Thursday, December 15th, 2022 Edition

he Federal Government says it is set to convert all the waste from slaughtered animals in abattoir to wealth in in the country.

The Registrar, Environmental Health Council of Nigeria (EHCN), Dr Yakubu Baba, made the commitment in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

Baba said that the efforts would not only improve the cleanliness and healthier environment in the abattoir markets but would as well provide manure to farmers in the country.

According to him, the council is coming up with public health solution, whereby all the wastes in the abattoir will be converted into wealth by providing manure to our farmers.

“The council wants to ensure that wastes that come out of any slaughtered animal will no longer be wasteful, rather such wastes will be converted into manure and the manure will be sold to our farmers.

“The solid that will come out from the biogas digester is a manure that can be packaged and sold to farmers.

“The liquid content also will be bottled as a liquid fertiliser and sold to the farmers as well.

“The environmental health officials are working towards going into the market introducing the system to the people. So, it’s a

win win situation,” he said.

Baba explained that the biogas is an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source, adding that it’s produced as organic matter, such as food or animal waste.

He said that the liquid and the solid wastes from the slaughtered animals were being converted into a biogas digester, which would eventually, digest the wastes into a byproduct.

According to him, by-product is something which is produced during the manufacture or processing of another product.

He said that the biogas is part of the modern system of building the abattoir markets into global standard, by ensuring that the markets are environmentally friendly.

He said that butchers operating in the abattoir are using tires to smoke the slaughtered animals, thereby causing increase in air pollution and climate change in the areas.

He said that the introduction of biogas system would help to mitigate the effect of climate change and provide solution to gas flaring at the abattoirs.

“The council have noticed that there is a lot of air pollution because the butchers are using tires to smoke the slaughtered animals.

“Now, we decided to conduct our research in various abattoirs and discovered that tires are

FG set to convert abattoir waste to wealth 2023: Niger youths endorse Tinubu

carcinogenic and after using them to smoke the animals, they have residual effects on the meat.

“This carcinogen is a substance, organism or agent capable of causing cancer, it may occur naturally in the environment.

“This means that the residues will remain in the meat which could possibly leads to increase in cancer in our body system.

“So, the council is putting every effort to ensure that all these system that are not healthy and safe stop and we make sure the modern abattoir we are constructing is environmental friendly to everyone and even to the animals,” he said.

The Registrar said that the council will ensure that the issue of sanitation in abattoirs and even in other markets improved in the country.

He said that the Federal Government had provided strategies and preventive measures to ensure that environmental programmes and policies are implemented effectively.

He urged the state and local governments to embrace the strategies and programmes provided by ensuring that abattoir markets and the environments are healthy and safe.

“It is the responsibility of the state and local governments to buy or key into our ideas and programmes by ensuring that such ideas are implemented at their levels.” (NAN)

Entering

A

From Yakubu Mustapha Minna

iger state youths have endorsed Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the next President of the country.

large crowd of people came out as early as 8 am to enter into

the trade fair complex, the venue for the campaign rally.

into the arena, there were large crowd of people with various groups holding posters endorsing Tinubu, Shettimma and the APC governorship candidate, Honorable Umar

Bago. Addressing the people, Tinubu urged the people to come out enmasse to vote APC.

The APC Presidential candidate was accompanied by his running mate, Senator Ibrahim Kashim Shittimma, the

Senate President, Ahmed Lawal, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger state, the APC Niger state Governorship candidate, Umar Bago, former APC Chairman, Adams Oshomole, some state Governors and Federal Lawmakers.

L-R; Minister of Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Sen. Adeleke Olorunnimbe Mamora, Minister of State for Science, Technology and Innovation, Chief Henry Ikechukwu Ikoh and the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Mrs. Monilola Udoh (right) during the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration Score Card (2015 – 2023) on Science , Technology and Innovation Sector in Abuja. Photo-: Justin Imo-owo

TETFund set to replicate innovation hubs projects in tertiary institutions

By Maryam Abeeb

TheExecutive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, has expressed the readiness of the Fund to replicate innovation hubs projects in public universities and other higher education institutions in the country.

Echono, made this known at the opening of TETFund Alliance for Innovative Research (TETFAIR) initiative in Abuja.

The TETFund boss, who said the TETFAIR programme was put in place in collaboration with Innov8 Hub, revealed that the move was part of efforts to institutionalise Research and Development (R&D) in Nigeria.

“The TETFAIR programme is being conducted by TETFund in collaboration with Innov8 Technology Hub, a firm championing the advancement of Science and Technology Education in Nigeria.

“ The programme is designed to support the advancement of solution-driven research, innovation and sustainable development in Nigeria. Being a year-long programme, TETFAIR is aimed at providing unique opportunity for our academics and researchers in Nigerian Universities to transform their ideas into

Emeka Offor Foundation doles out N60 million worth of rice to Armed forces, Police

By Albert Akota

Sir Emeka Offor Foundation

(SEOF) has donated over N60 million worth of rice to the Defence and Police Officers’ Wives Association (DEPOWA) as well as the Police Officers’ Wives Association (POWA).

The foundation donated 600 bags of 50kg long grain rice to DEPOWA in Abuja.

This was after it had made a similar donation of 1,200 bags of rice to the Police Officers’ Wives Association (POWA) on Monday.

Bar. Adaora Offor, the Vice President of the Foundation, said the donations which were coming at the Christmas season was meant for distribution to families of deceased and seriously injured service personnel.

“It’s the Christmas season now and we all plan on spending quality time with our loved ones.

“So, there is no better time than now to show and share love and compassion with them for all the sacrifices they make to keep us safe,” she said.

Also speaking, the Chief of Staff to the President of SEOF, AIG Chris Ezike (rtd.) said the gesture was based on the foundation’s core value which centres around health, human services, educational development and social interventions.

Ezike noted that the foundation had thousands of widows on its programme which has by no little means empowered and alleviated their problems.

Recieving the donations, Mrs. Irabor thanked Sir Emeka Offor Foundation for its constant support towards the welfare of the military.

market-driven solutions, including the development and fabrication of prototypes.

“Through the programme, selected teams of researchers and academic staff with promising ideas for innovative solutions in the programme areas of focus, are being taken through a journey that combines technology and product development along with venture creation, “ Echono said.

While saying many Nigerians who took part in start-up programmes by Innov8 hub have recorded many breakthroughs in inventions and technology, Echono said, “TETFund is committed to replicating this (innovation hubs) in our tertiary institutions.”

“The programme is carefully packaged to take the participants through various courses that combine the intricacies, processes and procedures of Innovation Development, Prototyping and Venture Creation to enable them bring their innovative ideas to fruition.

“They will also go through training and mentorship on the business/entrepreneurial aspect of their project. At the end of the programme, participants will have the opportunity to showcase their innovations to stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem and potential investors, both local and

international,” he said.

Speaking further, Echono said the initiative is also aimed at providing solutions to identified challenges based on strategic needs and national priorities in areas such as Agriculture and Food Technology; Environment, Energy and Circular Economy; Health and Accessibility: Information Communication Technology; Security; Transportation, Aviation, Shipping, among others.

The TETFund boss also revealed that the Fund has sponsored production of another set of 50 books, which will soon be unveiled for use in tertiary institutions in the country.

Declaring the TETFAIR open, Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu said the initiative would help address gaps and proffer solution that will help Nigeria meet global demands.

Represented by Minister of State for Education, Goodluck Nanah Opiah, Adamu, who commended TETFund for the initiative, said developed countries leverage on science and technology to achieve their status.

“Most of the countries that have emerged as global leaders have achieved this status through genuinty and hard work of their scientists.

“There is the need for our

researchers and research findings to bring about knowledge, sharing of ideas, mobilisation of practical implementation of these ideas.

“I believe that all the experiences gained would be deployed to improve and expand the frontiers of science and technology in solving real life problems,” the minister said.

On his part, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Senator Adeleke Mamora, said the event was apt as it aligned with the Executive Order Number 5 issued by President Muhammadu Buhari, which aimed at boosting application of science and technology in all sectors of the economy.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mrs Monilola Udoh, the minister said the move would further help to harness the massive talents in science and engineering in the country as well as boosting local enterprises.

Mamora lavished praise on TETFund for injecting billions of naira into national research, adding that the effort is now yielding good results.

On his part, Deji Ige, communication adviser, innovat8 hub, said the organisation was established to promote innovation and nurture ideas to reality.

“Founded by Professor Gregory

Ibe and Dr Moshe Moalem, Innov8 hub in simple terms, is a midwife that helps Nigerians who are pregnant with innovative ideas, to birth their ideas into invention, nurse their invention into solution, and transform their solution into enterprise.

“In the 3 years of our existence, we have become the epicentre of innovation, invention, solution and start-up incubation in Nigeria; aided considerably by critical collaborations with visionary and resilient partners like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, the Embassy of the State of Israel in Nigeria, MakeLab, Zell Entrepreneurship and others, who share our vision of inculcating the culture of innovation and venture creation in Nigerians; to gradually transform Nigeria into a start-up nation.

“So far, we have helped Nigerians develop and perfect over 72 prototypes ready for commercialization, we have mentored over 150 innovators, inventors and venture creators, among whom are academics and researchers. We have been involved in the emergence of 15 solid startups,” Ige said.

This year’s edition of TETFAIR which attracted 66 scholars/ researchers is expected to run for one year.

Flour Mills joins African business leaders to fight climate change

Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN), a leading FastMoving Consumer Good (FMCG), has become the first FMCG company to join the Africa Business Leaders Coalition (ABLC) to fight climate change.

FMN’s Group Managing Director, Mr Boye Olusanya, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Lagos.

