Maybach Music Group Presents “Self Made 2” In Stores Now

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Official Artwork for Rick Ross new single #HoldMeBack off “God Forgives, I Don’t” (Produced by G5). Premieres Today!! Official Artwork for Rick Ross new single #HoldMeBack

Official Artwork for Rick Ross new single #HoldMeBack off “God Forgives, I Don’t” (Produced by G5). Premieres Today!!

2012 BET Awards: Best and worst dressed on the red carpet

Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian, of all people, proved to be perhaps the best dressed at Sunday night's 2012 BET Awards. Kardashian isn't a bad dresser, but when the reality show star outshines red carpet all-stars like Beyonce, Kerry Washington and Taraji P. Henson, something is amiss.
Kardashian wore a white second-skin long-sleeved cocktail dress, all business in front but draped low in the rear, the back edged in gold zippers, with matching gold stilettos -- simple, sexy but edgy. Beau Kanye West also wore all white, and they made a striking pair. Beyonce, however, wore a one-sleeved Stephane Rolland gown in a too-shiny golden yellow with a clunky gold metal belt. The gown was slit up one side, with an embarrassment of fabric on the other -- so much so that Beyonce didn't seem to know what to do with when she went on stage to accept the award for best female R&B artist.
Washington, who almost always strikes a pose of old Hollywood glamour, stumbled in an ill-fitting nude bustier -- it actually looked like a foundation garment, and not in a fabulous way -- and too-short black skirt cinched with a weird belt. Henson wore a too-bright turquoise minidress overlaid at the top and bottom with tiny metal honeycomb -- it was an interesting look, but it didn't suit her at all. Regina King also gets dinged for pairing a serviceable silver strapless top with ugly-as-sin wide-legged turquoise pants in, heaven help me, chiffon.
And in other breaking news, Mariah Carey wore a dress that was two sizes too small.

Mariah Carey

Beyonce

Kerry Washington

Taraji P. Henson

Otedola sues Tambuwal, Lawan, others for N250bn

The $620,000 bribery scandal involving a federal legislator, Farouk Lawan and businessman, Femi Otedola, has entered a new phase with Otedola asking a court to order Lawan and three others to pay him N250bn in damages.

The suit coincides with petitions to the Inspector-General of Police by Lawan’s lawyers demanding a face-to-face confrontation between the lawmaker and the businessman.

The amount, Otedola says, will compensate him for the loss of patronage he has suffered as a result of an alleged intimidation by the National Assembly.

Listed as defendants in the suit number FCT /3839/2012 and filed on June 28, 2012 at the Abuja High Court, are Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal; the National Assembly and its Clerk.

There had been a raging scandal in which Otedola, who is the Chairman of Zenon Oil and Gas Limited, claimed that he paid $620,000 as bribe to Lawan, the suspended Chairman of the House Ad hoc Committee that probed the management of fuel subsidy regime in the country.

While Otedola said that he paid the bribe under pressure, Lawan claimed that he obtained the bribe in order to expose the businessman.

The businessman’s company which had been removed from the list of subsidy thieves on the request of Lawan has, however, been re-listed by the House following the outbreak of the bribery scandal.

Otedola, who is suing along with Zenon as the first plaintiff, said in his 28-paragraph statement of claim that the re-listing of Zenon on the list of indicted companies was an act of conspiracy.

He claimed that the alleged conspiracy by both Tambuwal and the National Assembly was calculated to embarrass him and his company.

In his statement of claim, Otedola states, “Notwithstanding the on-going Police investigations and the first defendant’s admission of receiving money from the second plaintiff, the second and fourth defendants conspired to relist the name of the first plaintiff to the list of indicted companies, to embarrass the plaintiffs and their corporate and business image.

“The plaintiffs shall contend at trial that the conspiracy by the second and fourth defendants (Tambuwal and the National Assembly respectively) to re-list the name of the first plaintiff on the list of companies indicted by the ad-hoc committee is without basis given that the committee’s finding was arrived at without proper verification of documents submitted by the plaintiffs to aid their enquiry.”

Otedola narrated how Lawan allegedly demanded $3m bribe in the course of the committee’s investigation and how he made several other intimidating calls that Zenon would be included on the list of indicted companies if he failed to comply.

He said the lawmaker did not relent in his demand for the bribe despite telling him that there was no basis for Zenon to be indicted by the committee.

He added that he later took to the advice of some unnamed security agencies which asked him to play along with Lawan.

He states further, “In the course of carrying out his assignment, the first defendant (Lawan) as head of the ad hoc committee set up by the second and third defendants contacted the second plaintiff (Otedola) and informed him that the first plaintiff ( Zenon) was going to be indicted by the ad hoc committee for purchasing foreign exchange from the Central Bank of Nigeria without importing petroleum products unless the plaintiff parted with a bribe of $3m.

