Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) will begin compensating 278 residents of Thange valley in Kibwezi East Constituency of Kenya who were affected by oil spillage two years ago.
KPC has already received claim forms and the verification process is ongoing.
Each of the claimants will receive payment through its insurer, CIC Insurance Company, Standard media reported.
The insurance firm will also engage with Panafcon – the company that carried out the impact assessment study in the area – with the aim of studying the ESEIA report to establish if there are matters that need further clarification.
KPC’s Director, Kemero Maisori, this week met the Makueni Governor, Prof Kivutha Kibwana and the community members to resolve the matter.
He said the company has already spent over Sh22 million in CSR support in terms of clean water, food aid, and bursaries for needy students from Thange area.
According to Maisori, “This CSR support will continue as per needs assessment as we strive to finish up the clean-up and the compensation process. KPC has invested heavily in the people of Thange because we want to transform people’s lives”.
Maisori urged those who haven’t filled the claim forms to fill them as soon as possible so that they are considered in Phase 2 of the compensation process. He said the company is committed to expedite compensation for residents whose lives were affected by the incident.
“The Thange incident has profoundly impacted the lives of many residents. KPC is fully committed to supporting those affected to get back on their feet in the shortest time possible,” he added.
The ageing Nairobi-Mombasa pipeline passes through Thange. The 14-inch Mombasa-Nairobi pipeline was constructed in 1978 and has been in operation for 39 years, way beyond its 25 year useful life. Being the only pipeline that feeds the country and its neighbours, it has to be kept in operating state through constant repairs and inspection. But the 450km Mombasa – Nairobi pipeline is currently being replaced to meet the region’s future petroleum needs.
The new line, a Vision 2030 Sh48 billion project, will include fire-fighting systems in new stations, installing energy efficient equipment and pipeline monitoring technology to ensure easy spotting of damages on the line.
The project is well underway and will be ready for commissioning this year. The new Pipeline will improve the safety, reliability and efficient delivery of product to KPC’s customers and reduce the losses and damages caused by spillage on the current 14” Mombasa -Nairobi pipeline.
Alpha Conde, president of the Republic of Guinea Opening of The UN Conference on Sustainable Development, dubbed Rio+20, holds its high-level segment in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The summit comes twenty years after Rio hosted the UN’s landmark 1992 Conference on Environment and Development and emphasizes global policies for poverty reduction, social equity and environmental protection. World leaders are gathered for the culminating segment in an effort to produce a comprehensive political document based on Sustainable development pillars. Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. 20 Jun 2012. UN Photo/Guilherme Costa
Ministers from member States of the African Union (AU) have been banned from addressing the heads of states and governments during AU summits. The ban takes effect from next AU summit.
Alfa Conde
AU Chairperson, President Alfa Conde of Guinea, told the 28th AU Summit on Tuesday in Addis Ababa that the measure was part of the recommendations made in 2016 at AU summit in Kigali.
According to him, since the Assembly is called, ‘Assembly of Head of States’, it should remain so, hence their is no point for Minister to take the floor; adding that, “they should be at the level of their executive meeting and should be limited to that”.
Conde further alleged that most of the Presidents after the opening ceremony take their leave without giving their time at the meeting.
He also frowned at attitude of not being punctual by the leaders, positing that, it was high time such attitude should be checked.
He said that a committee headed by President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, was set up by the Union to reform the Summit and how its meeting would be conducted; noting that all measures would take effect from July.
Nothing sums up the dangerous way in which the DSS is handling the Apostle Johnson Suleman affair better than the words of the Southern Kaduna-based Pastor Owojaye Matthew. He said,
“you want to arrest Christian clergymen who asked Christians to defend themselves against killer FULANI Herdsmen while you allow hundreds of foreign FULANI herdsmen invading Nigeria to kill and maim CHRISTIANS and take over their lands! DSS, tread softly! Do not play into the hands of chaos! We are waiting for DSS to arrest the kill and go FULANI herdsmen!”
