House of Representative speaker elected

Ibrahim Salisu Buhari was elected speaker of the Nigerian National Assembly House of Representatives on Thursday, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) reported. Chibodo Uche from Rivers State was elected deputy speaker, NTA said. Meanwhile, the loser in February’s presidential election, Olu Falae, has finally congratulated his former rival, President Olusegun Obasanjo, after accusing Obasanjo’s party officials of fraud during the polls, AFP reported. Falae placed an advertisement in the newspapers in which he congratulated Obasanjo, his vice president, Abubakar Atku, the 36 state governors and the public. Falai and Obasanjo were imprisoned between 1993 and 1998 by Abacha’s administration. In another development on Thursday, officials said contracts to lift crude oil were unlikely to be affected by Obasanjo’s suspension of deals made since 1 January. “Most of the crude marketing contracts were signed last year,” Reuters quoted an unnamed senior official as saying. Oil accounts for most of Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves, which fell from US $7.1 billion in January to US $3.75 billion by the end of May, Obasanjo said, quoted by AFP. He was speaking on Friday at the first joint sitting of both houses of the National Assembly.