Olusanya said the move was part of the company’s deliberate measures to entrench climate change across its business operations.

ABLC is a coalition committed to sustainable development and ambitious climate action through alignment of holistic perspectives from African Chief Executive Officers(CEOs) into the global conversation on climate change.

ABLC comprises of CEOs of 55 African companies, from a diverse

range of sectors, representing more than $150 billion in revenue and over 900,000 employees across 50 African countries.

Olusanya noted the key commitments by the ABLC to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and support Africa’s transition to a thriving continent rooted in a green and competitive economy with opportunities for future generations.

He said that the company was aware of the climate emergency and its disproportionate impact on agricultural systems and food security on the African continent. This, he stated, spurred the need for more action from all stakeholders to solve the climate change impacts.

“Also, as a responsible corporation with a significant footprint in the food and agroallied value chain, the group

believes that the private sector has a critical role to play in addressing climate change impacts.

“FMN is, therefore, committed to building more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems to reduce the adverse impact of climate change on food security.

“For FMN, membership of the ABLC is significant because climate action is critical to addressing the key issues facing the African continent such as food insecurity, water scarcity, and displacement of lives and livelihoods.

“These have been worsened by climate impacts, hence an integrated, consistent, and collaborative approach is required from relevant stakeholders to manage the risks and opportunities associated with climate change.

“The ABLC presents a viable

platform to elevate the voice of African private sector and bring African perspectives to global conversations on climate change and pathways to a just transition,” he said.

He noted that FMN for over six decades was at the forefront of driving sustainable development and continued to make significant investment toward local content development.

This, he said, was a key strategic imperative for the group to collaborate with relevant stakeholders and partners to drive our sustainability efforts in Nigeria and across the African continent.

“It is on this mandate that FMN became the first FMCG company in Nigeria to join the ABLC to fight climate change impacts on the African continent,” he said. (NAN)

L-R: National Financial Secretary, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Hon. Abuh Muhammad Kabir, National Presidentt NCAN, Prince Ojo Joseph Ajanaku, Deputy National Vice President, NCAN, Mr.Musa Shuaibu and a member of the Association, Mr.Joseph Ali, during the NCAN World press conference debunking report of claim leadership change in the Association, held yesterday in Abuja.

Photo; Justin Imo-owo

Zamfara: Youth groups donate N200m for Matawalle’s 2nd term

From Ibrahim Sidi Muh’d, Gusau

Hundreds of youths from various groups have offered the sum of N200 million to support Governor Bello Matawalle reelection bid come 2023.

Presenting the cheque to the state deputy Governor, Senator Hassan Nasiha, the National Youths Leader of the APC, Comrade Dayo Israel, said the teeming youths in the state have decided to offer their support with a view to ensure Governor Matawalle is reelected in 2023.

Comrade Israel, who spoke on behalf of the joint youths groups, further noted that, it has been a tradition to publicly express commendation for the governor.

“We have noticed with satisfaction, the numerous projects executed across the state by the present Matawalle-led administration which have direct impact on the lives of the good citizens of the state.”

NIMR DG seeks establishment of medical research council

Prof. Babatunde Salako, the Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), has called for the establishment of a medical research council to fund research works peculiar to Nigeria.

Salako made the call while speaking at the 2022 retreat organised by the institute in Lagos on Tuesday.

He said: ”Medical research councils all over the world are in charge of research and research funding for most of their countries to fund research in areas of priorities.

”Creating such a council requires that government must gives funding specifically for health research and look at areas of priorities, where we have challenges and ways to proffer

solutions.

”The council, if put in place can work with the Federal Ministry of Health, on research priorities and policy for all medical institutions in the country.”

Salako said that NIMR was set up initially as a medical research council by the government , but was not given the power to fund health research in universities and other research institutions.

”We believe this is why our health indices have remained poor and our health system is not growing as much as we would have expected.

”We can create solutions to our own problem without waiting for donors from outside whose areas of interest may not be our area of challenge,” he said.

On the retreat, the director-

general said that it was initiated to review and evaluate the activities of the institute in the last one year and strategise for the coming year.

”Every year, we come to plan for next year based on strategic plan and to review our targets that we set out last year.

”We have continued to improve on the number of grants that we’ve been able to attract externally, while the internal grants are subject to the money we receive from government,” he said.

Speaking also, Dr Sylvia Adebajo, the Country Director of Maryland Global Initiatives Corporation, and the guest speaker at the retreat, said that there was the need to recognise diversity in all sectors of the country.

Adebajo, who spoke on ‘Diversity and Inclusion in Modern Work place’, said that such recognition would enhance team work and promote productivity of staffers in any establishment.

”Inclusion and diversity go hand in hand in ensuring a condusive atmosphere in the work place.

”There is a need to include them and also ensure that there is inclusion and representation of all those areas within the work place,” she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that a report of NIMR’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and NIMR Policy on Research Misconduct & Fraud were unveiled at the retreat.

(NAN)

Give women prominent place in politics, NDE board member

MrsObiageli Orah, board member of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), has called for a prominent place for women in the country’s political arena, to allow them contribute their quota.

Obiageli made the call on Tuesday in Abuja at the Oba Patriotic Union (OPU), Abuja, a community in Anambra State, at the launching of its 2023 Hall of Fame Award, where she was awarded.

According to her, Nigerian women deserve to take the chunk of political position of the country since they are part of the voting system for producing leadership.

She stated that women were the most populated gender in the country, therefore, there was no reason they shouldn’t be given more political offices in the country.

“Nigerian women have

been demanding for 35 per cent affirmative action; I am a woman, women have tremendous influence in the society; we influence our children and they listen to us.

“When it comes to voting, a lot of women vote, they spend time to fight for their vote, I don’t see why women shouldn’t take a chuck of political position in Nigeria.

“Having said that, men have their own place, women have their own place, but we all are coming together to serve the masses, it is not a competition but it is for us to realise that both genders are working.

“We should have a prominent place in Nigeria politics today, look at the number of women you see in the society, now look at the figure of women in Nigeria politics, it is very few.

“It is the way we play politics that scare women away but if we

can change the narrative, women will participate and we will gain more for that.

“We are all working in harmony to complement each other, to serve the masses so women should be allowed to take their prime place in politics,” she stressed.

The board member, who was given an award of excellence because of her contribution to the development of Oba youth, promised to do more to remove poverty among the youth circle in the community.

She disclosed that she had connected many people, mostly youths of the community with the NDE skill acquisition programmes under the Federal Government’s free training scheme.

She stated that a lot of youths had successfully gained employment through her and pledged to do more for the

community.

She described the award given to her as a thing of surprise, adding that the good work in Oba community had just started.

She thanked NDE DirectorGeneral, Mallam Abubakar Fikpo, for giving her opportunity from the agency to contribute her quota to Oba community.

She also thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing her as a board member for NDE and the board Chairman, Mr Festus Keyamo, for the opportunity given to her.

Mr Austine Njeakor, Chairman of OPU, Abuja, stated that the association was celebrating just to thank God for what He had done in the course of the year.

According to Njeakor, the association is celebrating God today for the great things He has done within the association.

“We are here for this get-

together to say thank you Jesus.”

“One of the high points of the program is to also appreciate one of us who has been so wonderful, our wife, Obiageli Orah; she has been an outstanding woman.

“We are so proud of what Orah has been doing, we are grateful to God for her life and many others; we had a posthumous award, so some of the legends in Oba were awarded, they have all done great thing to Oba.

“This event is an opportunity to appreciate them all and to tell the young ones who these ones are and some of their antecedent,” he stressed.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that an award of excellence was given to some deserving Igbo Nigerians from Oba community, along with a posthumous for some who had contributed to the development of Oba. (NAN)

President Muhammadu Buhari with Secretary General of Abu Dhabi Forum for Promoting Peace H.E. Sheikh Al Mahfoudh Bin Bayyah in Washington DC on 14th Dec 2022

2023 polls: FG urges Google, TikTok, Twitter to emulate Facebook in fighting fake news

By Mashe Gwamna, Abuja

The Federal Government, Wednesday in Abuja, called on leading international social media platforms to join Meta, owners of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, in controlling disinformation and fake news in the forthcoming general elections in Nigeria and beyond.

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed made the call in his opening remarks at the 12th edition of the

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration scorecard series.

While speaking on the dangers of fake news and disinformation in 2023 elections, the minister commended Meta’s commitment to ensure that no fake news gets published on its platforms which can compromise or undermine the electoral process.

“I had earlier spoken about the dangers posed to the 2023 elections by fake news and disinformation. I said the increasing resort to fake news and disinformation by some political actors and a section of

the media constitutes a clear and present danger to the success of the elections, just like violence, insecurity, vote buying, attack on INEC facilities,” he said.

He added:” In this regard, I want to acknowledge the announcement by Meta, the owners of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, that it will take clearly-outlined steps to protect the integrity of the forthcoming elections.

“Specifically, Meta detailed the actions it plans to take to combat disinformation and

to make political advertising more transparent. The company committed to these actions before, during and after the elections.

“This is commendable and it is in line with what we have always said, that the platform owners have a big role to play in checking the spread of fake news, disinformation and hate speech via their platforms.

“Meta has demonstrated a great sense of responsibility and we hope the company will live up to its promise,” he said.

Lai Mohammed called on

the other social media platforms to tow the line of Facebook to safeguard the integrity of Nigeria’s elections in 2033.

“We also urge other platform owners like Google (owners of YouTube and others), ByteDance (owners of TikTok), Twitter and the Telegram Group Inc. (owners of Telegram messenger) to emulate Meta by taking positive steps to prevent the spread of fake news, disinformation and hate speech via their platforms ahead, during and after the 2023 elections,” he said.

