Minister of Petroleum Kachikwu faults NNPC on fuel price increase

Nigeria Minister of Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu on Sunday condemned the recent increase in fuel price in Nigeria National Petroleum (NNPC) filling station.

Kachikwu made the statement after receiving an award at an event organized by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

“First, I am not aware that the NNPC has increased price. I need to look into that. It is a bit of surprise for me, because there are processes in doing this, if they have done that, it means they are doing it wrongly.

“Let me find out what the facts are,” he told journalists

According to him, the government cannot fix a new price for petrol without putting into cognizance the market variables that gave rise to the current petroleum pricing template.

“What we ought to be doing was watching the prices, making sure that they are not taking advantage of the common man; making sure that the template is respected.

“One of the things I think we had hoped to do, which we should still do, before we embark on any price increase is to work on those templates,” he said.

NNPC had been selling fuel at N141 but on Thursday, increased it by N4 to the government benchmark of N145.

The pump price of petrol in Nigeria rose to N145 per litre earlier this year after President Muhammadu Buhari removed fuel subsidy.

The government said the decision to remove the subsidy was as a result of the fall in oil price and non-availability of foreign exchange.

The government however, said the liberalization of petrol supply and distribution will allow marketers and any Nigerian entity willing to supply PMS to source for their forex and import PMS to ensure availability of products in all locations of the country.

According to the government, the resultant fuel scarcity has created an abnormal increase in price, resulting in Nigerians paying between N150 and N300 per litre as prevalent hoarding, smuggling and diversion of products have reduced volumes made available to citizens.

TV360Nigeria

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Linda Ikeji launches social network

Since starting her blog in 2006, Linda Ikeji has become one of Nigeria’s most prominent online voices.

The 36-year-old former model’s blog, known simply as Linda Ikeji’s Blog, is the 13th most popular website in Nigeria, according to analytic company Alexa—ahead of any official news publications or sites.

Ikeji has more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter—half a million more than Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari—and almost 800,000 on Instagram. Her name was the most Googled term in Nigeria, a country of 180 million people, in 2014.

The blogger has now launched her own social network—known as Linda Ikeji Social (LIS)—which she is marketing as “Facebook meets Linda Ikeji Blog meets eBay.”

Ikeji had announced in August that she intended to expand her media empire into four more platforms—an online television station, an online radio station, a music website and LIS, which she declined to identify until it was launched on Tuesday.

The platform has a similar functionality to Facebook, allowing users to post stories and chat with friends. The twist, according to Ikeji, is that the platform has been monetized for users. The platform will pay users 1,000 naira ($) for exclusive “stories,” which Ikeji said could consist of eyewitness photos or video. Ikeji said that the site would also place advertisements on pages belonging to users with more than 50,000 followers, with the users then earning 20 percent of the revenue.

Ikeji said that the idea for the site came after an encounter with two fans in April, who told her that Facebook and her site were the only websites on the internet that they used. “I wondered, and then the idea came to me: why can’t I have a website that’s a combination of both blogging and social networking? The answer to that burning question is LIS.”

Nigeria has the biggest Facebook user base in sub-Saharan Africa, with the social network saying in February that 16 million Nigerians used the platform each month, with 100 percent of users accessing the site via mobile.

Ikeji shares a variety of content across her platforms. Her Instagram functions as a style and fashion guide for followers, while her blog shares Nigerian news and recirculates international stories.

Google took down Ikeji’s blog—which runs on the Google-owned Blogger platform—for a brief period in October 2014 amid allegations of plagiarism and intellectual property theft, which Ikeji denied.

She has also been involved in public spats with other Nigerian celebrities, including rapper Wizkid—who collaborated with Drake on the hit song “One Dance”—who allegedly threatened to have Ikeji beaten up after she wrote a derogatory post about him.

Newsweek

Wole Soyinka says he will 'cut up' US green card if Trump wins

Nigeria's Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka says he will cut up his green card if Donald Trump emerges as winner of the US presidential election.

The green card is a permanent residence permit for the US - prized by many African immigrants to the US.

His comments emerged in the video of a conversation with students at Oxford University in the UK.

The famous author appears to be taking a swipe at Mr Trump over his radical stance on immigration.

American voters go to the polls next Tuesday and latest polls show the two candidates are neck and neck.



Mr Trump is famous for his promise to build a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out of the US if he makes it to the White House.

Under his hard-line proposals, every illegal immigrant currently in the US would be subject to deportation if he wins the election.

He says there will be no pathway to citizenship or even legal status for them unless they leave the country and get in line with everyone else who wants to enter the US, subject to the normal immigration procedures.

Mr Soyinka said he feared the Republic candidate would ask all green-card holders to reapply to come back into the US.

"Well, I'm not waiting for that," the Nigerian author told his student audience.

"The moment they announce his [Trump's] victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up," he added.

BBC