RiverNaija

Protocols: Good afternoon, chieftains and members of the All Progressives Congress. Thanks for inviting me as your Keynote Speaker at your Unveiling of Road Map Summit. I do not know how you decided to take this high risk of inviting me to your gathering, knowing full well that my zeal for candor can be generally unsettling for some people of your class and occupation. Since you took the risk, I have assumed the liberty to speak boldly even to your discomfort especially considering that we live in a season of grim when our country is greatly troubled. In perilous times like this, Truth is the absolute freedom. I shall be spurred on by the counsel of George Orwell who in honor of truth stated that “in a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. I further assume that if you wanted someone with the skills of deceit, it would not be me that you would have invited to your gathering. I therefore speak to you today not as a politician Context and Fact are very important f...

BY  Odilim Basil Enwegbara Of "The Punch" From the outset, Washington recognised the immense strategic role oil plays in powering global economy. As a major source of energy, any nation that has monopoly over its supply and pricing definitely has monopoly over the global economy itself. Desirable to see European hands totally off global oil, Washington had sponsored the World War I. Since the replacement of Pax Britannica by Pax Americana meant also dollar’s replacement of pound sterling’s hegemony, Washington even before the end of WWII, knew that the power of gold as the store of value, should be replaced with oil as the engine that drives global economy for the very fact that the world could do without gold but never ever without oil. Being the case, Washington already knew that the future holder of dollar’s value and its reserve currency dominion should be oil and that’s why its monopoly was inevitable. Unable to destroy European economic power the power it had...

By Uche Igwe I was invited to a roundtable on the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Bill organised by the Africa Studies Department of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC on the 3 rd of November 2010. During the panel discussion, I alerted the audience that what the Nigerian government intended to do (at that time) was simply a Petroleum Industry Perambulation (PIP). I explained that the government wanted to take unsuspecting citizens through a deceptive, torturing, time consuming and money guzzling journey in the name of reforms. The journey, I warned, would begin from point A and after many months (even years) of rigmarole, travellers will find themselves back at point A where they started. Almost two years has passed since I made that speech and sadly I still find no reason whatsoever to review my position. My view still remains that contrary to sponsored rhetoric, the Nigerian government has no intention of reforming the oil and gas industry. The recent submissionof...