Reps ask FG to focus on exploration of renewable energy

By Christiana Ekpa

The House of Representatives on Wednesday asked executive arm of the Federal Government to focus on exploration of renewable energy such as nuclear, solar, biomass, and wind as nationwide alternative sources of power supply.

The House also on Wednesday, urge the government

to establish a clear investorfriendly framework for Private Sector investment in alternative power supply across the country, as it mandated its Committee on Power to liaise with relevant stakeholders in the public and private sectors to develop the best strategies for sustainable alternative and renewable energy distribution in the country.

This was sequel to adoption of a motion on “Need for Alternative

and Renewable Power Supply in Nigeria”, sponsored by Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji.

The lawmaker noted that the major driver of sustainable economic development growth is reliable Electricity supply, and has remained on the front burner of all government initiatives, adding that electricity in Nigeria is generated through thermal and hydropower sources and the main source of electricity

generation comes from fossil fuels especially gas, which accounts for 86% of the capacity in Nigeria with the remainder generated from hydropower sources.

According to him, a nation plagued with epileptic power supply must suffer delayed development and the risks associated with the loss of potential investors in the market.

“Nigeria’s inability to achieve stable power supply over decades

is a pointer to the fact that its over-reliance on gas and to a lesser extent, hydroelectric power sources alone needs to be reviewed”, he stated.

He said lack of electricity supply in rural areas is a deterrent for businesses to thrive, thus, resulting in rural-urban migration which leaves the rural areas grossly underdeveloped, amongst other attending challenges.

L-R: Director (General Services) Department, Ministry of Police Affairs, Mrs. Edemanya Ibilola Brayila; Director, Planning, Research and Statistics, Mrs. Margaret Azeez; and Director (Human Resource Department) Muhammad, Magaji during the first phase of Staff training of the ministry officials which started with the Head of Departments and Units, held at the Ministry of Police Affairs Headquarters yesterday in Abuja . Min of Police Affairs

By Usman Shuaibu

The management of Amani College of Health Sciences and Technology in Gwagwalada Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on Saturday matriculated a total number of Twenty-seven Students.

Speaking at the matriculation ceremony, the Rector/founder of the College, Prof. Amani Danjuma Peniel, charged students to always face their studies squarely.

He called on the students to be good ambassadors of the College throughout their studies, warning them against any act capable of causing rancur and acrimony in the College.

He said his leadership would continue to provide a conducive atmosphere for the students to enhance learning and congratulated the students for gaining admission into the College.

Also speaking, the Guest Speaker of the occasion, prof. Omotayo Tola who is the Rector of Eco African College of Health Sciences Lagos, advised the matriculating students to value themselves as they will undergo so many courses to serve humanity in the nearby future.

By Usman Shuaibu

The Chairman of North Central Agro-Input Dealers Association (NOCAIDA), FCT Chapter, Mr Halidu Aliyu Mohammed, has called on the government of the day to provide quality seeds to farmers in order to improve farmers’ production.

NOCAIDA Chairman made the call in an interview with newsmen during a one day workshop on quality seed marketing organized by the National Agricultural Seed Council in Gwagwalada on Tuesday.

He also appealed to agroinput dealers to always deem it necessary to sell the certified

improved seeds to farmers.

He then pleaded with farmers to purchase the seeds such as maize, rice, soybean and cowpea from genuine agro-input dealers so as to get good produce during harvesting.

He said his leadership would continue to enlighten agro-input dealers to desist from selling fake

seeds to farmers in the market.

Agro-input dealers task government on quality seeds Amani College matriculates 27 students

He, however, charged the Federal Government to provide fertilizers and other farm inputs to farmers on time during the cropping season.

Meanwhile, the workshop focused on the mobilization and sensitization of agro-input dealers, farmers and stakeholders.

NGO to develop 5 years strategic plan to guide operation

Voice Disability Initiative (VDI), an NGO says it will develop a five- year strategic plan to guide the organisation’s operation and discharge its duty effectively.

The Executive Director of the NGO, Mrs Catherine Edeh, said at the opening session of a fourday retreat that the meeting was to position the organisation very well for future task.

Edeh said that the retreat was to also align the NGO with the needed power to address the needs of persons with disability, and achieve the vision and mission of the organisation.

The executive director disclosed that the strategic plan the NGO had expired in 2021, and that the plan was not strong enough, hence the need to develop another one.

“So our partner organisation, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), funded us to undertake this retreat to be able to develop the five years strategic plan to guide our activities from next year 2023 to 2027.

“That is why we are all gathered here, we are here to share experiences, to gain from others, one person cannot do it all, myself as the Executive Director do not have all the knowledge.

“With the interaction we will be getting from people, we are having professionals here, these professionals have knowledge about this area, they have also consulted bigger organisations.

“It is not that I understand this work very well, but with other organisations and the experience they will bring to us, just like what we have discussed today, using the SWOT analysis, realizing our strength, weakness, opportunity and threat will be easier.

“identifying all these and learning on it will help our capacity, we will be informed better, and all of us in the organisation will be better prepared and bring up maximum productivity to the organisation,” Edeh said.

Mr Emmanuel Ozoemena, a policy analyst, called for an enabling environment that would

make persons with disability to thrive and not to discriminate against them.

According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari has created a framework for persons with disability to be treated equality as well as getting access to places.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari has created access for inclusion policies, but the disability are yet to have an enabling environment that would make them to thrive.

“The disability commission is trying to scan the environment to know what to do; what I think should happen is for both the public and private environment to begin to comply with some of the requirements of Disability Act.

“Hotel, Churches, Mosques and public places need to buy into the Act and begin to build facilities that enable access for the physically challenged people but in most cases, they are not.

“For this to happen, it might require another sensitisation,” Ozoemena said.

He called on states that were yet to domesticate the Disability Act in their various domains to do so, to enable the physically challenged people have access to places including education.

Chief Chijioke Nwafor, a member of Board of Trustees (BOT), VDI, stated that one of the basic aims of the retreat was to chat a way forward for VDI and make sure that the NGO was felt by people physically challenged.

He said that people were brainstorming to ensure all round inclusiveness for the physically challenged, especially women.

Another member of the BOT, Mr Daniel Nwaezuoke, stated that the interference of the BOT was to deepen more penetration for VDI, to make more physically challenged people benefit from it.

According to him, the BOT wants to see VDI placed on a pedestal where it will have funding from international agencies and the agencies will have high confidence in it and restructure the VDI. (NAN)

L – R: Mr. Olusegun Ogungbemide, Sector Commander, Lagos Sector, FRSC; Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, Vice Chancellor, Bowen University; Mr. Reuben Muoka, Director Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, at the Nigeria Technology Awards, where the NCC was awarded ‘Excellence in Technology Deployment Federal Regulatory Agency’ on 11th December 2022 at the Admiralty Conference Centre, Naval Dockyard, Victoria Island, Lagos State

2023: Tinubu supporters endorse ADP guber candidate in Kano

By Mustapha Adamu, Kano

One of the leading Support Groups for APC Presidential candidate, known as The Asiwaju Group (TAG) has endorsed the candidature of Sha’aban Ibrahim Sharada, the gubernatorial candidate of ADP in Kano state.

The Head of the group, Mubarak Baffa Muhammad stated this when he led members to declare their support for Sharada as governor of the state in the 2023 general elections.

Muhammad said at the presidential elections, The Asiwaju Group (TAG) have decided to vote for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu but would not vote for APC in governoship election in the state.

According to statement by spokesperson of the ADP governorship campaign council, Abbas Yushau, the group said it had realized Sharada’s quality in becoming the governor of Kano state.

He added that TAG had since mobilized their people to cast their vote en-masse for Sharada.

In a remark, Sharada, who is a member of the House of representatives for Municipal federal Constituency, said they are yet to decide on any presidential candidates vying for the presidency.

He welcomed the stand taken by TAG for endorsing him as governor, noting that Nigeria’s democracy is becoming strong as people are going for individuals with track records and who could perform well.

Sharada added that he and his millions of followers in Kano are still on the fence noting that they are yet to decide on any of the Presidential Candidates.

The ADP candidate informed TAG that Some top APC elements in other states who are close to Asiwaju want force some of his supporters who are ready to vote for Asiwaju at the centre to withdraw their support and work for APC Governorship candidate in Kano.

The candidate further advised those elements to concentrate on the crisis affecting their state chapters of APC rather than exhausting their energy on futile Political mission.

Honourable Sha’aban Ibrahim said Kano people are wiser enough to cast their votes on candidates who are competent to deliver irrespective of their political parties.

He noted that their distraction will not stop him ,the ADP and millions of his admirers and supporters from mobilising Votes as he prepares to take over Kano Government House come May 29 2023.

NSCDC anti corruption unit positioned to curb corruption —CG

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

The Commandant General, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC), Ahmed Audi, has said that the Anti Corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) of the corps was positioned to tackle cases of corruption in the country.

He stated this on Wednesday, when the agency and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC), have partnered to curb corruption in the country with the induction of ACTU heads in all NSCDC formations nationwide.

Speaking at the event, NSCDC boss, said, “the gathering is very important to us as a public institution because it is a clear demonstration of our commitment to transparency and integrity. We are interested in promoting ethics, integrity and accountability in our system and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

“Our support to ACTUs initiatives and commitment to upholding statutory ethics and integrity standards stem from my personal conviction that corruption and violation of ethics and integrity cripple institutions, consumes communities and distorts

governance. No meaningful reform for growth and sustainability is possible where corruption reigns. For this reason, we have worked hard to maintain the culture of probity, accountability and transparency in the corps.

