuel In 2022, Petrol To Sell For N340 From February

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Nigerians will spend about N6.732tn on the purchase of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, within a period of 12 months once the Federal Government stops subsidising the commodity from February next year, investigations have revealed.

This came to the fore on Wednesday as the Nigeria Labour Congress described the government’s plan as a “penny wise pound foolish” gamble.

The Senate and economic experts also faulted the Federal Government’s plan to pay N5,000 each to 40 million Nigerians to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, had on Tuesday announced at a World Bank event in Abuja that petrol would sell for between N320 and N340 per litre from February 2022.

The current pump price of petrol at filling stations is between N162 and N165/litre, although the product is mostly sold at the upper N165/litre rate due to recent challenges in the downstream oil sector.

The N165/litre price is basically because the product is being subsidised by the Federal Government through the NNPC.

Going by the latest revelation of the NNPC boss that subsidy on petrol would end in February and the price jerked up to N340/litre, findings showed that Nigerians would spend about N18.7bn daily for the over 55 million litres of petrol consumed each day across the country.

Users of petrol would spend about N561bn for the average of 30 days in a month, while in the 12-month period, consumers would pay about N6.732tn.

In its most recently published monthly operational and financial report, which was for April 2021, the NNPC put the daily petrol consumption in Nigeria at 55.79 million litres.

“To ensure continuous increased PMS supply and effective distribution across the country, a total of 1.67 billion litres of PMS translating to 55.79 million litres per day were supplied for the month in the downstream sector,” the oil firm stated.

Working with 55 million litres daily consumption figure and the current price of N165/litre, consumers of petrol are estimated to be currently paying N9.075bn daily and about N277.25bn monthly.

By increasing the cost of petrol to N340/litre and matching it against the 55 million daily consumption rate, Nigerians would be paying N18.7bn daily for PMS, while their monthly spending would be N561bn.

This means that the annual fuel consumption bill of Nigerians will be in the region of N6.732tn.

From the foregoing, it implies that Nigerians would pay an additional amount of about N283.75bn every month on petrol when the new N340/litre price for PMS comes into effect.

Therefore within a period of 12 months, Nigerians would spend about N3.4tn extra on the current N3.3tn for the purchase of petrol should the Federal Government halt the subsidy regime.

But the government promised on Tuesday that it had plans to cushion the economic effect of the planned subsidy removal, as it announced plans to replace fuel subsidy with a N5,000 monthly transportation subsidy to the poor.

According to her, a monthly transport subsidy in the form of a cash transfer of N5,000 will be given to between 30 and 40 million Nigerians.

The NNPC, being the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria for the past four years, has been subsidising the commodity and has been incurring humongous costs as subsidies.

This development had severely depleted the oil firm’s remittances to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee, hence, reducing the monthly allocations to the three tiers of government consistently.

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Fubara Reshuffles Cabinet, Redeploys Wike’s Loyalists From Finance, Justice Ministries

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The executive governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara, has redeployed two commissioners in his cabinet in a major reshuffle since he took the mantle of leadership of the state.

Secretary to the state government (SSG), Tammy Danagoro, made this known in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Fubara redeployed Zacchaeus Adangor, attorney-general and commissioner for justice, to the ministry of special duties.

The governor also deployed Isaac Kamalu, commissioner for finance, to the ministry of employment generation and economic empowerment.

Danagogo said the commissioners are to hand over to the permanent secretaries in their outgoing ministries, adding that deployment is with immediate effect.

Both commissioners are loyalists of Nyesom Wike, the immediate former governor of Rivers and incumbent minister of the federal capital territory (FCT).

Last year, the commissioners resigned from their positions following the political feud between Wike and Fubara.

They were later reinstated after Wike and Fubara signed a peace accord facilitated by President Bola Tinubu.

Wike and Fubara are locked in a struggle for control of Rivers’ political structure.

The political crisis led to the defection of 27 state house of assembly members, who are loyal to Wike, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The lawmakers have been threatening the govenor with impeachment.

The lawmakers have vetoed the governor in at least three bills after he refused his assent.

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JUST IN: EFCC To Arraign Former CBN Governor Emefiele On Fresh Charge, Says He Printed N684.5m Notes With N18.9bn

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has filed a new indictment at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory against the embattled former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

Emefiele was charged by the EFCC with authorising the printing of N684,590,000, or N18.96 billion.

