President of the Senate Ahmed Lawan has debunked reports suggesting that members of the National Assembly were bribed to the tune of $10 million to pass the three per cent allocation to host communities as stipulated in the Petroleum Industry Act.
Lawan told State House correspondents that he took exception to the spread of falsehood propagated to mislead the public.
He says he wants to take this opportunity to accept those kinds of unwarranted, unprovable, false and fake information being fed to the Nigerian public.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says that the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, and Nigeria’s gas initiatives, will transform the nation into a gas-based industrialized country.
He explained that they will create a better-managed petroleum industry with more value addition for both investors and Nigerians alike.
Prof. Osinbajo says the main goal of the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill and the gas initiatives aforementioned are to transform Nigeria not only into a gas-based industrialized nation through enhanced accelerated gas revolution.
He says locally, they launch into the brave new world for the oil and gas industry with the Petroleum Industry Act 2021.

Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo has denied any interest in the 2023 election.
A statement by his media aide, Laolu Akande says his principal is rather focused on working in his capacity as the Vice President to address the various challenges facing the country, including finding effective and lasting solutions to the security challenges and working to further boost the economy.
The statement says the Office of the Vice President is not in any way connected with the distribution and deployment of any 2023 political posters whether on the streets or in online videos, banners and the like on social media.

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment says the Abuja Division of the National Industrial Court has ordered the National Association of Resident Doctors to suspend its ongoing nationwide strike.
This followed an ex-parte motion filed on Friday last week by the Federal Ministry of Health, seeking an order of interlocutory injunction restraining members of NARD from further continuing the industrial action pending the determination of the substantive suit.
The health ministry stated that the strike which began on August 2 was contrary to Section 41 of the Trade Dispute Act.

US President Joe Biden has pledged his unwavering commitment to getting US citizens and at-risk Afghans out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan but warned of hurdles ahead, including the threat of an attack from the ISIL-affiliated Islamic State in the Khorasan Province.
He says he has directed the US Department of State to contact Americans stranded in Afghanistan by phone, email and other means and that Washington had a plan to move them to the airport.
Biden says the evacuation of thousands from Kabul is going to be hard and painful and would have been no matter when it began.

Ethiopia says it plans to develop its own social media platforms after accusing global companies like Facebook of acting against the interests of the country.
The director of the government’s Information Network Security Agency, Shumete Gizaw, says that Facebook and Twitter had become instruments for political forces.
He criticised the fact that some accounts had been blocked and content removed.
Mr Shumete also said Ethiopia was developing platforms that can substitute the messaging programme WhatsApp and the video conferencing platform Zoom.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has lauded the enthusiasm of the youth for Covid-19 jabs after the country expanded its vaccination programme.
The president says more than 500,000 youth registered on Friday when vaccination became available for 18-34-year-olds.
Mr Ramaphosa says he was impressed watching videos of young people queuing for vaccines and interviews of them explaining the benefits of receiving the jab.
He says the group has good information and should convince all adults to get vaccinated.
South Africa has so far administered 10 million doses of either the J&J or Pfizer vaccine.

Minister of State for Health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora, says the menace of drug abuse has reached an alarming proportion in the country and there is a need for a concerted effort by all Nigerians to tackle the problem.
Momora says the prevalence of drug usage in Nigeria stood at 14.4 per cent, which was estimated at 14.3 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 years.
The minister says the figure was about three times more than the 2017 global prevalence of 5.6 per cent among the adult population.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive, Jaiz Bank Plc, Mr Hassan Usman, says that the federal government utilised Islamic financing instruments, particularly the Sukuk, to raise over N350 billion within the past three years to execute road projects across the country.
Usman says that the bank has been able to expand credit to the real sector of the economy, financing Small and Medium Enterprises as well as working with women, vulnerable groups and those at the bottom of the pyramid to deepen financial inclusion.
The Jaiz Bank boss says the banks have the traditional mandate to engage in forex transactions.
He pointed out however that the apex bank in a bid to bring forex services closer to customers decided to use the BDCs, a privilege that had been abused.

Human Rights Activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana has faulted the Presidency’s approval to review grazing reserves in 25 states in the country.
Falana says the country has gone beyond the stage of looking for grazing routes adding that the President cannot be talking of looking for grazing routes in 2021, Nigeria.
He says the Northern Governor Forum, the Southern Governors Forum, and even the Miyetti Allah group have all come to a conclusion that open grazing is obsolete.