“This ceremony could not have been fixed at a better time than this. The country is preparing for elections and this ACTU personnel, after induction would help us enshrine integrity in the conduct of personnel in the election period. They would enlighten both NSCDC personnel and civilians about the need for integrity, as well as Anti-Corruption stance of the Corps for the elections.”

“From the inception of this administration, we made it clear that we will do things as transparently as statutorily required. For instance, it is no longer a routine to distribute corps goods, promotion and position on the basis of favouritism. We have dismantled favouritism and other crass sentiments in the corps, while we promote competence and professionalism.

“In my capacity, I have always encouraged our Anti-corruption and Transparency Unit (ACTU) in its effort in strengthening our internal accountability and integrity

system and promoting ethical behaviour in all our processes and procedure, and among the rank and file of our personnel. I have wholeheartedly endorsed ACTUs resolute commitment to promoting and enforcing our code of ethics based on extant statutory Anti-corruption guidelines.

“ACTU has made some remarkable impact in its fight against corruption. Between 2018 and now, ACTU has recovered over one hundred and twenty million naira from various corruption related cases. There has also been appreciable reduction in cases of job racketeering owing to ACTUs mounted enlightenment campaigns.

“I am certain that these inaugurated ACTU heads, led by Commandant Remi Ekundayo, will justify the confidence the corps has invested on them through hard work and humility in carrying out their duties and functions as required by ACTU Standing Order.”

On his part, ICPC boss, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, said the recent directive and approval by the Commandant General that all available legal and administrative tools be employed by the unit in ensuring that all monies recovered

from the givers and takers involve in Job racketeering be returned to the Government Coffers has boosted the unit’s effort in further curtailing the activities of JOB RACKETEERS.

“It is also worthy to note that the Unit is developing a whistle blowing Policy for the Corps which will be unveiled any moment from now.

“Let me make bold to say that NSCDC was graded Second (2nd) amongst Agencies of the Ministry of Interior in the recently conducted 2021 Ethics and Integrity Score Card Assessment of M.D.As by the ICPC. This feat wouldn’t have been successful if not for the support of our amiable and compliance conscious Commandant General. Thank you sir, for your fatherly counsel any time we run to you.

“This is the first time ACTU members are to be inducted across all NSCDC formations, I therefore want to congratulate the inductees for scaling through the rigorous process of selection, vetting and clearance .

“Your inauguration today has placed a great moral and professional responsibility upon your shoulders. Honesty and integrity are therefore central to the fulfilment of your duties.”

Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Abdu Dantata; NonExecutive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Halima AlikoDangote; Chairman, Dangote Cement Plc, Aliko Dangote; Group Managing Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Michel Puchercos; and Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Olakunle Alake at the Extraordinary General Meeting of Dangote Cement Plc, held in Lagos on December 13, 2022.

DEPOWA

The Defence and Police Officers Wives Association (DEPOWA) on Monday in Abuja graduated 126 beneficiaries of its skills acquisition programme meant to empower barracks women and youths.

The President of DEPOWA, Mrs Vickie Irabor, said the beneficiaries were widows and children of fallen personnel of the armed forces who died while defending the nation.

Irabor said that Nigeria had in the last decade faced major challenges of insecurity and terrorism in which officers and soldiers died while in the defence of the nation.

She said that even though the military had recorded huge success, the war had resulted in the loss of gallant men who had left families behind all over the barracks.

According to her, DEPOWA upgraded its skills acquisition center to respond to the challenge, by empowering widows with different skills and training.

“They were trained in fashion

design, catering and hotel management, computer studies make up and gele tying, hairdressing and soap production.

“Thereby giving them a trade to carry on the good work left behind by their breadwinners.

“Today, we are graduating a diverse group of women who have experienced real pain and have come out stronger.

“The life of a loved one cut short, in honorable service to the nation can never be erased from memory.

“These are women that have risen to the duty of training their children, fending for households and supporting extended families.

“They have jumped through hoops bent backwards and gone the extra mile to be here and at this time,” she said.

Irabor said the graduation was the beginning of hope, expectation for brighter and better future, source of financial liberation and an opportunity for the widows to contribute their quota to the society with dignity.

She urged them to take advantage of the freshness of the skills they had

acquired to begin to build, save and invest in their future.

According to her, those who will excel are the ones that are ready to work hard, save money and reinvest in their businesses.

Former DEPOWA President, Mrs Fatima Ogohi, commended the association for sustaining the initiative of empowering women in the barracks.

According to her, the involvement of the military in crisis management requires women to support themselves.

Ogohi said the impact of DEPOWA had gone beyond the barracks, citing examples of the giant stride of military wives in healthcare development in Nigeria.

She commended the current leadership of DEPOWA for the foundation laying of the Armed Forces Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Centre, among other laudable initiatives.

Ogohi urged the trainees to be judicious in utilising the proceeds of their businesses to be able to keep the businesses afloat.

“Do not think that you have reached a certain level or you begin to speculate that you are going to continue to remain like that without putting on the effort and all the advice they have given you during your training session.

“The other one is to make sure you maintain your quality and trust; when you take orders, keep the orders, respect the orders and respect your pledges,” she added.

The Manager, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), FCT, Mrs Mary Kolawole, urged the beneficiaries to maintain the right mindset to be able to become successful entrepreneurs.

Kolawole also tasked them to be result oriented and risk takers, while urging them to immediately put their skills into practice.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the beneficiaries were given starter packs and seed capital to rent shops and start their businesses immediately. (NAN)

empowers 126 widows, children of deceased personnel

JONAPD assures more protection to PWD in Jigawa

From Mika’il Tsoho, Dutse

The Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPD) has promised to increase more effort towards protection and welfare to its members in Jigawa state.

The chairman JONAPD Jigawa state chapter, Comrade Muhammad Usman stated this while delivering his speech during the celebration of international day for persons with disabilities at NUT state Secretariat Dutse.

Comrade Usman said, the Jigawa chapter of the JONAPD is leading in terms of prosperity and development in northern Nigeria.

He appealed for the replacement of the social security allowances beneficiaries to at least 150 in each of the 27 local government in the state.

PDP vows to win elections first time in Zamfara -Elders’ c’ttee

From Ibrahim Sidi Muh’d, Gusau

The Zamfara State Secretary of the elders committee of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Engr. Ibrahim Agigi disclosed that the party has for the time in history get prepared to uproot the tradition of voting APC into power in favour of the PDP.

Engr. Agigi who made this known today (Wednesday) during press conference in Gusau the state capital, said

the PDP had never form a government in the state since 1999 to date due to the voters’ belief that only APC can save and move the state forward.

He stressed that there are indisputable evidences to prove that citizens of Zamfara are fed up with usually poor performance of the APC, particularly the failure to check the lingering abject poverty that always compelling groups of families to beg for their survival.

The secretary stressed that the PDP campaign project as a

peace movement, will continue to contain all forms of intimidations, killings and imprisonment of its members by the APC ruling party “just as citizens of the state are helplessly watching”, he laments.

“We will maintain our focus no matter the amount of aggression”, explaining further that PDP is strongly committed to the project of salvaging the state from the prevailing administrative miscarriage.

Meanwhile he said, the party has set up a sixtyseven(67) member elders

committee to serve as advisory body to guide the party in the hope of readdressing the economy of the state on a right development focus as well as working out strategies for the poll victory of the party.

Agigi disclosed that members of the elders committee include among others, all former presidents of Zamfara state extraction if any, all former governors of the state, senators, Reps members, ministers and personalities who held prominent state or national position.

Gombe: Don’t take laws into your hands, PDP urges members

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe state has adviced its members

not to carry law into their hands.

In a press conference on Monday in Gombe, the spokes person Mr. Ayuba

Aluke said such act is undemocratic.

The spoke person who did not hide his feelings said those behind the act

supposed to be in school but fail to do so only to be used by some politicians to cause havock.

2023: Centre cautions youths on unwholesome acts

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

The Youth Advocacy for Peace and Social Justices Centre for Sustainable Development has advised the

youths against unwholesome acts that would undermine the 2023 general election.

The National President of the group, Mr Emmanuel Yatai, who made the call in a statement in

Kaduna, urged for active and positive participation of the youths in the election.

Yatai also called on the youths to sensitize their peers, particularly in the collection of

Permanent Voter Cards (PVC).

This, according to him, will enable the youth to exercise their constitutional right of voting a credible candidate of their choice during the election.

“We have met with stakeholders and youth groups from 29 states in Abuja and critically looked at how the youths could positively participate in the election.

From David Hassan,

Gombe

The Acting Director General of National Youth Service Corps, Mrs Christy Uba being welcome with Quarter Guard reception during her visit to Sokoto State Orientation Camp, yesterday in Wamakko. Photo: NYSC

Tinubu inaugurates campaign of in Minna

From Yakubu Mustapha Minna

All Progressives Congress APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu has inaugurated his campaign office in Minna, Niger state.

Inaugurating the office after addressing mamoth crowd of supporters to flag off campaign in the state, he said, “ I inaugurate this office to the well being of Nigerians and to the good health of the peoples”.

However, the office was donated by the Blueprint Newspaper Publisher and Chairman, Strategic Communications of the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Alhaji Mohammed Idris Malagi .

EFCC debunks rumour of container housing old Naira notes in Benue

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), in Benue State has disowned story that sacks of old naira notes were purportedly found at Wadata Market.

A video trended on social media that sacks of perceived old naira notes were discovered inside a big container around Wadata market on Tuesday evening.

But an official of the commission who did not want to be mentioned since he was not authorized to speak, said that the office got information of sacks of old naira notes and deployed its men to the place but discovered that it was condemned notes from Central Bank of Nigeria.