The Buhari administration is literally playing Russian roullete with this matter. They are playing with fire and it may well end up burning them badly and consumming the whole of Nigeria. They are sitting on a keg of gunpowder and it may well end up blowing up in their faces.
Owojaiye’s point is as pertinent as it is clear. His counsel to the DSS is unassailable and timely.
They would do well to take his advice, leave Suleman alone and, instead of harrasing him, go after those who commit mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide against northern Christians at the drop of a hat and those who encourage, incite and pay them to do it.
In this respect let us consider the words of the President-General of Nigeria’s Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, His Eminence, Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar, the Sultan of Sokoto.
On 24th July 2016 he called on Muslims to fight anybody or any group that attempts to stop them from performing their religious obligations. He said,
“Fight those who seek to stop you from practising Islam. The only thing that will make me to act or ask you to act is only when somebody or a group or some other nations decide to stop us from performing our religious obligations. That is the only way we can fight somebody.” (The Daily Trust).
These words are not only ominous but also sinister. The question for His Eminence and all those that share his views and disposition, and I ask it respectfully, is precisely who is stopping the Muslims of Nigeria from “practising Islam” and “performing their religious obligations?”
Is his warning and veiled threat not dangerous and uneccessary? Is this misguided and misplaced missive not the motive and primary catalyst for the unprecedented and unprovoked attacks that the Christian community in northern Nigeria are being subjected to today? Is this not the ethos and mindset of those who love to spill Christian blood and crush Christian bones?
Do such words not appear to be like manna from heaven and a source of great inspiration and encouragement to the radical islamic terrorists and Fulani ethnic supremacists in our midst? Is this not a clear case of incitement to violence?
If the Department of State Security (DSS) can attempt to arrest and later invite the fiery evangelical Apostle Johnson Suleman of Omega Fire Ministries simply for calling on Christians to defend themselves when they are attacked by Fulani militias, why should they not arrest the Sultan of Sokoto for his comments as well?
If Miyetti Allah, the umbrella group of the Fulani militia, and other Muslim groups and Fulani leaders can call for the arrest of Rev. Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and other clerics simply because they asked Christians to defend themselves from what can only be described as mass murder and genocide, why can’t we Christians demand that the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of Nigeria’s northern Muslims, be arrested for his inciting words as well?
Is what is good for the goose not good for the gander? Do Muslim lives matter more than Christian ones in President Muhammadu Buhari’s Nigeria?
Are Christians expected to behave like quislings and cowards and hide under the bed shivering in silence when Muslim leaders speak or threaten them?
Are Christians second class citizens in Nigeria? Is it not better to be killed and die as free men than to live as worthless slaves or second class citizens in our own country?
All over the northern part of the country Christians are being targetted, slaughtered and butchered and not one person has been arrested, detained or cautioned by our government for these heinous crimes against humanity and these clear cases of ethnic and religious cleansing.
Are the lives of those defenceless and innocent Christian men, women and children that were brutally massacred some kind of sacrifice to a strange and demonic deity or entity?
Are those that kill in this gruesome and heartless manner and those that secretly encourage such killings and turn a blind eye to them really Muslims? Are they even human beings or are they just beasts?
I ask these questions because the apparant indifference of our government to the plight of the northern Christians and their conspiratorial collusion with the forces of darkness that perpetuate these evil, ungodly and barbaric acts against them shocks and appauls me.
Muslim clerics and leaders all over the north pronounce inciting words every day in the sanctity of their mosques and the Fulani Emirs appear to endorse those words yet no-one has called any of them to order. This madness has been going on for years and yet few are prepared to confront it.
The indifference of most northern Muslim leaders towards this matter is troubling and nauseating me. It appears that those that kill Christians in the north have some sort of immunity from the law.
For example there was a particular Fulani prince who was involved in the gruesome public beheading of a Christian man from Benue state by the name of Gideon Akaluka in Kano in the mid-1990’s long before he became an Emir.
