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Kogi Guber: Court Dismisses Sen Adeyemi’s Case Against Ododo, APC
A lawsuit filed by Senator Smart Afolabi Adeyemi, an aspirant for the Kogi governorship position under the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been dismissed by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The suit challenged the emergence of Usman Ododo as the party’s candidate in the last primary election.
On Wednesday, the court ruled that the suit lacked merit and substance, thereby rejecting the requests made against Usman Ododo and the APC.
Justice James Kolawole Omotosho, presiding over the case titled “FHC/CS/556/2023 in Smart Adeyemi v. APC & 2 Ors,” stated that Adeyemi’s allegations were criminal in nature.
Among the allegations were claims that elections did not take place and that the presented results were forged.
During the court proceedings, Justice James Kolawole Omotosho emphasized that Senator Adeyemi had the responsibility to provide substantial evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to support his allegations of forgery and falsification of results.
The court highlighted that the burden of proof lay with Senator Adeyemi to present either the forged result or the original results in order to fulfill this obligation.
Justice Omotosho further emphasized that the failure to meet this burden would have severe consequences for the case put forth by the applicant.
Furthermore, Justice James Kolawole Omotosho pointed out that the allegation claiming that the election did not take place was also unsupported by substantial evidence.
The applicant, Senator Adeyemi, only provided evidence from his Ward in Ijumu Local Government Area.
Justice Omotosho highlighted that the Respondents, on the other hand, presented monitoring reports from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which is responsible for overseeing elections.
He said “In this case, INEC attached its monitoring report and also attached copies of the result, police report confirming the conduct of the election signed by the Commissioner of Police, the case of the Applicant has no basis,”
Justice Omotosho, therefore, dismissed the case for lacking in merit
Concluding, he said, “In the final analysis, having reviewed all the evidence in this matter, I have no doubt that the APC primary election result held in all the wards of Kogi State on the 14th day of April 2023 and I so hold.
“This Honourable Court will not allow the will of a few just like that of the Applicant to overide the will of the majority. The Applicant’s case has no merit. It is hereby dismissed.
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NNPC JV Unveils New Crude Oil Grade ‘Nembe’, Commences Exports With 1,900 Barrels
Precious ADELOLA
The NNPC/Aiteo Joint venture has announced the introduction of Nembe Crude Oil Grade, a new crude oil grade into the international crude oil market.
The announcement of the Nembe Crude Oil Blend, produced by Aiteo, the Operator of the NNPC/Aiteo Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 Joint Venture (JV), was made at the ongoing Argus European Crude Conference in London, on Tuesday.
OML 29, an asset located onshore Nigeria, is operated by Aiteo Eastern Exploration & Production Ltd, Africa’s leading indigenous hydrocarbon producer, following a historic acquisition from Shell in 2014.
The Nembe Crude was previously blended with the popular Bonny Light grade and exported via the Bonny Oil & Gas Terminal.
The unique selling point of the Nembe Crude Oil grade with an API gravity was highlighted by both the Aiteo E & P and NNPC Limited Leadership at the Argus Conference in London.
The Nembe Crude Oil grade also has a low sulphur content and low carbon footprint due to flare gas elimination, fitting perfectly into the required spec of major buyers in Europe.
Two cargoes of 950,000 barrels each of the Nembe Crude Oil grade have since been exported to France and the Netherlands. With its attractive Assay of API 29 and low sulphur content, the Nembe Crude Oil grade commands a premium to the global Brent benchmark.
With the NNPC-Aiteo OML 29 JV back on-stream, Nigeria now boasts of an additional crude oil export of 2 Cargoes at 950,000 barrels each per month and 1.2 Bcf of export gas monthly.
This remarkable achievement signals the commencement of activities at Nigeria’s newest crude oil terminal, the Nembe Crude Oil Export Terminal (NCOET), which was licensed in line with the extant laws and Crude Oil Terminal establishment regulations.
The terminal was conceived as a Floating Storage and Offloading Vessel (FSO) with a storage capacity of two (2) Million Barrels and the ability to offload crude oil to any export tanker from AFRAMAX to Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC).
It has a loading capacity of 25,000 barrels per hour and will be exporting over 3.6 million barrels of Crude oil monthly at full scale of operation.
Currently, hydrocarbon production from OML 29, which was hitherto constrained due to evacuation challenges owing to the security issues around the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) corridor, has now been resolved through a collaborative and creative approach that led to the innovation of the Alternative Crude Oil Evacuation Solution.
The Argus European Crude Conference 2023 in London is a gathering of energy majors, refiners, NOCs, traders, financial institutions, and other representatives from across the global oil markets. The event also provides a critical opportunity for business leaders to connect, discuss, share and learn from one another.
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Nigeria Owes NNPCL US$3.1bn, As Subsidy Hits US$921.5m Monthly
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JUST IN: Tribunal Sacks Gov Uba Sani, Declares Election Invalid
Governor Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was removed from office on Thursday by the governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Kaduna State.
The panel ruled that the state’s 2023 governorship election was invalid.
According to information gathered by Biztellers, the judges avoided the actual auditorium and instead communicated the decision via zoom.
It commanded the holding of new elections in seven wards across four local government units in the State.
Isa Ashiru, a candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party, and the PDP filed the petition.