He said, “It is true we heard information of old naira notes and then we went to court to obtain a search warrant on getting there, we found those condemned naira notes.”

Kano to incoporate new emirates in sectoral development -Commissioner

From Mustapha Adamu, Kano

The Kano state government has said that with the consolidation of the four new Emirates in the state, the stage has been set for the incorporation of the traditional institution into its sectoral development programmes to accommodate the overall socioeconomic needs of the people.

The state commissioner for information and Internal Affairs, Malam Muhammad Garba, stated this in a statement, in reaction to a plan allegedly being hatched by the opposition New Nigeria

People’s Party (NNPP) to sack the new Emirs when it assumes power come 2023.

He said since the new Emirates were created to make the institution stand the test of time and move in the same pace with the global world, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government would make the monarchs stakeholders in the implementation of its development agenda.

Malam Garba stated further that the APC government has planned to make the new Emirates add value to its various development programmes such as health, agriculture, youth

economic empowerment, Free and Compulsory Basic and Secondary Education, scholarship programmes and various human development initiatives embarked by the administration in the state.

The commissioner explained that “the unprecedented development in Kano ignites the administration’s desire to support the development of mini cities in the state to complement the emergence of Kano as Mega City, as witnessed by the ongoing plans to bring about urgent development in the headquarters of the Emirates.

“Apart from the construction and upgrading of four health

facilities in the newly created Emirate headquarters of Bichi, Gaya, Rano and Karaye to be fitted with state of the art equipment and construction of road networks, the private sector participation in the development of the new Emirates is also in the offing.

“Many banks, entrepreneurs and small-scale industries have indicated strong interest to make a huge presence, while others have pledged to undertake some development programmes in the form of Corporate Social Responsibility,” the statement added.

Ex-MD NPA Hadiza Bala Usman calls for more attention to Health of rural women

By Usman Sha’aibu, Abuja

The former managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority, Dr. Hajiya Bala Usman has call on government at all level to invest more in the health sector and also carry alone the community so as to have a healthy society, Hajiya Bala Usman made the call over the weekend, during a conference organize by the Funtua Consultative Forum with the theme’ One Health Concept launching , and Launching of Funtua Trumpet magazine, the sub theme , one Health and the importance of community engagement in disease outbreak investigation.

Hajiya Bala Usman was represented by the former Katsina state commissioner of land Alhaji

Abubakar Sada, also commended the Forum for mobilizing youths for positive development especially at this crucial period of our political journey, she launched the magazine with a sum of 1 million naira.

The citation of the chief launcher as read by the chairman of the forum Dr. Zaharadeen Idris, describe Hajiya Bala Usman the former Managing director of Nigerian Ports Authority, as a technocrat, politician, a philanthropic politician and a woman of great repute and an icon in the community and also a great role model for our modern women in the country.

He said that Hajiya Bala Usman has championed many developmental activities in promoting the well-being of

Katsina state one of which was training and empowerment of youth in vocational skills in several local government of the state and training and empowerment of rural women in environmental cleanliness in Daura town and also provision and installation of street lights in Katsina Zone of Malunfashi Kafur, Bakori, Danja and Kankara local governments. She also constructs and renovates several class rooms across the state, he explains that her philanthropic gesture has torched virtually all the senatorial zones of the state.

Funtua Consultative Forum is one of the many registered non-governmental organization in Katsina state, the Forums objectives is centered in the development of Education, health

economy and capacity building and community development and have over the 13 years of their formation sponsored several public lectures and seminars in the aforementioned fields.

Adamawa Varsity graduates 2,594 in various academic fields

From Umar Dankano, Yola

The Adamawa state University Mubi(ADSU) has awarded various certificates of graduation to 2,594 graduating students.

Vice chancellor of the University, Professor Kaletapwa Farauta made the disclosure at a press conference to formally herald activities marking the 14th Convocation ceremony of the University at

Mubi local government area of the state.

Professor Farauta said 2369 would be graduating with First Class degrees, 639 second class (upper),1,470 second class(lower),while 255 third

class and 21 with pass category respectively.

Farauta stated that the University has 186 postgraduating students from various fields of studies across the facilities.

“Adamawa state University Mubi has added 2,594 graduates, who have been found worthy in both character and learning to the human resources development of the state.

From left. Wife of the Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo ; Secretary to the Government of the Federation , Boss Mustapha and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during Messiah Christmas Concert at the State House Banquet Hall in Abuja on Tuesday (13/12/22).

Dr. Hajiya Bala Usman

New FUNK VC resumes office

From Ahmed Idris, Birnin Kebbi

The new Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Birnin Kebbi (FUBK), Professor Muhammad Zaiyan Umar, has formally assumed office with a promise to produced qualified graduates.

He gave the assurance yesterday during an interactive session with journalists in his office.

He added that his administration will bring sanity to the university by producing qualified and standard graduates.

Stakeholders want government to declare state of emergency on healthcare

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Stakeholders in the health sector have called on government at all levels to declare state of emergency on Nigeria’s healthcare system.

The stakeholders included; Health Sector Reform Coalition, organised Labour Unions, Professional Associations, the Informal Sector and many others.

In a joint communique issued in commemoration of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day celebration in collaboration with Save the Children International (SCI), Nigeria, in Abuja, the stakeholders said the mounting existential and emerging health threats further called on the need to implement the Vulnerable Group Fund of the National Health Insurance Act.

The joint communique signed by the Chairperson, Health Sector Reform Coalition (HSRC) Mrs Chika Offor further called on

prioritizing health spending to achieve the Abuja Declaration spending target, minimizing wastage in the health sector and taming the worrisome trend of health workers attrition among other health system strengthening measures.

She noted with concern the slow progress made by our country Nigeria towards the realisation of the UHC due to the sub-optimal implementation of the extant relevant laws, policies, guidelines; inadequate political will that translates to gross underfunding of the health sector at all levels, poor leadership and coordination of the various segments and tiers of the public health sector and weak voices of the citizens in demanding better health and accountability.

She said realizing that the causes of the poor health outcomes including high disease burden and mortality rates have a direct correlation with the quality of political leadership at all levels in

the our country.

She lauded Nigerian healthcare workers who have stayed back to attend to contribute to improved healthcare service delivery in spite of the poor working conditions.

She affirmed their determination to continue to advocate for a health system that guarantees universal access to comprehensive, efficient, affordable, adequate and quality healthcare for Nigerians;

In her words “ We commit to mobilizing our citizens towards demanding for quality healthcare by interrogating the health manifestos of political parties and their candidates especially as it concerning the their implementation mechanisms throughout the campaigns for the 2023 general elections and after.

“Engage the political parties and their flagbearers with the Citizenled Health Agenda articulated by the UHC 2023 Forum in order to bring key health policy thrusts and priorities to the political

front burner in the next political dispensation.

She also pledged to continue to work with the present and future political leaders at various levels towards realising the goal of the universal coverage come 2030.

On his part, the Advocacy, Campaign and Policy Manager of Save the Children International (SCI), Nigeria, Mr Ifedilichukwu Ekene-Innocent explained that SCI work to protect the interest of the children, lamenting that children are usually left out in the scheme of things.

“So, I stand here as a representative of the children asking the political parties ,asking the stakholders and actors in the health sector to ensure that they do things right to protect the health of the children because they are the future if tomorrow.

“We need to plan for them and we need to ensure that we put everything in place to protect their future as a group”.

From David Hassan, Gombe

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe state has adviced its members not to carry law into their hands.

In a press conference on Monday in Gombe, the spokes person Mr. Ayuba Aluke said such act is undemocratic.

The spoke person who did not hide his feelings said those behind the act supposed to be in school but fail to do so only to be used by some politicians to cause havock.

Southern Kaduna Christian leaders to endorse guber candidate January 14

The leadership of the Southern Kaduna Christian Leaders Association (SKCLA), has fixed January 14, 2023, as the date to give a direction for the Christendom regarding the forthcoming governorship elections in Kaduna state.

The Chairman of the association, Apostle (Dr.) Emmanuel Nuhu Kure disclosed this during a parley between the association and gubernatorial candidates in the state, as well as a prayer session by the Association held in Kafanchan on Monday.

Highlighting some of the conditions that will determine

the direction, Apostle Kure said the fear of God was a cardinal condition that a gubernatorial candidate must possess to attract the support of the association during the election.

He explained that a candidate must equally have a fair understanding of governance, both locally and internationally to

be able to meaningfully develop not only Southern Kaduna but the entire state.

The SKCLA Chairman added that for a gubernatorial candidate of the state to enjoy the support of the people, he must also indicate significant interest to fight corruption, as according to him, it was the bane of development.

Gombe: Don’t carry law into your hands, PDP urges members

From: Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

President Muhammadu Buhari with Secretary General of Abu Dhabi Forum for Promoting Peace H.E. Sheikh Al Mahfoudh Bin Bayyah in Washington DC on 14th Dec 2022

Who is the Executive Secretary of FCDA?

By Abdul Jelil Adebayo

When the 61 year old Prince from Pindiga, Akko local government of Gombe state was appointed the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA, in November 2021, there was no controversy that it was home coming for Eng. Shehu Hadi Ahmad.

Hadi, as he is popularly called, became the 8th substantive Executive Secretary of the FCDA in November last year.

He came hitting the ground running because he had gone through the critical departments of FCDA and eventually retired as a director knowing the workings of the most vital agency of the FCTA as per the infrastructural development of the evolving Federal Capital.

And within one year, while presenting his score card last week, he attributed his successes to God and the staff and management of the FCDA that are in tandem with his vision and mission for the development and provisions of infrastructure that is making Abuja the dream capital of the.most populous capital city in the black nations.