“The first defendant continued to make harassing phone calls to the second plaintiff calculated at intimidating the plaintiffs to meet the unlawful demand of the first defendant for bribe

“The second plaintiff faced with the first defendant’s unrelenting barrage of intimidating calls became distressed and contacted the security agencies to report the first defendant’s conduct

“The plaintiffs were advised by the security agencies to play along and hand over marked notes to the first defendant and his cohorts for the purpose of gathering evidence of their nefarious activities.”

In the purported sting operation, Otedola states that out of the $620,000 bribe, $500,000 was taken personally by Lawan on April 24, and that $120,000 was handed over to the clerk of the committee, Boniface Emenalo.

He also says that he would produce “all call logs and audio-visual records of conversation and/or meetings” held with Lawan to prove his case.

He states, “On April 24, 2012, the sum of $500,00 was handed over to the first defendant by the second plaintiff.

“At the request of the first defendant, a further sum of $120, 000 was handed over to Boniface Emenalo by the second defendant.

“On the morning of the April 24, 2012, the first defendant persisted in making intimidating phone calls to the plaintiffs harassing them to pay up the balance of $2.380m.

“As a result of the distress caused to the plaintiffs by the first defendant’s persistent calls, the plaintiffs reported the matter to the police which invited the first defendant and the plaintiffs for investigations.”

Otedola, dissatisfied with the reappearance of Zenon on the list of indicted companies, has therefore made the claims against the defendants “jointly and severally”,

“The sum of N100 billion against the defendants as general damages for the acts of intimidation; loss of goodwill and patronage, occasioned by the acts of the defendants; and a separate “sum of N150 billion against the defendants as exemplary damages for their oppressive and arbitrary action.”

He states, “The action and conduct of the defendants were oppressive and arbitrary and thereby also resulting to the plaintiffs suffering substantial loss to their reputation, goodwill and business.”

Hearing date has not been fixed for the case and it has not been assigned to any judge.

In a reaction on Sunday, the House said that it was ready for Otedola and would assemble a legal team to meet him in court.

However, it clarified that no court summons had been served on it as at Sunday (yesterday).

The Chairman, House Committee on Media, Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, noted that as a Nigerian, Otedola was free to express his views or take action on any issues he strongly disapproves of.

“He is free to go to court; he is a Nigerian. We are ready for him and he will hear from us when we receive accourt summons.

“However, as we speak, I am not aware of any court action taken against the House. This is weekend; but he will hear from us when we get the summons”, Mohammed added.

BET Awards 2012: Chris Brown retiring? Arrested?

Much of the BET Awards show buzz from last night is about Chris Brown.At one point Twitter erupted with news that the singer had been arrested for weapons possession at the Shrine Auditorium. Speculation was that he was protecting himself against Drake, in the wake of their recent nightclub fight and apparent song diss.

But a rep for Brown was with him all night and told Gossip Cop there was no arrest. "Nothing of the sort happened." Drake didn't attend the show.
And did Brown did hint at wrapping up his career? The Los Angeles Times reports that when he accepted the award for best male R&B artist at the ceremony, he told the crowd that Fortune, his album due out Tuesday, will be his "last."
He said, "I'd like to thank Team Breezy, everybody who worked on any one of my albums. My last album that's coming out in two days… I just want to thank all my fans. It's dedicated to y'all. This one's for y'all; man, I appreciate everything."
But again, a rep has clarified that, saying he didn't mean it would be the last work, but rather his latest.

Outrage as NYSC posts graduates to Borno, others

National Youth Service Corps members

Corps members posted to Yobe, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Bornu and Bauchi states have asked the National Youth Service Corps to redeploy them from these trouble states.

The corps members, who expressed sadness as they received their call-up letters for the Batch B NYSC service year, said they were confused as they did not know what to do due to the spate of bombings and other forms of insecurity in these states.

Some of the corps members and their families, who expressed their worries on various social network sites including Facebook and Twitter, said they were extremely sad and disappointed when they received their call-up letters, deploying them to trouble states where there is currently curfew, threats of reprisals and censeless bombings.

Some of the comments on the social network sites read, “We need to arise and stop the government from sentencing us and our loved ones to death. Is our government/NYSC this heartless or simply inhumane? We seek our immediate redeployment, we want to live in places where we can work with peace of mind.’’

Our correspondents learnt that authorities of the NYSC had also been under pressure from parents and prospective corps members posted to northern states, who had been seeking alternative posting.

