'Nigeria's oil will be useless in 20 years,' -Osinbajo

                                   

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said Nigeria must move fast to diversify its economy else it will end in regret.

He said the days of crude oil as Nigeria's major source of revenue are numbered.

"We must be smart and act intelligently and fast," he said.

The vice president stated this on Monday, January 16, in when he visited Gbaramatu kingdom in Delta State as part of his peace mission to the Niger Delta region.

After meeting behind closed doors with leaders of Gbaramatu at the palace of the Pere of Gbaramatu kingdom, Oboro Gbaraun II Aketekpe, Osinbajo while speaking to a large crowd told the people that the future of the oil industry is full of enormous challenges.

He said: "In another 20 to 30 years, our oil won’t be as precious as it is today and that is reality? America has stopped buying oil from us. All the countries of Asia that buy oil from us are building alternative means of power, China and Japan are developing electric cars. In fact, Japan has more charging stations than petrol stations. Solar power is getting cheaper.

"The Niger Delta of today is one where aside environmental degradation, between 1998 and 2015, over 20,000 persons have died from fire incidents arising from breaching of the pipelines.

"To prepare for a great future for the Gbaramatu kingdom, three things must happen: we must recognise the unique environmental challenges the Niger Delta is facing, we must also recognise that the Niger Delta is a special economic zone for this nation so we must treat it as a special development zone."

According to him, this means that the federal and state governments as well as the National Assembly, NDDC and civil societies representing Niger Delta must come together on a round table and map out a strategy for rapid development.

"There is no excuse for not planning together. The federal government cannot solve the problem of Niger Delta. It is impossible for the FG to do it alone. The state should devote a substantial portion of its budget to this special project," the Vice President said.

Source:Pulse Ng

German court rules against Nazi-style party ban

                                 

Germany’s top court has confirmed that the country’s far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) adheres to policies similar to those of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, but ruled against banning the political group.

Germany’s 16 federal states had taken action to outlaw the NPD amid growing anti-immigrant sentiments in the country. The country’s intelligence agency described the far-right party, which has 500 members, as racist and anti-Semitic.

The court said the NDP’s aims are in violation of the constitution, but ruled that there is not enough evidence suggesting the party would wield power.

“The NPD intends to replace the existing constitutional system with an authoritarian national state that adheres to the idea of an ethnically defined 'people's community’. However, currently there is a lack of specific and weighty indications suggesting that this endeavor will be successful,” the court ruling said.

“It appears to be entirely impossible that the NPD will succeed in achieving its aims by parliamentary or extra-parliamentary democratic means,” the ruling added.

So far, the NPD has failed to win seats in the federal parliament and it lost its last seat in a regional assembly in September. The party, however, is represented on local councils and it won a seat in the European Parliament in 2014.

Several senior NPD officials have been convicted of denying the Holocaust but the party denies any involvement in acts of violence.

“Identification with leading personalities of the (Nazi) party, the use of selected National Socialist vocabulary, texts, songs and symbols, as well as revisionist statements with regard to history demonstrate an affinity ... with the mindset of National Socialism,” the ruling read.

Some politicians argue that the country should not legitimize the NPD by allowing it to exist, but others oppose a ban as a counterproductive measure which merely pushes its members to turn to underground activities.

Since the World War II, Germany has banned two political parties, including the Socialist Reich Party, a successor to Hitler’s Nazis, in 1952, and the Communist Party in 1956 in West Germany.