Annulment of Oil Licences in Nigeria’s Upstream Petroleum Sector: A Legal Critique of the Costs and Benefits

Owing to various reasons, tenable and untenable, successive governments in Nigeria have annulled licenses duly granted to identifiable upstream petroleum operators. With due sense of circumspect, when irregularities manifest in the process and the grant of substantive licences, such does not vest in the government an unfettered right to annul the licence. There are evidences of such occurrence in spite of established procedures regulating annulments, commonly referred to as revocation or cancellation. This paper is a critique of the annulment of oil licenses and the associated contractualregulatory dimensions. The validity of the Federal Government’s actions also comes to the fore, particularly in the light of renewed drive to attract investments into the upstream sector. Thus, as some benefits are accruable to the players, it is also important to appraise the consequential costs attributable to undue annulment of oil licenses. The paper adopts a descriptive analytical method of available facts, expounds requisite statutory provisions and utilizes judicial precedents to highlight the context of the study. It is imperative that the Federal Government adheres to established procedures on oil license annulment, as a contrary posture will amount to several negative outcomes

Additional file 1: of A process for developing multisectoral strategies for zoonoses: the case of leptospirosis in Fiji

Reid et al. Leptospirosis in Fiji Supplementary appendix 1. Interview guide used as part for the process to develop a national strategy for leptospirosis in Fiji. (DOCX 14 kb

Model goodness of fit results for models of ELISA-positive leptospirosis cases per week reported in Fiji from 2007 to 2017.

The widely applicable information criterion (WAIC), the cross-validated (CV) mean logarithmic score and the likelihood ratio RLR2 statistic are shown for models of increasing complexity.</p

Definition of precipitation indicators defined and adapted from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices [38].

Definition of precipitation indicators defined and adapted from the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices [38].</p

Summary of the advantages and disadvantages of fitting a climate-driven statistical model to weekly and monthly surveillance data.

Summary of the advantages and disadvantages of fitting a climate-driven statistical model to weekly and monthly surveillance data.</p

Model goodness of fit results from the climatic indicators and lags included within the study.

Model goodness of fit results from the climatic indicators and lags included within the study.</p

Fig 1 -

A. Map of divisions within Fiji. The location of the three meteorological stations used are labelled (Laucala Bay, Nadi Airport and Labasa Airfield). B. Monthly reported leptospirosis cases by division between 2006 and 2017 in Fiji. Map created with Natural Earth (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/).</p

Model posterior estimates for models of ELISA-positive leptospirosis cases per week reported in Fiji from 2007 to 2017 by division.

Observed ELISA-positive cases (grey line), posterior model mean (green line) and 95% credible intervals (green shading) are shown for the best performing model which included total precipitation, minimum temperature and Niño 3.4. The random effect only model is shown as an orange dashed line.</p

Parameter estimates for explanatory variables for models of ELISA-positive leptospirosis cases per week reported in Fiji from 2007 to 2017 for all divisions (black) and separately by division.

Posterior mean and 95% credible intervals are shown for minimum temperature (lagged by one week), total precipitation from the previous six weeks (lagged by one week), and Niño 3.4 (lagged by four weeks).</p

Scabies and Impetigo Prevalence and Risk Factors in Fiji: A National Survey

<div><p>Background</p><p>Scabies is recognised as a major public health problem in many countries, and is responsible for significant morbidity due to secondary bacterial infection of the skin causing impetigo, abscesses and cellulitis, that can in turn lead to serious systemic complications such as septicaemia, kidney disease and, potentially, rheumatic heart disease. Despite the apparent burden of disease in many countries, there have been few large-scale surveys of scabies prevalence or risk factors. We undertook a population-based survey in Fiji of scabies and impetigo to evaluate the magnitude of the problem and inform public health strategies.</p><p>Methodology/Principal Findings</p><p>A total of 75 communities, including villages and settlements in both urban and rural areas, were randomly selected from 305 communities across the four administrative divisions, and all residents in each location were invited to participate in skin examination by trained personnel. The study enrolled 10,887 participants. The prevalence of scabies was 23.6%, and when adjusted for age structure and geographic location based on census data, the estimated national prevalence was 18.5%. The prevalence was highest in children aged five to nine years (43.7%), followed by children aged less than five (36.5%), and there was also an indication of prevalence increasing again in older age. The prevalence of scabies was twice as high in iTaukei (indigenous) Fijians compared to Indo-Fijians. The prevalence of impetigo was 19.6%, with a peak in children aged five to nine years (34.2%). Scabies was very strongly associated with impetigo, with an estimated 93% population attributable risk.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>As far as we are aware, this is the first national survey of scabies and impetigo ever conducted. We found that scabies occurs at high levels across all age groups, ethnicities, and geographical locations. Improved strategies are urgently needed to achieve control of scabies and its complications in endemic communities.</p></div