President Muhammadu Buhari called on the operators of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry to search for more efficient ways of exploiting the commodity to reduce the cost of production per barrel.He says that although Nigeria is observing the trend in the global movement toward renewables, he is optimistic that oil would remain relevant in the coming years.He says his administration’s drive for the discovery of more reserves and ramping up oil production is irrevocable.He stated that his administration has demonstrated commitment to the overhauling of the oil and gas industry to make it fit for the future.The president says the accelerated and unprecedented oil demand disruption and the supply glut that generated the crisis in the global economy had presented both challenges and opportunities.

Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, rejected the secession agitation by some groups in the South-west and ruled out the break-up of Nigeria.He urged the over 200 million Nigerians to utilise the numerical strength and the beauty of the diversity of the country to foster economic prosperity and political stability.He argued that it is important for fairness and equity to take their rightful places in the governance of the country so that no group is aggrieved or feels sidelined in the running of the country.Sanwo-Olu says he remained committed to one united and prosperous Nigeria where fairness and equal distribution of resources are the order of the day.

The federal government’s suspension of Twitter might have left both in a catch-22 situation as the duo has lost millions of followers that they had built for more than half a decade.The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had last week announced the suspension of Twitter after the firm deleted some aspects of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet, which the company found to be in breach of its rules.Muhammed added an extra reason for the act, saying the temporary prohibition of the internet platform was a response to the firm’s persistent violation of the nation’s national security interest.However, many Nigerians have circumvented the federal government’s blockage of the micro-blogging facility, resorting to the virtual private network to connect Twitter.

Staff members of a Brazilian Senate inquiry into the country’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic have called for the upcoming Copa America football tournament to be postponed, citing low vaccination rates and the risks of spreading the virus.The Senate commission staffers say only 10.77 per cent of the population had received first doses of coronavirus vaccines as of Friday across Brazil.The staffers say Brazil does not offer sanitary security for holding an international tournament of this magnitude. In addition to transmitting a false sense of security and normality, opposite to the reality that Brazilians are living, it would encourage agglomerations of people and set a bad example.

There is growing public support among the world’s scientific community for fully exploring the possibility the coronavirus may have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.Observers say the hypothesis became perniciously intertwined with the administration of former US President Donald Trump’s inflammatory anti-China rhetoric and xenophobic framing of the pandemic, causing an apparent chilling effect among the scientific community.J Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera that the question of whether a lab accident was the origin got stuck in this hyper-politicised context.He says when Trump was instrumentalising the issue as part of an anti-China and anti-Asia campaign, people didn’t want to associate with that so they kept their distance.

Namibia says the deal agreed with Germany for €1.1bn in aid following the colonial-era genocide is not enough but it would revisit and renegotiate as funding is rolled out.A week ago Germany issued a long-awaited apology for the murder of tens of thousands of Herero and Nama people.Germany's apology resulted from the first negotiations of their kind by a former colonial power.Campaigners say the impact of the atrocities endured and the return of ancestral lands that were confiscated.There are also calls for compensation to made directly to the victims' descendants, for fear the money won't reach those for whom it's intended.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has shut down schools and suspended public gatherings as the country faces a surge of infections in a second Covid-19 wave.Public transport between districts will be banned starting Thursday to allow students who are in schools to return home.Bars, cinemas and theatres have also been closed.The suspension of schools and gatherings takes effect from Monday and will be in place for 42 days.A rise in coronavirus cases was reported two weeks ago and officials mulled over a lockdown to prevent health facilities from being overwhelmed.

Colonel Assimi Goïta is being sworn in as Mali’s interim president on Monday.It’s a fortnight since he removed the transitional president and prime minister in a coup - the second he’s engineered in nine months.Ecowas, joined the African Union in suspending Mali's membership, calling on the military government to adhere to an 18-month transition towards presidential elections in February.France and other Western powers also want a return to civilian rule.Mali is key to the stability of the Sahel region that’s beset by a jihadist insurgency.

A former Governor of Sokoto State, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, kicked against the growing discussions and tensions surrounding the zoning of the presidency to any part of the country, describing it as ill-timed.Bafarawa says that the agitations were getting increasingly strident, noting that it is a misplaced priority given the problems besetting the country.He stated that it was high time politicians toned down such political issues and concentrated on good governance so that the country would eventually have peace.He advised all politicians across the political, tribal and regional divides to come together for the common good of the country.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is been affected by the under-recovery of petroleum-price and it may have begun to affect its operations as the national oil company failed to fund six of its scheduled projects in April.NNPC is also to team up with the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Department of Petroleum Resources to sign an agreement on a framework to ensure greater transparency in the oil and gas industry.The funding performance from January to April, contained in the corporation’s presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee in May, showed that the gas infrastructure development, frontier exploration services and renewable energy development received zero allocation for the month.The data indicated that with the underfunding of the projects, variance in terms of actual budget and actual funding for five of the projects stood at N26.236 billion.