Hadi holds a masters degree from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University ABU, Zaria in Structural Engineering and so when he was named the substantive helmsman it was a story of a round peg at the helms of affairs of the most critical

agency of the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA.

He was a lecturer at the famous Kaduna polytechnic before he joined the services of the FCDA as a principal engineer with the engineering department. He rose through the rank to become a deputy director before veering into politics when he was appointed a commissioner of works and infrastructure in Gombe state between year 2011 and 2014

Thereafter he came back to FCDA as deputy director in charge of city infrastructure and promoted to a full director in 2017 before retiring from the civil service in January 2021

Hadi holds the traditional title of Iyan Pindiga in Gombe state.

In spite of the challenges of office, some modest achievements were recorded as he highlighted some of these under his stewardship to include but not limited to the following:.

On office Accommodation, Reorganisation & Restructuring, part of the immediate issues that had to be urgently addressed was the issue of Office Accommodation - the distribution of offices within the various departments as well as the alignment of location/ responsibilities.

He has also to his credit the re-visit of the Contract for the Repair/Renovation of FCDA Old Block and the extension of the Current FCDA Corporate

Headquarters Building

On Staff Training, he embarked on Systematic approach to Training of Officers, Significant coverage involving officers at various Grade Levels and also increasing the Cooperation with International Development Agencies (UNHabitat, JICA etc).

On Promotion/Conversion/ Upgrade Lingering Cases of Promotion, Conversion of Technical Staff and Upgrading were addressed; Preparations have been put in place to ensure that Promotion exams are conducted as at when due.

During the period under consideration, some Infrastructure Projects were awarded while some of the ongoing projects were taken to appreciable level of completion and a few others have been completed and already put to use.

In a bid to close the gap in the Provision of Infrastructure in the country, the Federal Government introduced “Sukuk” financing scheme. A number of Infrastructural Projects of the Authority benefitted from this window of funding. This facilitated the significant accomplishment of some major milestones in respect of some critical on-going projects of the Authority;

Also to have benefited from this was the rehabilitation and expansion of Outer Southern Expressway from Villa

Roundabout to OSEX/Ring Road I (RR1) Junction including Four (4) Nos. Interchange

Other On-Going Projects taken to an appreciative level of completion include the provision of Engineering Infrastructure to Wuye, Guzape II Cadastral Zone A11 Districts, Abuja. Temporary Access Road to Open up Sections of Institution and Research District.

The Construction of Temporary Access Road/Car park for Abuja Light Rail Stations in the FCC, Gbazango and to Plot 650 Shettima La’ah Street, Life Camp

The Repair and Rehabilitation of Road Shoulders and Bridge Embankments in the FCC.

The Dualisation of Usuma Dam Gurara Road as Phase II Development to the on-going reconstruction of Lower Usuma Dam - Gurara Road.

The Emergency Rehabilitation of Phases 1 & 2 Treatment Plants at the Lower Usuma Dam.

The installation of Electro Flow Power Solution Equipment at National Assembly and the Rehabilitation of the Complex phase 1 is at 18% completion while the Rehabilitation of Federal Secretariat Phase 1, Abuja.is at 17%.

Construction of new ECOWAS Commission Headquarters, and African First Ladies Peace Mission, Abuja are on going.

Under the watch of the Executive Secretary, the supervision of the construction

of the Headquarters of the following MDAs; Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); National Population Commission (NPC) amd Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) – formerly DPR, etc. are progressing.

The Construction and Equipping of 220-bed Gwarinpa District Hospital phase 1, Abuja is at 60%

Successful engagement of Consultancy Project for the commencement of Gude Resettlement Site; Resolution of a number of cases of conflict between the native population and various Developers and the Successful completion of the second phase of Nyanya Integration scheme for the Original Inhabitants of Nyanya FCT Abuja.

Public Private Partnership (PPP) Initiative/Alternative Funding; Resumption of the Land Swap Programme;Sukuk; Road Tax Credit Scheme; Cultural Centre and Millennium Tower (CCMT ) Project – A number of investors have indicated interest in partnering with the Authority to deliver the project.

All these were executed by him within a year of piloting the affairs of FCDA. Indeed, there is need for garlands for Eng Shehu Hadi Ahmad, the Iyan Pindiga and the Quintessential Executive Secretary of FCDA.

End Abdul, a commentator wrote in from Karu, Abuja

By Engr Kabiru Ibrahim Dambazau

Five months ago, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana SAN had urged Nigerian courts to “stop imposing politicians on Nigerians,” arguing that, “The involvement of the courts in the electoral process has not been favourable to the country’s democracy.”

According Falana, “This involvement has been forced by the neglect of its duties by the INEC, the arbitrariness and impunity of some of the members of the Executive, and the corrupt activities of political parties.”

Nothing describes the above summation by Elder Falana like the case of APC Kano Central Senatorial candidate, Alhaji Abdulsalam Abdulkarim Saleh, popularly known as A. A. Zaura.

This is a man who has won his court case and has won the primaries and clinched the Kano Central Senatorial

ticket of his party, the APC, and yet just because of politics and some people who want to fight against his bid, they have resorted to using the court and a govt agency to fight a political will of the people.

It will be recalled that, not too long ago, A Federal High Court sitting in Kano discharged and acquitted A A Zaura. The court presided over by Justice Ambrose LewisAllagoa said the prosecution, Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubts.

The Judge, Lewis-Allagoa said the failure of the EFCC to call the nominal complainant, Al-Azmi to appear before the court to give evidence over what transpired between him and the first defendant rendered all the testimonies by the prosecution witnesses (2) null.

He maintained that the prosecution was based on speculation as they (EFCC) could not provide ingredients

to link or establish criminal evidence against the defendant hence the courts decided to discharged and acquitted the first defendant.

The court however dismissed the nine-count charges against the first defendant, A. A. Zaura.

The second defendant, Edosa was also said to have been earlier discharged when he pleaded for no-case submission during the cause of trial.

Do for crying out loud, what is the ground for appeal and reopening of this case, if not political machinations to deny the good people of Kano their basic democratic rights of electing who they want into office come 2023.

Some analysis and historians see politics as a dirty game. This is as a result of the blackmail, kidnapping, and killings of political opponents and other negative activities of politicians. The activities of this category of people therefore make politics a dirty

game. These are the kind of politicians fighting the will of Kano Central people.

In contrast, there are a good number of people, decent people who are in politics to improve the lot of their people. They are not in politics to make money and do not see it as a do or die affair. They are selfless, humane and have nothing but the interest of the people at heart. A A Zaura is such politician.

A A Zaura is in politics to serve Allah and humanity. How is that possible in our environment you may ask? Well, the answer is in both his antecedents and precedents. With him, politics is not a dirty game, those who play it unwholesomely are.

For over a decade and half, Zaura has continuously serve the good people of Kano with his hard earned money. He has built schools, hospitals, vocational centres, police stations and local security outlets, as well as lots and lots of women and you

empowerments and social and family donations to millions of families in Kano.

A whole newspaper won’t be enough to highlight how much A A Zaura has contributed to the development of Kano and Kano people and yet out of selfish interest and cruelty some politicians have choosen to fight the candidacy of this illustrious son of Kano to continue to deliver the good of democracy in the Senate come 2023.

Their believe and hopes are that if they keep pushing this court case and eventually something bad (Allah forbids) happen, it will be in their interest and the ticket will be given to them but they should know that, as they plan, Allah also plans and Allah is the best of planners.

A word is enough for the wise.

Dambazau wrote in from Kano and can be reached at dambazaukbr@gmail.com

November 16 belongs to Chinua Achebe

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Chinua Achebe died at exactly 11:51pm (US time), that is 4.51am (Nigerian time), on Thursday, March 21 at the Harvard University Teaching Hospital, Massachusetts, USA, aged 82.

Today, November 16, belongs to one man who conquered the world for Mother Africa. In the words of the great Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiongo, “Achebe bestrides generations and geographies. Every country in Africa claims him as their own.”

On November 16, 1930, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe was born to a teacher-cum-evangelist father of the Anglican Communion in the town of Nnobi, near his hometown of Ogidi, in present-day Anambra State.

Achebe was a child prodigy who was nicknamed “Dictionary” early in life because of his encyclopaedic knowledge.

He set excellent records in primary school and at the famous Government College, Umuahia where the school put up his plaque for coming first in the entire country.

He was admitted into the then University College, Ibadan to study Medicine but changed over to the liberal arts, and the rest, as they say, is history.

He entered into the world of broadcasting, and rose quickly to become the Director of External Broadcasting in pre-war Nigeria.

He got married to Christie Chinwe Okoli, and the marriage got blessed with four children – Chinelo, Ike, Chidi and Nwando.

After the war, Achebe changed over to the academia, teaching at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

At barely 28 years of age, Chinua

Achebe published the novel Things Fall Apart in 1958, and it has proven to be the single most important piece of literature out of Africa.

The 50th anniversary of the 200odd page novel in 2008, for instance, was celebrated all over the world with festivals, readings, symposia, concerts etc.

The novel which has been likened to epic Greek tragedies has been translated to some 60 languages, and has sold over 20 million copies.

It is taught not just in literature classes but in history and anthropology departments in colleges and universities all over the world.

The archetypal theme of the meeting of the white world and the black race makes Things Fall Apart an epochal event in the annals of world literature.

Things Fall Apart tells the deceptively simple story of Okonkwo, a strong man whose life is dominated by the fear of failure as per his musicplaying father, Unoka.

As a teenager, Okonkwo brought honour to his village by throwing the hitherto unbeatable Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling match.

