Author: nationalpoint

The chairman of the Bayelsa State Traditional Rulers’ Council Bayelsa State, King Bubaraye Dakolo, Agada IV, the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama kingdom has carpeted the Petroleum Industry Act describing it as very obnoxious with respect to the welfare of the oil bearing communities and the environment. Speaking recently in Yenagoa as keynote speaker at a Nigeria Resource Justice conference with the theme: Petroleum Industry Act, Matters Arising for Communities in Extraction Sites organized by a Social Action in conjunction with Bayelsa NGO forum, Bangof, King Dakolo maintained that with the new law host communities will not get their three per cent…

Edo State Government has concluded plans to employ and train 1,000 young graduates to teach English and mathematics teachers in secondary schools across the 18 local government areas of the state. The Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Joan Osa Ovaiwe, who disclosed this at a press conference in Benin City, Edo state, said the essence was to enhance the standard of learning in the state. Ovaiwe also disclosed that the ministry was setting up in-class libraries in classrooms to improve model digital learning across the state. She said the libraries would be used to entice students to use libraries and learn…

Market women and men in Oba Market in Benin City, Edo State have protested alleged extortion by waste managers in connivance with market leaders and Oredo local government officials. The traders, who took their protest to the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Press Centre said they were being forced to pay N1,000 sacrifice Levy to the Oba ‘s Palace and other arbitrary levies in the market. The leader of the protesters, Mrs. Veronica Eboshiogue said the levies had become too much for them to pay and that government had refused to consider the appeals they have made for its intervention…

The Edo State Police Command has arrested seven police officers for molesting and extorting members of the public while on duty. In a statement in Benin City, the Deputy Police Public Relations Officer of the state command, Jennifer Iwegbu, said the arrested officers will be made to face disciplinary actions. She gave the names of the officers as Victor Osabuohign, Godspower Ijebu, Ebatamole Philip, Ademola Benjamin, Inaite Vincent, Robert Esikise, and Adefaye Samuel. The statement said, “The attention of the Edo State Police Command has been drawn to a video on Twitter where a policeman, Victor Osabuohign, was seen engaging…

The Programme Manager of RoLAC C3, in the Edo State, Mr. Emmanuel Uche, has said that the Edo State Integrity and Accountability Strategy (EDSIAS) is an all-inclusive framework for improving integrity and accountability, particularly in public service delivering in the state. The RoLAC Manager disclosed this at the EDSIAS Implementation Roundtable for CSOs/Media Coalition on EDSIAS, in Benin city, Edo State, where he said the strategy was adopted to check corruption that has become endemic in Nigeria. Uche therefore called on the state government to come out with a standard policy framework for the strategy to operate and make government…

The Benin Zonal Commander of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Persons (NAPTIP), Nduka Nwanwenne, has disclosed that since 2004, the Agency had arrested, prosecuted and convicted over 500 human traffickers in Edo State, while the number at the national level was over 800. Nduka, who made the disclosure at a stakeholders’ interactive forum to commemorate 2022 World Day Against Human Trafficking, with the theme: “Use and Abuse of Technology,” in Benin City, the Edo State capital, said the use of technology had helped in investigating, profiling, gathering data, tracking, monitoring and prosecution human traffickers. He stated that in…

There was confusion at the Ikpoba/Okha end of the Benin – Sapele expressway on Monday when indigenes and other residents of the communities in that axis blocked the road to protest the deplorable state of the road. Hundreds of motorists and travellers were trapped in the gridlock that followed the protest that lasted overnight. The protesters lamented the failure of the federal, state and local governments to fix the road. That section, according to the protesters, deserved to have a flyover because of the busy nature of the road. The federal road that links the Niger Delta region with the…

To teach the younger generation of journalists how to do their job better, National Point Newspaper/Foreword Communications Limited, last week, organized a two-day media training for journalists from across the Niger Delta region. The programme which held at Habitat Hotel Port Harcourt, was a collaborative project with the Wole Soyinka Center for Investigative Journalism with support from the MacArthur Foundation. The training took the participants through topics like ‘Ethics, Media and Development’, ‘Exploring The Landscape of Insecurity in the Niger Delta,’ ‘Data Journalism’, ‘Gender Sensitive Reporting’, ‘Human Rights Reporting, Investigative Journalism’ among others. In her remarks, Ibiba DonPedro, managing director…

A court in Abuja has ordered the Nigerian government to implement the National Gender Policy (NGP) which provides for the allocation of 35 percent of all appointments to women. The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Wednesday, ordered the federal government to enforce the National Gender Policy by allotting 35 per cent of appointments in the public sector to women. A non-governmental organisation, Women in Politics Forum (WIPF), filed the suit against the Nigerian government, seeking the implementation of the 35 per cent Affirmative Action in appointments of women into public office. Delivering his judgement on the suit on Wednesday,…

Rivers State has always been thrown into a volatile state during general elections. Though the seat of power is in faraway Abuja, Rivers State has always been one of the key states in the country by virtue of its strategic position as an oil rich state, and a major interest in the presidential election has always been about access to the oil wealth in the Niger Delta. Nigerians are on the march again for the 2023, general elections and the polity is seriously heating up with the two major parties, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress,…