The Fulani Prince was hidden in a Sokoto prison for two years after all those that organised the killing with him were extra-judicially executed by security forces on the orders of the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha.
After his release the matter was closed and the prince not only flourished but he also went from strength to strength until he became an Emir!
That is how skewered the system is and that is the level of injustice and sheer madness that Christians have been subjected to over the years in Nigeria. Instead of facing justice, those that commit such atrocities appear to be rewarded by the state for their barbarity and evil.
Again in October, 2011 the Sultan of Sokoto delivered a lecture at Harvard University in the United States of America and, amongst many other things, said,
“I do not recognize any Nigerian constitution and the only constitution I recognise is the Koran.”
As the cerebal young Yoruba nationalist Mr. Adeyinka Adebayo rightly asked,
“if Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Pastor David Oyedepo, Pastor Ayo Oritsajafor, Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie, in the name of their beliefs in the Bible as having the final say in their affairs, go about with such flatulence, would it be acceptable and exemplary?”
Adebayo has asked a pertinent question. If Prophet Temitope Joshua, Dr. Daniel Olukoya, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Dr. B.O. Ezekiel, Rev. Musa Asake, Bishop Mike Okonkwo, Pastor Bosun Emmanuel, Rev. Emmanuel Kure, Rev. Ladi Thompson, Pastor Paul Adefarasin, Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo or any of the other notable clerics in Nigeria had said that they do not recognise the Nigerian constitution and that the only constitution that they recognise is the Holy Bible would all hell not have broken loose? Up until today the slaughter that comes as a consequence of such irresponsible and hateful sentiments and incitement continues.
Yet when the Islamist terrorists and Jihadists start killing Christians and Shiite Muslims as a consequence of such incendiary expressions the Buhari government does and says absolutely nothing to discourage or stop it.
Worse still the entire nation maintains a stoic and submissive silence as if it were totally bewitched by some deep voodoo magic and dark Luciferian spell.
Virtually everyone appears to have been frozen into silence in the country and the spirit of fear has gripped most of our leaders and captured their spirits and souls.
The killing of Christians on a daily basis all over the north has now become the norm and it is getting worse by the day.
Yet no-one seems to care and some, including that devilish little imp in Kaduna state that delights in shedding Christian blood, even relish it and boast about it.
808 Christians were slaugthtered in Southern Kaduna on Christmas eve and Christmas day by Fulani militias and no arrests were made.
1000 Christians were killed in Agatu, Benue state last year by Fulani militants and no arrests were made.
253 Christians were bombed to death at an IDP camp in Borno state two weeks ago by a mad Muslim Air Force pilot and no arrests were made.
1000 Shiite Muslims were slaughtered by the Sunni-Muslim controlled Nigerian army at the end of 2015 and no arrests were made.
Thousands (yes THOUSANDS!!!) of Christian Biafran youths and members of IPOB have been slaughtered all over the south-east and south-south by the Sunni-Muslim led Nigerian security agencies since Buhari came to power just under two years ago yet no arrests have been made.
Christian political leaders and clerics are being harrassed, detained, subjected to torture, humiliated, maligned, threatened, coerced and forced to step down as heads of their Churches by the creation and implementation of bogus, absurd and self-seving laws and yet no-one is there to defend them.
Relevant here are the words of the man of the moment, President Donald J. Trump. He said,
“Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!”
If only he knew what the Christians of northern Nigeria were being subjected to he would accept the fact that what is happening to Christians in the Middle East is nothing but child’s play. May God help us all. (TO BE CONTINUED).
Kaduna (Nigeria) – The Nigeria Police Force has announced the dead of one of its Commissioners, serving in the Rivers State Police Command, Francis Mobolaji Odesanya, who died at the age of 56 in an Indian Hospital.
Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, has condoled with the family and people of Ogun state.
