General
Ambode Desecrated Office of Governor Attacking Me—Sanwo-Olu
By Dipo Olowookere
The main challenger for the Lagos State governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary today, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has described the attack on his person by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday at a world press conference in Ikeja, the state capital, as unfortunate.
The Governor had alleged that Mr Sanwo-Olu, who has the support of various party stakeholders in the state, was not fit to govern Lagos State.
According to Mr Ambode, his challenger was once arrested in the United States for spending fake American Dollars at a night club and had allegedly been admitted at the Gbagada General Hospital in Lagos for rehabilitation.
“His records are there at Gbagada General Hospital,” the Governor had said, stressing that Mr Sanwo-Olu “does not have the competence to do what he is being propelled to do.”
But reacting to the allegations, Mr Sanwo-Olu said the Governor must have uttered those words under tension.
“I felt sad for Lagos as I watched press conference by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode. Many things he said were beneath the dignity of our people and the exalted office he now holds.
“Perhaps the tension and anxiety of the moment got the better of him. If given a chance at cooler reflection of what he said, I am sure he would regret his descent into such low conduct.
“In this vein, I forgive him and hope he regains his balance and proper comportment no matter the outcome of tomorrow’s contest. After all, we are both here to improve Lagos not to wrestle in its streets.
“Let it be heard by all that I hold the people of Lagos State with great respect and affection. Their welfare is my utmost concern and it is what drives my pursuit for the governorship nomination of the APC.
“As such, I also hold the office of Governor of our state in high esteem. I shall never consciously do anything that will undermine the dignity of the office nor will I engage in personal attacks against the holder of that officer.
“My pursuit of office will continue to be based upon issues that matter to Lagosians and not on attacks against someone’s character, even when he attacks mine. For anyone to engage in unwarranted character attacks against me, [it] reveals more about that person’s character than it says about mine.
“However, I must clear up some inaccuracies in the Governor’s statement. His allegation of that I was arrested for spending fake dollars at a night club in the United States is untrue. In fact, the Governor knows I travelled to the United States just last month. I would not have been allowed to travel or even get a visa if I had been involved in what the Governor falsely alleged.
“That the Governor claimed I underwent some unidentified type of ‘rehabilitation’ at the Gbagada General Hospital is also shameless and untrue. Promulgation of salacious rumour should not be part of the job description of a governor. This is not the stuff of high office.
“People should question whether it is ethically right for the Governor to turn what should be confidential medical information about a citizen into a weapon of political warfare. But for avoidance of doubt, let it be stated that I never received any treatment whatsoever at the Gbagada General Hospital.
“Today, instead of making a convincing defence of his performance, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode sought to sow fear into the hearts of Lagosians. But Lagosians are an intelligent and brave people. They can see through the smoke and the fog.
“I am here not to tear my opponent down but to help build Lagos up. With me, you will hear about progress on education, health, sanitation, proper tax levels, economic development, infrastructure, jobs, public services and other things that enhance the lives of people.
“I am a serious person and this primary is a serious matter. I have not the time or inclination to attack character when there are so many real issues to address. We will continue to focus on the issues that matter in the lives of the people of Lagos. Lagosians want an answer to the sanitation crisis cast loss of jobs caused by Mr Ambode’s Visionscape misadventure.
“Our people will want to know why Mr Akinwunmi Ambode has not been able to build a single General Hospital in the State when his immediate predecessor Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) built 11 General Hospitals. Lagosians are waiting to hear what our solutions are. They want to know why hundreds of competent civil servants got summarily dismissed and how this has undermined public services.
“As a candidate for the party’s nomination and hopefully as your next governor, my approach will not be to sling insults but to propose solutions to the problems of the day,” Mr Sanwo-Olu said.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The new interim board of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KAEDC) has been inaugurated by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
The body was inaugurated by the regulator on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, pursuant to its intervention order issued recently.
NERC had, through Order No. NERC/2026/08, dissolved the board of directors of KAEDC following repeated failures to meet market obligations and other prescribed performance indices.
It subsequently constituted a five-member interim board of Special Directors, chaired by Mr Abdullahi Garba, for an initial period of one year, alongside an interim administrator, Mr Abubakar Umar Hashidu, appointed for an initial six-month period, to drive the reset of the distribution company.
The new team has been tasked to restore sanity into the energy distribution firm and deliver quality service to consumers within its franchise area.
It was gathered that shortly after the inauguration at midweek, a joint delegation of NERC, the newly inaugurated board, KAEDC’s management and staff paid a courtesy visit to the headquarters of One Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna.
At the military facility, the delegation was received by the General Officer Commanding and senior officers of the Division.
Thereafter, the team visited the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna, where the Commandant and principal officers of the military institution received them with open arms.