The EFCC claimed in the charge sheets released on Tuesday that Emefiele violated the law while carrying out the former President Muhammadu Buhari’s naira swap programme with the intention of hurting the general public.

The anti-graft agency also accused Emefiele of unlawfully approving the withdrawal of N124.8 billion from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.

The document dated April 2, 2024, and marked Suit No: CR/264/2024, was filed by EFCC’s top prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN revealed that Emefiele will be arraigned on a new four-count charge before Justice Hamza Muazu bordering on disobeying the law to punish Nigerians, iilegal printing of money, abuse of office, among others.

Counts one to four of the charge, read, “STATEMENT OF OFFENCE: Public Servant disobeying direction of law with intent to cause injury to the public contrary to and punishable under Section 123 of the Penal Code Law, Cap. 89 Laws of the Federation, 1990.

“PARTICULARS OF THE OFFENCE: That you GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of N375,520,000.00 pieces of colour swapped N1, 000, at the total cost of N11,052, 068,062 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

“COUNT 2: “That you, GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE, between the 19th of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 172,000,000 pieces of colour swapped N500 (Five Hundred Naira) Notes, at the total cost of N4, 471,066,040 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.

“COUNT 3: “That you GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE between the 19th day of October 2022 and 5th March 2023 in Abuja, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 19 of the CBN Act, 2007, by approving the printing of 137,070,000 pieces of colour swapped N200 (Two Hundred Naira) Note, at the total cost of N3, 441, 005, 280 without the recommendation of the Board of Central Bank and the strict approval of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

“COUNT 4: “That you, GODWIN IFEANYI EMEFIELE, on or about the 7th day of October 2020, in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, knowingly disobeyed the direction of Section 80 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As Amended), by approving the withdrawal of the total sum of N124, 860, 227, 865.16 from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation in a manner not prescribed by the National Assembly, which conduct of yours caused injury to the public and you thereby committed an offence.”

Recall that Emefiele was on November 18, 2023, arraigned before the court on six counts of procurement fraud, in what is the most high-profile corruption case under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

He was also accused of abusing his office by approving a contract for the acquisition of 43 vehicles totalling N1.2 billion from 2018 to 2020.

On Monday, April 8, 2024, the EFCC arraigned the former banker alongside one Henry Omoile before Justice R.A. Oshodi of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos for an alleged $4.5bn and N2.8bn fraud.

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UNN Suspends, Probes Lecturer For ‘Attempting To Sexually Assault’ Student

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A lecturer known as Mfonobong Udoudom has been suspended by the University of Nigeria (UNN) for what it called an “inappropriate affair” with a student.

Viral videos surfaced on Tuesday showing the senior lecturer of general studies pacing around his office in his pants, looking visibly alarmed.

Sources at the university said that the lecturer was “caught pants down attempting to have sex with a married female student of the school.”

According to the sources, Udoudom had a long-standing custom of “passing female students only after sleeping with them.”

He was accused of forcing a female student to understand that she would fail his course unless she agreed to have sex with him.

One of the sources, under anonymity, said the female student planned with her husband to entrap the lecturer while working with UNN security and other students.

The student source further said the security agents forcefully broke into his office and caught the lecturer “in action.”.

“It was planned out with her husband and security agents at the school. The female was made to approach the lecturer to offer him money in order to scale through his course. He refused and insisted he needed to have sexual intercourse with her in his office,” the source said.

“When the lady succumbed to his demands and asked him to undress, he was caught wearing only boxers.”

In the now-viral footage, a witness is heard saying, “We have been following this case from day one. We have all the chats, voice notes, video calls, and every conversation he had with the female student.”.

When contacted, UNN management told TheCable that Udoudom has now been suspended.

Okwun Omeaku, UNN’s acting media spokesperson, said the senior lecturer will be made to face the staff disciplinary panel.

“The indefinite suspension is with immediate effect pending the outcome of a disciplinary panel constituted by the university to investigate the incident,” he said.

“UNN has a zero tolerance for sexual misconduct involving our staff and students.

“We are committed to protecting our students from any form of abuse and exploitation. The university management will not hesitate to punish Mr. Mfonobong David Udoudom according to our rules if he is found guilty.”

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