The force majeure declared by Aiteo oil company dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspaper on Monday.
The Punch newspaper reports that Nigeria’s crude oil exports have suffered a setback as Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production Company Limited has declared force majeure on Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) following a fire outbreak.
It noted that the NCTL, a major crude oil transportation channel used for export, evacuates crude to the Bonny Crude Oil Terminal. It is 100 kilometres long and has a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day at Nembe Creek.
Aiteo said in a statement on Sunday that “We have been informed of a fire outbreak by our surveillance team comprising the JTF, FSS around NCTL Right of Way near Awoba today, April 21, 2019.”
Force majeure is a legal clause that allows companies to cancel or delay agreed deliveries due to unforeseen circumstances.
The Vanguard says that the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has rebuked All Progressives Congress (APC), describing the allegation that he is a Cameroonian as puerile, face-saving, vexatious, absolutely and completely unfounded.
Atiku said in his response to preliminary objection APC filed to challenge his petition against the declaration of President Muhammadu Buhari as winner of the February 23 presidential election, that he is “a full blooded Nigerian by birth and a Fulani by tribe”.
He urged the presidential election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja to ignore what he termed as “extraneous facts, contradictory, diversionary, evasive, speculative and vague assertions,” by APC and President Buhari. \
The Leadership newspaper says that the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Abhay Thakur, has solicited Nigerian government’s support in addressing biosafety crisis considered to be at the front burner of national development.
To this end, he observed that Nigeria is bedeviled with a lot of ecological challenges that required assistance from countries that had already tackled similar problems.
According to the report, the envoy, who stated this in Abuja during his courtesy visit to the minister of environment, Hassan Suleiman Zarma, advocated the need to strengthen the bilateral tie between Nigeria and India, especially in the areas of renewable energy, sustainable development and other environmental issues.
ThisDay newspaper said that the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) at the weekend raised the alarm over the high rate and prevalence of drug addicts in the country.
The agency noted that Nigeria is leading in the five percent international coverage of drug abuse globally, lamenting that the country currently has 15 percent drug abuse rate.
The Director of Public Affairs, NAFDAC, Dr. Abubakar Ateiza Jimoh, made this revelation during a chat with journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State.
Jimoh said the agency has an average conservative estimate of about 15 million people who are on drugs and three million of them can be conveniently called drug addicts.
The Guardian reported that the woman killed during the recent attack on Kajuru Castle in Kaduna State has been named by the British high commission as Faye Mooney.
The 29-year-old British aid worker was killed by kidnappers along with a Nigerian during Friday evening’s attack in which three other people were abducted, Kaduna police and the British high commission said.
Mercy Corps, the non-governmental aid agency Mooney worked for, paid tribute to her.
“Faye was a dedicated, passionate communication and learning specialist,” said chief executive Neal Keny-Guyer in a statement posted on social media, adding that colleagues were “utterly heartbroken”. Mooney had “worked with Mercy Corps for almost two years.
GIK/APA