Our Correspondent learnt in Abuja on Sunday that the NYSC was already collaborating with the affected states on how to ensure security for the corps members posted to their states.

But speaking through the Borno State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Inuwa Bwala, in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Sunday, the Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, made a case for corps members to be posted to the state.

He argued that the security situation in the state was being exaggerated by detractors to further isolate the state from the rest of the country.

He said, “While it is true that we have security challenges, it is a fact that these challenges are not exclusive to Borno State.

“We don’t have on record any attack on visitors neither do we have any record of attacks on the NYSC camp or corps members posted to and currently serving in Borno State.”

THE BIG KEROSENE FRAUD: Depot owners buy at N41, sell @ N125

LAGOS — Nigerians have been forced to pay as much as N150/litre of kerosene instead of the government subsidised rate of N50 because the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, chose to sell kerosene to depot owners rather than retail outlet owners as required of it.
A Report by the Technical Committee on Payment of Fuel Subsidies, submitted to Mr President and exclusively obtained by Vanguard, revealed that the NNPC flouted the policy on its monopoly to import kerosene, which comes in as Dual Purpose Kerosene, DPK, at subsidized rate to serve the masses.
Rather than deliver the product to retail outlet owners so that it could benefit the masses for which it was being subsidized, the NNPC, instead, chose to sell it for patronage, or what the committee described as “rent” to depot owners.

The struggle to buy Kerosene, an household commodity for cooking, becomes more challenging even at a NNPC petrol Station in Lagos. Photo by Lamidi Bamidele

The depot owners who got the product at N40.90/L ex-depot price, in turn sold it to marketers and retail owners at between N115 and N125/L depending on the operator, a development that led to the masses buying the product at 300 per cent increase at N150/L instead of the recommended price of N50/L.
“The distribution of DPK which was being imported solely by NNPC was skewed in favour of depot owners who have no retail outlets. Two-thirds of the kerosene sold by NNPC between 2009 and 2011 was sold to depot owners and “middle men” who in turn sold the product to owners of retail outlets at inflated prices of between N115.00 and N125.00 per litre (compared to the ex depot price of N40.90), leaving consumers to pay higher prices than the N50.00 per litre directed by Government,” the report said.
It added: “For several years now, the country has been incurring huge subsidy bills for kerosene and its citizens are not receiving the benefit – instead the country has been financing “rent” for the middlemen.”
NNPC has many mega stations and retail outlets
MOMAN – is the Major Marketers Association of Nigeria, which members include Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc; Total Plc; MRS Oil Plc (formerly Chenron Oil Nigeria); Forte Oil Plc (Formerly AP); Oando Oil Plc; and Conoil Plc. The association controls nine per cent of retail outlets with 2,453 owned by members
IPMAN – Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, own in joint venture with Purebond of UK, the Nigerian Independent Petroleum Company, NIPCP Plc, and has about 23,026 member retail outlets to control 85 per cent of the retail market.
DAPPMA – Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association are the owners of the tank farms and petroleum storage facilities and only 403 member outlets and controls only four per cent of the market. Yet, they got between 60 and 70 per cent of the kerosene.
Further investigations revealed that because kerosene comes in as DPK, the depot owners preferred to divert the product for aviation turbine kerosene, ATK, or Jet A1, to reap higher profits from the product as opposed to selling it as House Hold Kerosene, HHK, which the masses rely on for domestic energy to cook their foods and light their lanterns.
Yet, the NNPC collected the sum of N331.55billion as kerosene subsidy for 2011 alone, when  hardly any Nigerian could buy the product at N50/L.
This has remained since 2009, a situation that led to the acute scarcity of kerosene for the greater part of the last three years.
The report, which revealed how oil marketers and petroleum dealers allegedly perfected series of fraud through products imports that led to the payment of over N2 trillion as subsidy claims in 2011 alone, also showed that in all the established cases of malfeasance, the regulatory agencies colluded with the concerned parties to boycott due process for the importation of the particular product.

NNPC flouted presidential directive

In the case of kerosene, the situation was so bad that late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, on June 15, 2009, ordered the NNPC to stop making further deductions as claims for subsidy on kerosene.
“In spite of a directive issued by President Yar’Adua on June 15, 2009 that NNPC should cease subsidy claims on kerosene, PPPRA resumed the processing of kerosene subsidy claims in June 2011 and NNPC resumed the deduction of kerosene subsidy claims to the tune of N331 ,547,318,068.06 in 2011,” the report revealed.
The report noted that: “The current lack of regulation (of subsidy claims) has led to NNPC’s introduction of practices that are not permitted or recognised by the current PSF guidelines that if unchecked by NNPC’s internal control mechanisms may allow for significant leakages.”

