Vanguard - Nigerians are set to face a nationwide electric blackout during the upcoming Christmas/New Year holidays.

According to a report from the Vanguard Newpapers, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), the institution responsible for managing electricity in the country has adviced citizens that “as a result of repeated vandalism caused of condensate pipelines by yet to be identified persons engaged in illegal bunkering, gas supply to power stations has been repeatedly disrupted and Egbin power station, the largest power station is losing about 800Mw, while other thermal stations are losing about 350Mw, totalling 1,150Mw reduction from the national grid”

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Naijawire - The IRIN online news recently posted an article about driving in Nigeria, insinuating that “one of the most dangerous things anyone can do in Nigeria is to get into a car”. Bad publicity as most of us may see this, there are several elements of truths in the article.

I recollect while still living in Nigeria, Ibadan to be specific, that most of the roads are terrible and hardly maintained. No one seems to care about road maintainance, and when the people in authority needs to grab some money into their pockets, multi-million naira bogus contracts are awarded but never executed.

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Houston TX - Former Vice President during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, may soon be indicted over the bribery scandal involving the American oil service company, Wilbros Group to secure contracts for the eastern gas gathering system (EGGS) in Nigeria. According to court papers from the US Southern District Court of Texas - Houston TX, and made available to the Nigerian high powered delegation led by the controversial Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN), Vice President Atiku was shown to have benefited up to the tune of $250, 000 USD (N30million) from the company.

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ThisDay (Abuja) - The Nigerian government has “vowed” to blacklist “non-performing contractors from further federal projects if they (contractors) continue to fail to deliver on assigned projects.

According to the Minister of Finance, Dr Shamsuddeen Usman, the finance ministry would restore its budget monitoring and evaluation machinery, with a view to checking the laxity and abuse by contractors and consultants. The minister warned erring contractors to perform according to contractual agreements or have their companies blacklisted from public projects permanently.

The Federal Minister further stated that the government policy will be changing under the Yar’Adua administration. Both the contractors and consultants will suffer the same fate for any uncompleted or abandoned project.

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As if this is something strange in Nigeria, a former executive of a large corporation in Nigeria, revealed how Government officials were bribed (I am still checking my dictionary for the true meaning of this word!) before winning contracts. Read on the story from the Nigerian tribune. It will be interesting to know how people respond to this…

A former executive of a Willbros Group subsidiary has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe government officials in Nigeria as part of a scheme to win a natural gas pipeline contract.

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