At both visits, discussions centred on ways to collaborate for better efficiency.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The chief executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, has lamented the decline in Nigeria’s technical and commercial talent pipeline.
She canvassed for the rebuilding of the critical talent needs as renewed investment returns to the country’s energy sector after years of underinvestment.
According to her, Nigeria is facing a depleted pool of geoscientists, petroleum engineers and other critical technical professionals, largely as a result of a drop in investments that saw many capable hands jump ship.
She emphasised that Nigeria’s annual oil and gas investment, which stood at about $24 billion in 2014, had fallen to roughly $2 billion by 2023, representing a decline of more than 90 per cent over the period.
Mrs Eyesan, therefore, warned that the country could face a new constraint if investment accelerates faster than the development of the technical workforce required to execute complex upstream projects.
She said the prolonged investment contraction did not only affect capital spending and exploration activity but also triggered a corresponding erosion of human capital, with geoscientists among the first professionals to leave the industry when companies began cutting budgets.
Mrs Eyesan made the remarks during a panel session on Local Content & Human Capital under PIA 2021 & NOGICD, held on the second day of the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) Human Capacity Development Conference and Expo at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State.
According to her, petroleum engineers were subsequently affected as the downturn deepened, with some made redundant while others were increasingly restricted to maintenance functions as operators moved from expansion to survival.
The official said the industry is now moving in the positive direction, with renewed investment and project development creating an urgent requirement for a new generation of highly specialised professionals.
The shift on her part is particularly significant following President Bola Tinubu’s Deep Offshore Oil and Gas Projects Incentives (Tax Remission) Order, 2026, signed on August 6, providing production tax credits for qualifying deep offshore project developments and is designed to improve the economics of projects reaching Final Investment Decision (FID) within the specified window.
Mrs Eyesan therefore warned that the country could face a new constraint if investment accelerates faster than the development of the technical workforce required to execute complex upstream projects.
The NUPRC boss had previously identified the skills deficit as a major consequence of the prolonged reduction in exploration activity, particularly affecting geologists.
She said renewed investment following the Petroleum Industry Act and business-oriented initiatives of the Tinubu administration was beginning to revive exploration, but warned that human capacity remained a major challenge.
Mrs Eyesan said Nigeria could no longer prepare oil and gas professionals using curricula designed primarily for an earlier generation of petroleum operations.
She identified digitised operations, advanced geoscience, digital twins and digital drilling technologies among the competencies that should now form part of the industry’s core workforce development strategy.
She disclosed that the transformation is significant because modern upstream projects increasingly depend on the ability to integrate subsurface data, real-time field information, automation, modelling and advanced analytics into investment and operational decisions.
For Nigeria, she said, the implication is that training institutions, operators, regulators and academia must move beyond simply replacing workers lost during the downturn.
They must build a workforce capable of operating the digital oilfield of the next investment cycle.
She said, “Training curricula need to evolve,” cautioning that Nigeria was still behind where it needed to be in developing the competencies required by a rapidly changing industry.
Mrs Eyesan also linked human capital development directly to Nigeria’s competitiveness for investment.
Using the analogy that capital behaves like water and flows towards areas of least resistance, she argued that Nigeria’s workforce must become more commercially oriented if the country is to capture greater value from the next wave of oil and gas investment.
She further explained that technical professionals increasingly need to understand the commercial consequences of their decisions, while commercial professionals need sufficient technical understanding to operate effectively within increasingly complex energy projects.
Mrs Eyesan further called for a fundamental change in how Nigeria approaches human capacity development, urging operators, regulators and training institutions to work more closely with universities and other academic institutions to establish a clear pathway for closing the existing skills gap.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr Tony Elumelu, expressed his displeasure over the way he was addressed by one of the company’s graduate trainees at an interactive session in a viral video.
The financial institution organised a Graduate Management Accelerated Programme graduation ceremony on Thursday, and the former banker was in attendance.
During a question-and-answer session, one of the graduating trainees stood and called Mr Elumelu by his first name, Tony.
“Good morning, Tony,” she said.
Mr Elumelu initially thought the lady meant to say Toyin, but she repeated “Good morning, Tony,” a development the UBA chairman was not happy about.
He quickly responded by saying, “No, you won’t call me Tony. You’ll call me Mr Elumelu or TOE. You won’t call me Tony, or Chairman. I don’t subscribe to that kind of… Oyinbo life, okay?”
Though without offering any apology for the error, the female graduate trainee subsequently corrected herself, saying, “Good morning, Mr Elumelu,” before proceeding with her question.
The video clip from the event has already generated mixed reactions, with many happy that the business mogul quickly rebuffed the lady.
They described her as rude, fearing she could lose her job for being disrespectful to the chairman of the organisation.
However, some others said calling colleagues by their first names in a corporate ecosystem is not new, as such happens in the banking sector.
