By Augustine Akhilomen

…Accuses NNPCL Of Lacking Transparency And Attempting To Hide The Details Of The Deal

Former Vice President and 2023 presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has demanded the immediate suspension of the deal between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Chinese firms aimed at reviving the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries.

Atiku, through his media aide Phrank Shaibu on Friday, criticized the partnership as an “opaque” and “dangerous gamble” with Nigeria’s economic future.

He accused the NNPCL of lacking transparency and attempting to hide the details of the deal, similar to previous controversial agreements.

Atiku referred to the Chinese firms, identified as Sanjiang Chemical Company Limited and Xingcheng (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd, as unknown entities lacking the credibility for such a massive project.

“It is both shocking and insulting that after wasting over $2.5 billion on endless refinery rehabilitation scandals, the NNPC is once again asking Nigerians to trust another experiment built on secrecy and questionable competence,” Atiku stated.

“There is no publicly available evidence anywhere in the world showing that Sanjiang has ever built, operated, or managed a full-scale crude oil refinery of the magnitude and complexity of Port Harcourt or Warri refineries.

“Processing petrochemical derivatives is not the same as running an aging national refinery burdened with decades of operational decay,” Atiku noted.
Also, Atiku said the second Chinese firm, Xingcheng (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd., appears to have absolutely no verifiable experience in petroleum engineering, refinery operations, or hydrocarbon processing.

“By every available corporate and industry record, Xingcheng is essentially an industrial park and infrastructure management company — the equivalent of handing over a hospital’s intensive care unit to a real estate developer simply because they can construct buildings,” the statement added.

“It is unacceptable that after years of failed turnaround maintenance scams, billions of dollars squandered, and repeated lies about refinery functionality, Nigerians are now being told to celebrate a memorandum of understanding signed with companies whose core expertise does not align with the technical realities of refinery rehabilitation.

“Nigerians must not allow the same people who destroyed the refineries through incompetence and corruption to now hide behind vague Chinese partnerships to continue the cycle of deception,” he said.

“The era where NNPC signs opaque agreements abroad and expects Nigerians to clap blindly is over.

“National assets are not toys for bureaucratic experimentation. The Port Harcourt and Warri refineries are too strategic to be surrendered to uncertainty, obscurity, and corporate guesswork”, he stated.

Nigerian singer Adekunle Gold has revealed that he is a descendant of King Kosoko of Lagos, a 19th-century monarch who resisted British colonial forces when they first arrived in Nigeria.

Gold made the disclosure in an interview on Great Day Houston, a morning show on KHOU 11 television in Houston, Texas, which was published on YouTube on Thursday.

On his royal lineage, he said his ancestor fought the British when they first entered Nigeria through Lagos, was driven into exile, and eventually returned victorious.

“My progenitor used to be king of Lagos. His name is King Kosoko. He fought the British when they first came to Nigeria through Lagos to try to take our things, then he fought, went to exile, and came back, and then still won,” he said.

Gold, who is from the Yoruba tribe, was born in Lagos.

The singer also revealed that his stage name was given to him by God through a church sermon.

He said he had been searching for one and had taken the matter to God in prayer when the answer came during a church sermon.

“I told God, I need a name,” he said.

He said a preacher repeated the same phrase three times during the sermon, and he took it as a divine signal.

“Something just told me it must have been God. God told me at that point that that’s your name,” he said.

Gold said he settled on the name immediately after.

“I said, okay, you know what, just make it Adekunle Gold, and it’s very befitting of me,” he said.

Justice Mohammed Garba Umar of the Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed the no-case submission made by activist, Omoyele Sowore, in the cyberbullying charge brought against him by the Department of the State Services, DSS.

DSS had charged Sowore for cyberbullying President Bola Tinubu.

The court upheld the DSS charges against Sowore for allegedly calling Tinubu a “criminal” in his Twitter handle and ordered him to enter his defense.

Justice Umar dismissed the no case submission on Friday while ruling on the application made by the activist.

Sowore had filed the no case submission and prayed the court to discharge and acquit him from the two-count charge.

In the ruling, Justice Umar held that the DSS had successfully linked Sowore with the alleged offences, adding that a prima facie case had been established against him to warrant him to enter a defense.