By Eric Nnaji [update] FILE PHOTO: Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen on the field before Super Bowl XLVIII against the Denver Broncos at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S., February 2, 2014. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas/File Photo. Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen, the man who persuaded school-friend Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard to start what became the world’s biggest software company, died on Monday at the age of 65, his family said. Allen left Microsoft in 1983, before the company became a corporate juggernaut, following a dispute with Gates, but his share of their original partnership allowed him to spend the rest of his life and billions of dollars on yachts, art, rock music, sports teams, brain research and real estate. Allen died from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, the Allen family said in a statement. In early October, Allen had revealed he was being treated for the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ...
ON APRIL 20, 2018 6:29 AM
By Davies Iheamnachor
PORT HAR-COURT— Concerned
residents of Rivers State under the aegis of Stop-the-Soot Campaign and Civil
Liberties Organisation, CLO, in the state have staged a protest in Port
Harcourt, seeking an end to the soot that is ravaging the state.
The
protesters, who marched to the Rivers State Government House and the
state House of Assembly told the state governor, Mr Nyesom Wike, that residents
of the state need clean air to breathe.
Presenting a 12-point protest letter to
the state government, the leader of Stop-the-Soot Campaign, Tunde Bello, urged
the state government to prioritise the issue of environment cleanliness.
Bello
said: “The concerned citizens of Rivers State under the aegis of Stop-the-Soot
Campaign and Civil Liberty Organisations have few demands about the soot that
has ravaged the state. “We want His Excellency and the state government to
prioritise the environment and draw up a supplementary budget for the Ministry
of Environment. This is because of the soot. We want the state government
to conduct an environmental audit of communities that have oil and operation
going on in their areas.
“We want the Rivers State Government and the governor
to act and become the reservoir of environmental data of Rivers State.
“We want
Wike and the state government to compel the local governments to implement
sanitation laws in their domains. We want the state government and governor to
make the local governments to use their security votes to monitor environmental
issues.
“We want the state governor and government to make the local
governments and other stakeholders to start a street by street health campaign
and awareness on the health issue.
“We want Wike and the government to lead a
bi-partisan campaign on behalf of the state and its citizens, the state and
National Assemblies to change the rules governing the issue of environment and
ensure the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Bill on environment.
“As a
matter of urgency and importance, we want the state government to provide
daily air quality readings to the citizens as the oil companies are doing to
their staff. We want the Rivers State Government to collaborate with the
Nigerian Medical Association to compile and make public the health of the
citizens and the cause of deaths.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Ipilibo Banigo, the Deputy
Governor of the state, who received the protest letter on behalf of the state
government, promised that the letter would be forwarded to the governor for
immediate attention. Banigo said: “I have received your write up and request
directed to Governor Wike. I want to tell you that I will present it to
the governor and assure you that your request will be looked into.
“The
environment cannot be politicised. We want to tell you that the agencies that
are flaring this obnoxious thing are directly under the control of the Federal
Government. . The FG owns the refineries that flare gas and the security
agencies that have been using uncivilised methods to destroy bunkering. “For us
as a responsible government, we will always collaborate with the Federal
Government to see that matter concerning environment are taking seriously. Let
us also advice our people in the creeks to shun illegal refining.”
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