Spokesperson of the Force, Jimoh O. Moshood in a statement stated that: “with a heavy heart and deep sense of loss regrets to announce the demise of a serving Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Police Command who passed on at the age of 56 after a brief illness at Sterling Hospital Ahmedabad-Gujarat in India.
“The Inspector General of Police and his management team, on behalf of the entire officers and men of the Nigeria Police Force wish to commiserate with the ODESANYA family of Ikenne Town, Ogun State, the Government and good people of Ogun State on the demise and passage unto glory of their illustrious son, CP. Francis Mobolaji Odesanya.
“May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace and the good Lord grant his family and the Government and good people of Ogun State the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss.”
Late Francis Mobolaji Odesanya, according to the statement was enlisted into the Force on the 1st February, 1986 as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent of Police and rose through the rank. He served as Deputy Commissioner of Police Department of Operations and that of Finance and Administration in Rivers State before he was promoted and posted as Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Police Command on the 20th July, 2016 – the position he held until his sudden demise on 31st January 2017.
The new African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, has pledged to placed development and security at the top of his agenda.
Mahamat who is Chadian Foreign Minister was elected on Monday in Addis Ababa, replacing outgoing South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. He won the election by beating his closest rival, Kenyan Foreign Minister, Amina Mohammed, after the 54-member Head of States cast their votes in a private ballot box.
The Guardian reported that, Mahamat during his campaign said that he harboured dreams of an Africa where the “sound of guns will be drowned out by cultural songs and rumbling factories”, pledging to streamline the organization during the course of his four-year term in office.
Potential candidates need to sweep at least two-thirds which is equivalent to 36 votes to win the top position. Mahamat’s wining came after seven rounds of voting, as he secured the support of 39 votes, Sudan Tribune noted.
Similarly, Guinea’s President, Alpha Conde, has been elected also as the new chairperson of the African Union (AU). He was elected at the 28th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) which opened on Monday at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
He took over the AU chairmanship from Chadian President, Idris Deby, who on Monday completed his one year tenure.
President Conde in his speech said that he will firmly work to speed up and eventually meet targets and initiatives set by his predecessor among others, fighting against challenges such as threats of terrorism, Migration and need to make the continent independent.
The Union on Monday also reached a consensus over Morocco who opted out of the Organization for African Union in 1984, protesting a decision to welcome the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. It decided to admit Morocco as its 55th member, Sudan Tribune reported.
The theme for this year’s summit is: “Harnessing Demographic Dividend through Investment in Youth”.
The Nigeria Police Force, Bornu State Command, have confirmed the killings of a local vigilante and a suicide bomber during an attempt to attack a Mosque in Maiduguri (North-east Nigeria) by a suicide bomber on Monday morning.
Spokesperson of the Command, Victor Isuzu, said a male suicide bomber carried out the attack at the Dalori area of the state capital.
According to him, “Today at about 0522hrs, a male suicide bomber detonated Improvised Explosive Device (IED) strapped to his body near a mosque at Dalori Quarters situated along Maiduguri/ Konduga /Bama road. “The bomber killed himself and a local vigilante- the civilian JTF operative who tried to prevent him from getting close to the mosque where many faithful in the locality were observing their early morning prayers,” Isuzu said in a statement, adding that the area of the Monday attack had been secured and normal activities has resumed.
Between 28th December, 2016 and 31st January, 2017, at least 26 people were killed in separate bomb attacks in Maiduguri, Bornu State capital – 20, in an attack in Buraburin area while another four were killed two weeks ago at a Mosque in University of Maiduguri staff quarters.
From Left: Director General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Yusuf Abdallah Usman; Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, and Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Fatai Owoseni, at the site of the demolished national monument in Lagos
Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has said the Federal Government will not tolerate the destruction of national monuments anywhere in the country for whatever reason, stressing that, anyone found wanting shall be prosecuted.