His fame spread through the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond like harmattan bushfire, but he remained troubled that his father Unoka was a debtor and a failure.

As if to compound matters, Okonkwo notices weakness in his own son Nwoye, and he comes to the sad conclusion that raging fire only ends up as impotent ash.

Against the warning of an elder, he kills the ill-fated child Ikemefuna who had been given over to the people of Umuofia as ransom, a child who called him “father”.

An accidental gunshot that kills

a fellow villager at a wake leads to Okonkwo being exiled from Umuofia for seven years.

When he comes back from exile, he discovers that the Christian missionaries have literally overrun the land, and even his son Nwoye had joined them.

In raging anger, after a devious incarceration, Okonkwo cuts off the head of the white man’s messenger but the people of Umuofia would not follow him to war.

He hangs himself on a tree and ends up being buried by the strangers he had spent his life fighting.

Things Fall Apart works at several levels, and can be read at any age from 10 to 100.

As a child, one can enjoy the incidents such as the match with Amalinze the Cat, Unoka’s dismissal of his creditor, the killing of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo’s attempted shooting of one of his wives, the visitation of the masked spirits etc.

Later in life, the many ironies in the book come into play such as the joke on the District Commissioner thinking that Okonkwo’s story can only end up as a paragraph in his planned book, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, without knowing that one Chinua Achebe had taken the thunder from him by giving Okonkwo an entire book in which the story is narrated from inside!

It is not for nothing that Achebe is celebrated as the father of African literature because he changed the perspective of world literature from the gaudy picture of Africa painted by Europeans such as Joyce Cary to the authentic telling of the story by the Africans.

Unlike earlier African writers like Guinea’s Camara Laye, author of The

African Child, who painted a romantic picture of the continent, Achebe was relentlessly objective in his narration, telling it as it is, warts and all.

It is because of the remarkable success of Things Fall Apart that the publishers, Heinemann UK, launched the phenomenal African Writers Series (AWS) in 1962 with the novel as the first title.

For many years, Achebe served as a non-remunerated Editorial Adviser of the series in which the majority of African writers got their breakthrough in publishing.

Things Fall Apart reputedly accounted for 80 percent of the entire revenue of the AWS.

Achebe’s most famous novel somewhat dwarfed his other novels such as No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987).

In 1975, Chinua Achebe gave his famous controversial lecture, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” that put the issue of racism on the front burner via Joseph Conrad.

The last book of Achebe was There Was a Country – A Personal History of Biafra, which sounds as if it is the epitaph of the country as Nigerians always exclaim in despair: There was a country!

Achebe won the Man Booker International Prize for his lifetime achievement in fiction writing, beating a formidable shortlist that included Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul etc.

He equally won, as the first African, the American National Arts Club Medal of Honour for Literature in November 2007.

Things Fall Apart has earned its

Don’t delay developing world debt – cancel it

By Nick Dearden

Even before coronavirus started spreading around the world, dozens of developing counties were already close to a debt crisis.

Lebanon and Argentina have already defaulted on their debts this year; Ecuador and Zambia are on the edge. Behind them, a large group of countries could be pushed into default by the coronavirus crisis, including Angola, Tunisia and Ghana. Even rich countries like Italy face such serious debt crisis that it threatens to rip the Eurozone apart.

Before we had even heard of COVID-19, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that 34 countries were at risk of debt distress.

Jubilee Debt Campaign, a group established in the late 1990s to campaign for debt cancellation for impoverished countries, suggested last May that this was an optimistic assessment. It said 31 counties were already in debt crisis, with another 82 at risk.

After all, not being able to fund healthcare because of debt repayments is a crisis, and more than 60 countries that are struggling to build a basic health system were already spending more paying their creditors than they were on healthcare.

This includes Ghana, which is

due to spend almost four times more servicing external debt than on public healthcare in 2020.

Many countries face dire health emergencies even at the best of times: Burkina Faso has just 11 ventilators for 19 million citizens; Mozambique has no intensive care unit capacity at all; and Sierra Leone has only one doctor per 50,000 of its people.

That some of the world’s poorest countries are repaying vast sums year on year to rich countries, international “anti-poverty” funds – public bodies such as the IMF – and major banks, all while enduring this sort of permanent crisis, is a damning indictment on our global economy.

How can it be that only 15 years since billions of dollars of debt was cancelled for low-income countries, and 10 years since a debt crisis ripped through the developed world, we are back in the same place again?

It is not simply the impact of coronavirus that has created this debt crisis. Rather, the pandemic has exposed, once again, what a crisis-prone and unsustainable global economy we have.

The solution to this crisis will indeed have to include sweeping debt cancellation. But it will also require fundamental reform to prevent the global economy from continuing to operate as a gigantic casino.

The root cause of these crises was usually not profligate government spending on the part of indebted countries, as is so often assumed. Rather, these crises have been built into the neo-liberal economy that emerged in the late 1970s.

Under this model, economic planning is not something done by governments on the basis of meeting human needs, but is handed over to Big Finance, where major decisions are made on the basis of short-term profitability.

The global economy has become a Wild West of speculators and rentseekers. Business is incentivised to ruthlessly shift the costs of its operations onto the public sector, the environment and future generations. Wealth is hidden offshore, making redistribution impossible.

How does such an economy continue to operate? Through debt.

Households that cannot make ends meet as wages are driven down by a global economy that has shifted wealth from the masses to the elite are households turning to credit cards or payday lenders to keep going.

Governments drained of taxes, even in rich countries, are forced to turn to the financial markets to provide healthcare and welfare to their citizens.

Debts spiral upwards. Eventually, financial markets look at the situation

and realise it cannot go on. They panic, fuelling a downward spiral of economic collapse.

The 2008 global economic crash showed us how utterly chaotic and anti-social such a model is, and the devastation it drives through societies.

But even then, lessons were not learned. Governments stepped in to rescue the situation, pumping trillions of dollars into the very institutions that created the problem in the first place.

While the rest of us were paying for the crimes of these institutions through austerity imposed upon us by governments trying to “balance the books” – and, ironically, making society even less able to insulate itself from the power of these markets –financial institutions were scouring the world looking for new profits.

With interest rates close to zero in the rich world, emerging and even lowincome countries became attractive prospects for these financiers. The press celebrated an “African miracle” as investment poured into the continent.

Doubtless there were individual success stories. But a huge amount of this wealth poured into commodity markets, and into providing “publicprivate” services and infrastructure, creating a mountain of debt in its wake.

This brings us to now: A pandemic breaks out. Panic sets in. Funds relocate their cash to developed

uncommon distinction as a modern classic, and was in 1992 adopted into the esteemed Everyman’s Library of world classics.

The Igbo world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries which Achebe depicted in Things Fall Apart has become the global picture of Africa writ large.

At the end of the 20th century, the book that gave the world a new English language was voted as Africa’s “novel of the century”.

As a true “man of the people”, unlike Chief M.A Nanga of A Man of the People, Achebe served meritoriously as the President-General of his Ogidi town union, and was the Vice-Chairman of Aminu Kano’s talakawa party, People’s redemption Party (PRP), in the Second Republic.

Chinua Achebe died at exactly 11:51pm (US time), that is 4.51am (Nigerian time), on Thursday, March 21 at the Harvard University Teaching Hospital, Massachusetts, USA, aged 82.

The then American President Barack Obama paid Chinua Achebe deserving tribute thusly: “A revolutionary author, educator, and cultural ambassador, Chinua shattered the conventions of literature and shaped the collective identity of Nigerians throughout the world. With a dream of taking on misperceptions of his homeland, he gave voice to perspectives that cultivated understanding and drew our world closer together. His legacy will endure in the hearts of all whose lives he touched with the everlasting power of his art.”

economies asfinance seeks the safety of the bigeconomic centres. Since the start of the recent crisis there has been a$95 billion financial outflow from emerging markets – four times the outflows in the same period after the start of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The average price of commodities on international markets has fallen by 37 percent, and developing countries stand to lose nearly $800bn in export revenues.

Dollars, needed for the repayment of much sovereign debt, are in short supply and, while new borrowing is effectively free for rich governments because of ultra-low interest rates, the price has just spiralled for developing countries whose economies are judged less “safe” by markets – countries that therefore have to pay hiked interest rates to borrow. A debt crisis is inevitable.

This week, Group of 20 (G20) ministers met again to discuss the crisis. Debt cancellation was on the agenda.

Oxfam warned that failure to address this situation would set some countries back 30 years.

African leaders called for a $100bn stimulus package from G20 countries; the United Nations for an even larger $2.5 trillion COVID-19 crisis package for developing countries.

Nick Dearden is a Public Affairs Analyst.

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a Public Policy Analyst.

Group wants INEC to disqualify Tinubu as presidential candidate

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

Acivil society group, the Action Alliance of Virginia Pavilion, has called on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC), to disqualify presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress ( APC), Senator Bola Tinubu in the 2023 general election over alleged involvement in narcotics and money laundering.

The group in the letter titled “Demand for You to Uphold The Oath of Your Office By Delisting The Name of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu As The Presidential Candidate of The All Progressives Congress in the 2023 General Election”, stated that Tinubu by virtue of his forfeiture of the sum of $460, 000 to the United States government in 1993 is not fit to

Wase calls for improved Nigeria-Ghana parliamentary relations

By Christiana Ekpa

The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Ahmed Idris Wase, and the Speaker of Ghanian Parliament, Mr. Alban Kingsford Sumana, have pledged to strengthen parliamentary relation for the benefits of the West African sub-region.

Speaking when he received the Ghanian Speaker who is on a courtesy call in his office, the Deputy Speaker said Nigeria and Ghana have a lot in common and pledged to improve synergy between the two parliaments, which would benefit not only the two countries but also the entire sub-region.

