The Edo State governor Mr Godwin Obaseki, has disclosed that 5,600 vehicles run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

The governor disclosed this in Benin while speaking to journalists on fuel subsidy removal.

“Data from NIPCO Gas, a joint-venture company between NIPCO and Nigeria Gas Company Limited (NGC), indicate that over 5,600 vehicles in Benin City run on Compressed Natural Gas after the initiative was rolled out in 2007 and commissioned in 2009,” he said.

He called on investors to make investments in alternative sources of energy such as natural gas in the wake of subsidy removal, which had led to a hike in transportation costs.


“We are blessed with a lot of gas in Edo. There is really no reason why our tricycles and vehicles should be using petrol. We have more gas stations in Edo than any other state. We should be using more gas.

“Price levels would always go up. What we have to do is to open up the economy so that people will have more work to do. We need more manufacturing companies in Edo State.”

“The gas initiative was launched after a presentation by NIPCO Plc to roll out a pilot scheme to an inter-ministerial team of the Federal Government in 2007.

“NIPCO Gas has established 15 CNG running stations in Benin to provide an alternative for the Gasoline run automobiles,” he said.

Some documents requested by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) at the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi to be presented as exhibits at the Presidential Election Tribunal are non-existent.

INEC made the declaration before the court sitting in Abuja on Tuesday.

Obi and the Labour Party (LP) are challenging the Feb. 25 election of President Bola Tinubu before the court in a petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023.

Respondents in the petition are INEC, President Tinubu, Vice-President Kashim Shettima and their All Progressives Congress (APC).

One of Obi’s witnesses, Ms Loretta Ogah, an ICT cloud engineer, said she contested election into the House of Representatives on the platform of Labour Party in Cross River, but lost the election.

Ogah was cross-examined by Mr Wole Olanipakun (SAN), counsel for Tinubu and Shettima.

She told the court that she sued INEC after her loss because the electoral umpire did not list her name on its portal as a result of network failure.

Also cross-examined by Mr Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), counsel for APC, Ogah told the court that glitches did not occur on INEC portal on Feb. 25.

She said she did not know INEC’s password protocol as she was not INEC’s employee.

The court, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned further hearing to Wednesday. (NAN)

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his party will on Thursday, close their case at the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) in their joint petition challenging the outcome of the Feb. 25 presidential election.

The petitioners, according to a pre-hearing report were supposed to close their case on Tuesday.

However, at the resumed hearing of the petition, the petitioner’s lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN told the court that his clients lost two days out of the days allotted to them and prayed the court to allow them two more days.
The court agreed with Uche because one of the days lost was the Democracy Day Public Holiday of June 12.

Earlier, Uche told the court that in spite of the spirit of cooperation that the court had appealed for, it was still difficult to get Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

According to him, getting documents from INEC is like asking your opponents for weapons.


He said that they had asked INEC for Form EC8A series for all the 36 states and the FCT but had gotten only 14 batches so far.

The senior counsel said that the documents were brought to them in court by INEC and that although certified by the commission, they had not been sorted out in a proper manner.
“These are forms EC8A series from the 35 states and we will start with Abia, and after tendering it, all parties will come together to ensure that they are sorted out properly,’’ he said.

This, however, did not go down well with the court and other counsel.

The documents even though certified, had not been paid for, adding that, it was the responsibility of the petitioners to sort out documents they subpoenaed.

The Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani decided to stand down the matter for about 10 minutes to allow counsel decide on how to proceed.

When the ten minutes elapsed, Uche prayed the court for an adjournment to allow his team prepare a schedule on how to tender the documents to the court on Wednesday.

The court subsequently adjourned hearing of the petition until Wednesday.

Speaking to newsmen after the court session, Uche said that ordinarily, the petitioners would have closed their case on Tuesday.

“We are closing our case on Thursday, it was supposed to end today but because we lost two days, one of which was the June 12 public holiday, the court graciously extended our time by two days.”

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the petitioners who said during the pre-hearing session that they would call 100 witnesses have called only 25 of them so far.

Uche said that they might call an additional five witnesses to have a round figure of 30 witnesses.

The senior lawyer, however, said that some of the documents they sought to tender in the remaining two days would take the place of the remaining 70 witnesses.

PRESIDENT BOLA AHMED TINUBU APPROVES DISSOLUTION OF BOARDS OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PARASTATALS, AGENCIES, INSTITUTIONS AND GOVERNMENT-OWNED COMPANIES

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has approved the immediate dissolution of the Governing Boards of all Federal Government Parastatals, Agencies, Institutions, and Government-Owned Companies in the exercise of its Constitutional Powers and in the Public interest.

The dissolution does not, however, affect Boards, Commissions and Councils listed in the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 153 (i) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

In view of this development and until such a time new boards are constituted, the Chief Executive Officers of the Parastatals, Agencies, Institutions, and Government-Owned Companies are directed to refer matters requiring the attention of their Boards to the President, through the Permanent Secretaries of their respective supervisory Ministries and Offices.

Permanent Secretaries are directed, also, to route such correspondences to Mr President through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Consequently, all Ministries, Departments and Agencies are to ensure compliance to the provision of this directive which took effect from Friday 16th June, 2023.

Permanent Secretaries are particularly directed to inform the Chief Executive Officers of the affected Agencies under the supervision of their respective Ministries/Offices for immediate compliance.

Willie Bassey
Director, Information
For: Secretary to the Government of the Federation