Special Assistant to the Minister, Segun Adeyemi, in a statement noted that, the Minister gave the warning when he visited the site of a national monument ‘the 190-year-old Brazilian style building in Lagos’ on Sunday.
The building, which was acquired and gazetted as a national monument by the Federal Government in 1956, was destroyed by some developers. The Federal Government and the developers have since instituted cases in court over the property.
Adeyemi quoted the minister to have said; ”Because they wanted to develop this place, they have broken so many laws. Fortunately, this is a country of laws and we are ready to meet them in court and one thing I can assure you is that nobody can benefit from his own crime.
”I want to assure you that we will challenge them in court and we are going to get our reliefs and we will restore this building to its formal glory. We have the picture, we will rebuild it,” he said.
According to Mohammed, the monument built by returnee (slaves) from Brazil, is unique because it chronicled the historical, cultural and social relationship between Nigeria and Brazil.
”It is like a living monument of our (slave trade) past. It was a monument that exhibited the Brazilian architecture at that time, which is rare to come by anywhere in the world. It is a remembrance of what our ancestors went through in slavery and how they triumphed, came back and showed that they were well-to-do. The important thing is that a people without history will perish very fast.
“This building was worth billions of dollars because it symbolized our past.
”No amount of skyscrapers can replace this history and all important monument that has been demolished, and I want to assure you that nobody can profit from his crime. You cannot go to court now and say that because the structure has been destroyed, the land should go back to the owner.
”This is why I have come here with the (Lagos State) Commissioner of Police, who has been quite helpful. I want to assure Nigerians that we are going to pursue whoever has destroyed this place. It may take time, but the hand of the law is long and the wheel of justice grinds slowly but surely,” he noted in the statement.
Kaduna (Nigeria) – A member of the Nigeria Society of Engineers, Engineer Oginni Muraina Alade, has decried the high rate of unqualified building engineers, who posed as professionals taking contracts to build substandard building; saying, it is the major cause of collapse of buildings in the country.
Alade stated this at the weekend in Kaduna in North-west Nigeria, while presenting a paper during a seminar, on the alarming rate of building collapse in Nigeria.
He identified other factors to include, poor workmanship, use of substandard building materials, illegal alterations of design and faulty construction methodology among others.
According to him, “It is disheartening to state that non professionals are “evil collaborators” with the cooperation of “some ignorant and arrogant” client in seek of cheap labour, have taken up the services of Architects and engineers in the building industry; resulting to erection of buildings susceptible to collapse.
“Even professionals like Quantity Surveyor, Estate managers, Business managers, Land surveyors and even Architects present themselves to clients as Engineers; hence the responsibility to ensure serious structural work in some cases (for multi-rise structures) are place in the ‘wrong hands’. Inter-professional interaction can help by campaign or better place enacting punishment to confirmed defaulters.
“Any client or project owner confirm to have defaulted by engaging non professionals or found to have refused to adhere to approved design specifications should be charged for non compliance or stiff penalty be meted on such client as this will serve as deterrent to others.
“All development control agencies of Federal Development Control Agencies, State Development Control Agencies, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Nigeria Institute of Builders (NIOB), Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBBRI), Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG) and Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) should be more empowered by stiffened legislative backing to not only close a site confirmed to have defaulted in carrying out standard building practices, but be empowered to prosecute or raise alarm to the appropriate bodies, prosecution of defaulting client or professionals.
“The regulatory bodies will only succeed when the key implementation tools, the supervising and monitoring team, professional stand the grounds to ensure that all building constructions are in accordance with the laid down by-laws and procedures,” Alade explained.
Another fellow, Engr. Ganiyu Mustapha on his part faulted the non existence of legislation to check building constructions saying “No law exacted to build. People build without approvals. They build foundations and go as far as six floors without approval.
“In advanced country, you get your foundation approved before continuing with building,” he added.
Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) will begin compensating 278 residents of Thange valley in Kibwezi East Constituency of Kenya who were affected by oil spillage two years ago.