Checking fraud through forensic audit

To discontinue the criminalities, the committee called for a forensic audit of the NNPC’s subsidy payment process. This it said, is because “while the committee conducted detailed reviews of several aspects of the subsidy payment process, it noted that the process for NNPC is significantly more complicated than the process for the private sector and would require a thorough forensic audit.”
It therefore urged the Federal Government to “appoint consultants to carry out the forensic audit of the NNPC subsidy claim process. This is without prejudice to the committee’s recommendations on the process from its high level review.”
It further recommended that such audit should cover, among others:
*Funding for subsidy paid to NNPC
*Process for determination of products imported by NNPC
*Documentation for NNPC’s transactions for imported petroleum products
*Verification of documentation with NNPC’s suppliers and other agencies involved in the discharge of petroleum products – e.g. DPR, PPPRA, Government auditors, independent inspectors, e.t.c.
*Review of documentation submitted to PPPRA by NNPC
*Review of PPPRA’s certification process for NNPC subsidy claims
*Reconciliation of the deducted subsidy claims from the proceeds of crude oil sales by NNPC to the subsidy claims certified by PPPRA.

Committee’s recommendations.

Since the poor Nigerians were obviously not getting the benefit of the huge cost to the nation in kerosene subsidy, the committee further urged the federal government to also:  Allow both private importers who meet the eligibility requirements of the PSF guidelines and NNPC to import kerosene and pay kerosene subsidy under the PSF.  The role of private importers in the distribution of the product should be monitored properly by PPPRA and DPR. Eliminate the current financing of rent for a few by restricting NNPC’s local distribution to only groups that own significant retail outlets – i.e. MOMAN, IPMAN and NNPC Retail at the approved ex-depot price.
The Committee recommends that NNPC’s roles in the downstream petroleum industry be regulated appropriately by the existing regulatory agencies in the industry i.e. PPPRA and DPR.
The Committee recommends that:
*PPPRA must always regulate and determine the quantity of products to be imported by NNPC in line with its mandate and the current allocation process for NNPC. All importation of products by NNPC (within or outside PPPRA approved quotas) must be approved by PPPRA. A rigorous process of volume control that will facilitate identification of red flags will reduce malpractices in subsidy claims.
*That accounting best practices should be adopted by NNPC to enable separate audit trails of sales proceeds of imported and locally refined petroleum products and to determine the cost of domestic refining of petroleum products.
*That Government should always give documented and clear directives to avoid ambiguity, indiscretion and to encourage compliance. Given the significant financial impact of the NNPC subsidy process on the finances of the nation, appropriate steps should be taken by Government to document and legalise the process for NNPC’s subsidy claims in a transparent and unambiguous manner.
*That the relevant Government agencies such as PPPRA and DPR in line with their mandates as regulators and others such as the Ministry of National Planning, Federal Bureau of Statistics e.t.c. using the information at their disposal on locally refined, imported and stored volumes of petroleum products should be mandated by Government to continually determine the nations’ daily consumption levels of petroleum products independent of the industry operators.
*The allocation of kerosene directly to marketers with retail outlets, specifically IPMAN, MOMAN and NNPC Retail based on the strength of their retail outlets. This will ensure that the impact of the subsidy will be felt by the masses. In addition, the permit to import DPK should be liberalized to include the marketers who meet the eligibility criteria under the PSF guidelines and the subsidy regulated under the PSF scheme as currently obtains for PMS.
In the long run, the option of using cooking gas should be explored. It is expected that the cost of subsidising kerosene would be saved if more Nigerians embrace the use of LPG. In addition, the Committee is unable to recommend payment of subsidy claims on DPK in view of the extant presidential directive of June 15, 2009.

The Committee

It would be recalled that the idea of the Technical Committee on Subsidy was hatched on February 28, 2012, and was meant to “review outstanding claims for fuel subsidies,” as fallout of the stakeholders’ meeting of the downstream petroleum sector.
The meeting was chired by the Coordinating Minister of the Economy/Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okojo-Iweala, who constituted the 10-man committee on April 17, 2012, headed by the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Access Bank Plc, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.
The terms of reference included to authenticate the backlog of outstandingpayments of subsidy payments to marketers in 2011; verify the legitimacy of backlog of claims already submitted by marketers for 2011; and review any other pertinent issues that may rise from the exercise.
Other members included the Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Bright Okogu; Director General, Debt Management Office, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo; Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Jonah Otunla; Executive Secretary, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPRA, Mr. Reginald Stanley.
Others were the Group Executive Director, Finance and Accounts, NNPC; and representatives of the CBN, Bankers Committee as well as major and independent marketers.