The Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange yesterday suspended the shares of African Petroleum, Conoil and 53 other quoted companies from being traded on the floor of the market, while seven others were placed on watch list.

The Federal Government yesterday failed to produce in court the six suspects in the much-publicised $180 million Halliburton bribery scandal, prompting a Federal High Court to return the case to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court for re-assignment.

In another avoidable accident, no fewer than 10 people were feared dead in Lagos State on Tuesday after a fuel tanker truck loaded rammed into other vehicles, causing an inferno. The fire also consumed about 23 vehicles at Adodo junction by Mowo bus stop, Badagry.

Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka is angry over Monday’s ‘removal’ of Hon. Tunji Egbetokun as Speaker of the Ogun State House of Assembly and the purported suspension of 14 members by nine legislators. It must not be allowed to stand, he said yesterday.

The sacked former director-general of theProfessor Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke has rendered an account of her stewardship at the Exchange.

THE Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday approved the merger of Dangote Cement Plc and Benue Cement Company Plc (BCC). The merger of the companies, which are subsidiaries of Dangote Group, will result in the listing of Dangote Cement with a valuation of N2.13 trillion on the Exchange which is about the valuation of the combined total market capitalisation of all the 23 listed banks.

Work has begun on the Port Harcourt Monorail project introduced by the Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi-led administration in Rivers State. N11 billion has already been released as part of the state government’s equity for the construction of the monorail which is been built under a public private partnership arrangement.

A yet-to-be ascertained  number of people were yesterday feared killed in a  fierce exchange of  firepower between suspected members of the dreaded Iselin fundamentalists, Boko-Haram when they stormed Bauchi prisons with the intention of setting free some of their members awaiting trial following last year’s sectarian crisis which clamed many lives and properties.