News
FG admits supply shortfall as cause of fuel scarcity
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, says the major cause of the fuel scarcity currently being witnessed across the country is shortfall in supply of petroleum products. This is contrary to earlier position of NNPC which said there was enough fuel for Nigerians through the festive period. NNPC position was perhaps a panic measure knowing what was on ground.
Kachikwu, has however said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was making efforts to ensure that queues at filling stations disappeared in a couple of days. “Presently, queues in Lagos have reduced. We know that Lagos, Abuja, Benue, Port Harcourt were among the worst-hit areas. Benue has been dealt with; Port Harcourt is quite moderated. Apart from these areas, other places in the country are probably liquid.
He said NNPC has initiated a three-pronged strategy to address the fuel crisis currently witnessed across the country, stating that the queues recorded in petrol stations would thin out before the end of the week. Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, identified the strategy to include stricter monitoring of supply and distribution by regulatory agencies in the petroleum industry, such as the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, and Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA. Federal Government, he added, was also considering additional trucking to major cities by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, using their strategic reserves from Suleja, Minna, Gusau and Gombe.
According to Kachikwu, the states to be fed with large quantity of the product, apart from Lagos, include Abuja, Kano, Sokoto axis and the North-east. The final strategy, he noted involves flooding the market with more products to cushion the effect of over-subscription and sharp practices through the Kaduna Refinery, which has started producing about 750,000 litres and the Port Harcourt refinery which would in the next one week commence the production of 2.1 million litres per day. He blamed the recent fuel crisis on the fact that the NNPC was the sole importer of the commodity over the last couple of months, due to the fact that other petroleum marketers had stopped importing the commodity, leaving the NNPC to fill in the gap.
“The major problem is the gap in terms of volume, because NNPC is the only one importing the product to the country,” he said. The minister assured that there was adequate storage facility for imported products, adding that emergency measures were in place to ensure that the products were available during the Yuletide and post-January. He said that four vessels laden with petroleum products would “berth in a few days and a total of 20 cargoes are also expected with petroleum products’’.
Kachikwu said that the NNPC had, as at Wednesday, discharged products at its depots, adding that emergency supply, quick truck delivery and stricter monitoring were measures adopted to ensure that queues disappeared. He added that NNPC would use additional trucking to major cities using strategic reserves from Suleja, Minna, Gusau and Gombe. This, he said, would help to service Abuja, Kano and Sokoto axis to feed the North-West, North-East.
“I have asked the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency to ensure stricter sanctions on any station that refuses to abide by the rules. They need to take a firm action to ensure that we get quick results,’’ he said.
Kachikwu further assured that the market would be flooded with more products to cushion effects of over-subscription through Kaduna refinery production, adding that Port Harcourt was expected to start producing 2.1 million litres of petrol per day. He said that it was expected that with the adopted strategies, the queues would “slide down’’ in one week. On long-term strategy, he said that ultimate result would come when the refineries resumed optimal production.
The minister said that work would commence effectively in the refineries in January.
Executive Secretary of DPR, Mr Modecai Ladan, said that many sanctions awaited filling stations found compromising the dispensing process, warning that the stations would be shut down or charged N275 per litre. He said that any station found hoarding products would either be sealed or its product auctioned or dispensed free-of-charge to consumers. Ladan added that depending on the offence, defaulters may be shut down for six months or blacklisted.
A new technology transfer agreement between the Nigeria–China Strategic Partnership (NCSP) and the Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer (PICTT) is expected to open more job opportunities, improve local skills, and expand access to advanced technology for ordinary Nigerians.
In a press statement reaching Vanguard on Friday, the MoU aims to strengthen industrial development, support local content, and create clearer pathways for Nigerians to benefit from China’s growing investments in the country.
PICTT Chairman, Dr Dahiru Mohammed, said the partnership will immediately begin coordinated programmes that support local participation in infrastructure and industrial projects.
Special Adviser to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr John Uwajumogu, said the deal will help attract high value investments that can stimulate job creation and strengthen Nigeria’s economy.
NCSP Head of International Relations, Ms Judy Melifonwu, highlighted that Nigerians stand to gain from expanded STEM scholarships, technical training, access to modern technology, and collaboration across key sectors including steel, agriculture, automobile parks, and cultural industries.
