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Operators move to crash cost of air travel, opts for Dangote aviation fuel

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Domestic airlines under the aegis of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) will no longer buy imported Jet A1 but will now rely on the products from the Dangote Petrochemical Refinery, the Federal Government said on Tuesday, explaining that the move was to stabilise pump prices, potentially resulting in lower and more predictable fuel costs for consumers.

Festus Keyamo, Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, who made the disclosure, also said the initiative is expected to crash the skyrocketing cost of air travel in Nigeria, which has now climbed to as high as N200,000 for a 45 minute flight, a trip that used to be as low as N15,000 a few years ago and N35,000 at the inception of the government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“The Airline Operators of Nigeria just met. They have made a clear decision, and all of them will no longer buy imported fuel. The airline operators’s decision was to support a local industry, Dangote Refinery. It is the decision of the Airline Operators of Nigeria with my push and blessing that they should only buy from Dangote Refinery, the Jet A1,″ Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who appeared on Political Paradigm, a programme on Channels Television, aired on Tuesday.

While air tickets are supposed to crash, nobody seems to know what would the fate of Nigerians travelling by road, following indications that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), had dumped the sole off-taker status of the Dangote Premium Motor Spirit, a move which is said to have led to the company cushioning the price of the products by N133 per litre from the price it is supposed to be sold to Nigerians.

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There is a feeling that with Federal Government’s deal with Dangote, the first privately-owned refinery in Nigeria to sell crude oil in local currency, which started on Tuesday, October 1, the pressure on foreign exchange reserves would ease, leading to the stabilisation of the dollar-naira exchange rate and control of inflation.

Keyamo, who stressed that the move would eliminate headwinds of oil prices in the international market, added: “Yesterday it started the naira for crude purchase, it is going to be bought in naira, no dollar component. It will not be subjected to the vagaries of the international market or the headwinds of oil prices in the international market. It will be by our local currency so we can be clear as to the cost of it in naira and we will buy in naira. I am sure we are going to have access to cheaper jet A1 fuel.”

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BREAKING: Death penalty for fake drugs! *NAFDAC to push new law at NASS

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Those peddling fake and substandard drugs in Nigeria should be ready for the hangman’s noose, if the thinking of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), becomes the new law.

Mojisola Adeyeye, Director General of the body, who said on Friday that no other form of punishment is fitting enough, gave instances of where the application of such dangerous substances in form of health drugs, had led to fatalities.

Advocating that only stiff penalties would deter peddlers especially when deaths of children became involved, the NAFDAC boss, who appeared as a guest on The Morning Brief, a breakfast programme on Channels Television, said: “Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall. 

“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty. Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.”

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Advocating that the National Assembly and the judiciary to make the proposal a reality, adding that the agency was open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter, she added: “You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem.

“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000? That is part of our problem.

“There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.

“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff.  But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die. We have a lot on our plate in stemming drug peddling.

“Withe about 2,000 staff members nationwide and limited funding, NAFDAC is constrained in carrying out its activities. So, when it comes to staffing, you’re right on the point. We are short-staffed and I am hoping things will be better.”

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Give us electoral offences tribunal to take care of heist – INEC  

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Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, made a fresh push for the creation of an electoral offences tribunal, to curb the cases of attacks on the Nigerian democratic system.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, told reporters at the commission’s first regular quarterly consultative meeting with the media that the tribunal had become important owing to the backlog of electoral offence cases.

He said: “A major obstacle to the speedy dispensation of justice in this regard is that electoral offences are not time-bound as is the case with post-election offences through the tribunals. Furthermore, they are solely prosecuted by the Magistrate and State High Courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged offences are committed,” the INEC chief told the gathering.

“No priority attention is given to such cases as the courts deal with a variety of other cases. Consequently, electoral offences are carried over from one General Election to another which may sometimes affect the diligent prosecution of the cases. It is therefore imperative to renew our call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases.”

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Bemoaning the delay in the justice delivery system, citing the conviction of a returning officer in Akwa Ibom after six years in court, the INEC boss, said: “The recent successful prosecution of a Returning Officer in Akwa Ibom State is a case in point.

“The Commission has been diligently pursuing the case which arose from the 2019 General Election. In this particular case, it took nearly six years to achieve the successful prosecution at the trial court.

“Through our collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cases involving 774 alleged offenders from the 2023 General Election are being prosecuted. So far, successful prosecutions have been recorded in Kebbi and Kogi States while our collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on vote-buying has yielded similar results in Lagos, Kwara, and Gombe States. Yet, many cases are still pending.”

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Again, terrorists attack Sokoto, kidnap 10 worshippers at a mosque

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A mosque in Bushe community, Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State, fell into the hands of bandits on Friday, after which 10 worshippers including the Imam were spirited away, adding to growing cases of terrorist attacks.

Channels Television reports that the gunmen invaded the mosque on Thursday while worshippers were performing their early morning Subhi prayer, quoting residents as saying that the gunmen had been molesting the people of the community for some time now, even with the presence of security agents.

Ahmed Rufai, spokesman of the Sokoto State Police Command, who confirmed the attack on Friday, said the police authorities were working with other security agencies to rescue the abducted victims.

A member of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, representing the Sabon Birni B state Constituency who also confirmed the attack, commended the security agencies for their timely intervention.

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