The NCSP Director-General reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to measurable results, noting that the partnership with PICTT will prioritise initiatives that deliver direct national impact.
The MoU signals a new phase of Nigeria–China cooperation focused on practical delivery, local content, and opportunities that improve everyday livelihoods.
EU regulators launched an antitrust investigation into Meta Platforms on Thursday over its rollout of artificial intelligence features in its WhatsApp messenger that would block rivals, hardening Europe’s already tough stance on Big Tech. The move, reported earlier by Reuters and the Financial Times, is the latest action by European Union regulators against large technology firms such as Amazon and Alphabet’s Google as the bloc seeks to balance support for the sector with efforts to curb its expanding influence.
Europe’s tough stance – a marked contrast to more lenient U.S. regulation – has sparked an industry pushback, particularly by U.S. tech titans, and led to criticism from the administration of U. S. President Donald Trump. The European Commission said that the investigation will look into Meta’s new policy that would limit other AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, a potential boost for its own Meta AI system integrated into the platform earlier this year.
EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said the move was to prevent dominant firms from “abusing their power to crowd out innovative competitors”. She added interim measures could be imposed to block Meta’s new WhatsApp AI policy rollout. “AI markets are booming in Europe and beyond,” she said. This is why we are investigating if Meta’s new policy might be illegal under competition rules, and whether we should act quickly to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space.”
A WhatsApp spokesperson called the claims “baseless”, adding that the emergence of chatbots on its platforms had put a “strain on our systems that they were not designed to support”, a reference to AI systems from other providers. “Still, the AI space is highly competitive and people have access to the services of their choice in any number of ways, including app stores, search engines, email services, partnership integrations, and operating systems.” The EU was the first in the world to establish a comprehensive legal framework for AI, setting out guardrails for AI systems and rules for certain high-risk applications in the AI Act.
Meta AI, a chatbot and virtual assistant, has been built into WhatsApp’s interface across European markets since March. The Commission said a new policy fully applicable from January 15, 2026, may block competing AI providers from reaching customers via the platform. Ribera said the probe came on the back of complaints from small AI developers about the WhatsApp policy. The Interaction Company of California, which has developed AI assistant Poke.com, has taken its grievance to the EU competition enforcer. Spanish AI startup Luzia has also talked to the Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder and CEO of The Interaction Company of California, said if Meta was allowed to roll out its new policy, “millions of European consumers will be deprived of the possibility of enjoying new and innovative AI assistants”. Meta also risks a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of breaching EU antitrust rules.
Italy’s antitrust watchdog opened a parallel investigation in July into allegations that Meta leveraged its market power by integrating an AI tool into WhatsApp, expanding the probe in November to examine whether Meta further abused its dominance by blocking rival AI chatbots from the messaging platform. The antitrust probe is a more traditional means of investigation than the EU’s Digital Markets Act, the bloc’s landmark legislation currently used to scrutinize Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud services for potential curbs. Reuters
The spouses and children of billionaires inherited more wealth in 2025 than in any previous year since reporting began in 2015, according to UBS’s Billionaire Ambitions Report published on Thursday. In the 12 months to April, 91 people became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298 billion, up more than a third from 2024, the Swiss bank said. “These heirs are proof of a multi-year wealth transfer that’s intensifying,” UBS executive Benjamin Cavalli said.
The report is based on a survey of some of UBS’s super-rich clients and a database that tracks the wealth of billionaires across 47 markets in all world regions. At least $5.9 trillion will be inherited by billionaire children over the next 15 years, the bank calculates.
Most of this inheritance growth is set to take place in the United States, with India, France, Germany and Switzerland next on the list, UBS estimated. However, billionaires are highly mobile, especially younger ones, which could change that picture, it added. The search for a better quality of life, geopolitical concerns and tax considerations are driving decisions to relocate, according to the report.
In Switzerland, where $206 billion will be inherited over the next 15 years according to the bank, voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected 50 per cent tax on inherited fortunes of $62 million or more, after critics said it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people.
Switzerland, the UAE, the U.S. and Singapore are among billionaires’ preferred destinations, UBS’s Cavalli said. “In Switzerland, Sunday’s vote may have helped to increase the country’s appeal again,” he said. Reuters
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