He applauded the ECOWAS Parliament for ensuring that free movement of goods and services is achieved. He expressed optimism that with close working relationship between the two countries, a lot could be achieved.

The Deputy Speaker, who received the Ghanaian Speaker on behalf of Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, called for the creation more parliamentary friendship groups where lawmakers would interact and educate one other as well as create understanding between the two parliaments.

Earlier, the Ghanian Speaker said they were in Nigeria to meet with the management of the National Assembly Service Commission and to share in the knowledge and experiences they have in running and managing the affairs of the National Assembly.

He thanked the leadership of the National Assembly and the chairman of the National Assembly Service Commossion and his commisioners for accepting to share their knowledge and experiences.

The Ghanian Speaker was accompanied by the Ghanian National Assembly Clerk as well some senior staffs of the parliament.

hold public office.

In the letter dated November 14 and signed by the group’s lawyer, Mr Kalu Kalu, the group argued that Section 137(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution forbids anyone under a fine for any offence involving dishonesty or fraud from vying for the office of president in Nigeria.

The group also drew the attention of the INEC boss to letters earlier served on the NDLEA and Attorney General of the Federation, over the issue.

“As evident in recent media reports you are already aware of the contents of the Court proceedings referenced in annexure “L1”. However, for ease of reference we hereto attach the said proceedings and is marked annexure “B”

“Arising from the proceedings in annexure “B” we demand that

you uphold your oath of office which enjoins you to perform your duties in accordance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. We, therefore, invite your esteemed attention to Section 137(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution which provides thus:

“A person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he is... under a fine for any offence involving dishonesty or fraud (by whatever name called) or for any other offence, imposed on him by any court or tribunal.. . “

“Arising from the above provision we state clearly that Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is disqualified from contesting the presidential election in 2023 in accordance with the above provision”.

In supporting their allegations, the group referenced part of the

Court judgement which read thus:

“It is hereby ordered that the funds in the amount of $460, 000 in account 263226700 held by First Heritage Bank in the name of Bola Tinubu represent proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in financial transactions in violation of and therefore these funds are forfeited to the United States...

“It is further ordered that First Heritage Bank shall issue a cheque in the amount of$460, 000 payable to Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and these funds shall be disposed of according to law”.

The group described as “improper” the unwillingness of the commission to investigate Tinubu, over the issue, just as it threatened legal action.

“Indeed, your Press Release revealed a clear intention to aid a

drug baron and money launderer to escape the sanctions of the law.

“Accordingly, we are by this letter making a demand that you issue a proper statement on the matter to the effect that you will, in accordance with the Constitution, delist Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a Presidential Candidate in view of the express decision in annexure “B” which imposed a forfeiture on the account of Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his involvement in Narcotics Trafficking and Money Laundering.

“Take notice that unless you heed the demand herein made within seven (7) days from receipt of this letter, we shall without further notice to you take appropriate legal action to compel you to keep faith with the Constitution which is supreme to which you swore to uphold.”

By Lateef Ibrahim, Abuja

The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation (AOPCO) has berated the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign for resorting to the diversionary tactics of attacking and bullying the media rather than explaining the allegations surrounding the shady past of its candidate.

The AOPCO stated that the action of the TInubu/Shettima Campaign Organization has further confirmed that Asiwaju Tinubu lacks democratic credentials and has no business contesting for the office of the President of a country like Nigeria where citizens are in resolute in their demand for a credible and acceptable leader, who has no skeleton hidden in his cupboard.

The campaign organisation said this in a statement yesterday by its Spokesperson, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja.

The AOPCO stressed that with the development, Asiwaju Tinubu

has, indeed, shown that he does not possess the qualities of the leader Nigerians are yearning for at this critical time of the nation’s history.

According to the statement, “The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation berates the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign for resorting the diversionary tactics of attacking and bullying the media rather than explaining the allegations surrounding the shady past of its Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“The Atiku/Okowa Campaign demands that Asiwaju Tinubu and his bully handlers should face his self-inflicted woes instead of attempting to play the victim just to divert public attention from his very unpleasant past.

“It is reprehensible and unmistakable sign of culpability that Asiwaju Tinubu and his campaigners have desperately resorted to bullying, intimidating and harassing media houses and journalists with a view to

silencing and stopping them from questioning Asiwaju Tinubu on allegations of perjury, forgery, corruption and massive treasurylooting.

“We therefore consider this diversionary approach by the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign as very unwholesome and unacceptable assault on the very bedrock of democracy which is the right of the people to know, through a free press.

“Asiwaju Tinubu must understand that having brought himself out to contest for the position of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he must prepare to explain himself to the littlest of Nigerians, as well as the media which has the basic constitutional responsibility to seek information on behalf of every Nigerian.

“It is therefore, to say the least, irresponsible, thoughtless and incautious that the Tinubu/ Shettima Campaign will abandon its responsibility of assisting its candidate to offer explanation, if he has any, rather than attacking

media houses and demanding the sack of media practitioners for performing their professional and constitutional duties.

“The action of the TInubu/ Shettima Campaign Organization further confirms that Asiwaju Tinubu lacks democratic credentials and has no business contesting for the office of the President of a country like Nigeria where citizens are in resolute in their demand for a credible and acceptable leader, who has no skeleton hidden in his cupboard.

“Indeed, Asiwaju Tinubu has shown that he does not possess the qualities of the leader Nigerians are yearning for at this critical time of our history.

“Our campaign urges Asiwaju Tinubu to note that his diversionary tactic and attack on the media will not stop Nigerians from raising the necessary posers.

“Tinubu should therefore fold his ‘agbada’ and respond to the media and Nigeria on the issues at hand.”

Stop your diversionary tactics, address the allegations, Atiku/Okowa campaign tells Tinubu/Shettima Campaign

Acting Company Secretary, Dangote Cement Plc, Edward Imoedemhe; Independent Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Ernest Ebi; Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Abdu Dantata; Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Halima Aliko-Dangote; Chairman, Dangote Cement Plc, Aliko Dangote; Group Managing Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Michel Puchercos; Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Olakunle Alake; Non-Executive Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Dorothy Ufot, SAN; and Deputy Group Managing Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Philip Mathew, at the Extraordinary General Meeting of Dangote Cement Plc, held in Lagos on December 13, 2022.

Kano APC, NNPP in war of words over four new emirates

By Musa Baba Adamu

The All Progressive Congress (APC) led government in Kano State and the opposition New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) have engaged in a war of words over allegations that the Kwankwaso-led NNPP would immediately cancel the newly created four emirates councils if the party wins the forthcoming election.

The controversy began when the Kano State government said that following the consolidation of the new emirates in the state, the stage has been set for the incorporation of the traditional institution into its sectoral development programmes to accommodate the overall socioeconomic needs of the people, as against the alleged NNPP plan of dissolution of the four council’s immediately after coming to office.

Kano State’s Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammad Garba, who doubles as the APC Gawuna/Garo Campaign Council spokesperson had said: “Since the new emirates were created to make the institution stand the test of time and move in the same pace with the global world, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government would make the monarchs stakeholders in the implementation of its development agenda, rather than sacking them.”

However, in a quick reaction to the allegations, NNPP spokesperson, Abdullahi Abubakar Rogo challenged the Kano Government to publish where, when and who made that statement amongst the NNPP chieftains.

Rogo, the NNPP spokesperson insisted that there was nowhere the party made that statement.

“This allegation is new to us we don’t know who said it amongst all our members, in fact, nobody said it, that is never part of our plans, [it] is just baseless allegations, nothing more,” he said.

Again, 11,350 PDP members defect to Katsina APC

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

Another 11,350 members of the Katsina State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Katsina.

This is coming barely one week after the state governor, Aminu Bello Masari received over 1,760 PDP card-carrying members from Danja LGA into the Katsina APC.

The gale of defection threatening the chances of the main opposition party in the state may not be unconnected with the unresolved leadership tussle between the Lado and Majigiri faction of the Katsina PDP.

Mashi LGA is the home of the embattled PDP State Chairman, Salisu Yusuf Majigiri, a loyalist of the former state governor, Ibrahim Shehu Shema.

The decampees led by Abu

Dabo Mashi were received by the Katsina APC Chairman, Alhaji Sani Daura.

Addressing the decampees and other supporters who turned out en masse to receive the Dikko-Jobe governorship campaign team, Dr Dikko Umar Radda reiterated his commitment to treat all members of the party fairly.

Dikko also assured that if he becomes the next governor of the state, he would bring rapid

development to the state by prioritizing security, education, healthcare, agriculture, the economy and jobs creation for both women and youths.

He noted that his campaign team currently touring the Daura axis is embarking on ward to ward tour in the area in order not to leave any stone unturned in its bid to serve the state diligently and to the best of his ability if elected in 2023.

Special team working to unite Atiku with G5 governors – Sen. Ben Obi

By Christiana Ekpa

Senator Ben Obi and Prof Obiora Okonkwo respectively, the chairman and director general of Atiku/ Okowa Presidential Campaign Council in Anambra State have revealed that a special team is working to resolve the impasse between the party’s presidential candidate and the G5 governors.

They stated this on Wednesday in Awka, Anambra State, during a pre-campaign flag-off press conference to announce the visit of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on Thursday.

The campaign council also used the opportunity to present its itinerary for the candidate in

Anambra State.

Senator Ben Obi and Okonkwo who addressed journalists said efforts are ongoing to reconcile Atiku with the G5 governors, and that the state is also poised to give Atiku victory in the 2023 election.

Obi said: “It is a common thing for political parties to have crises. That is not out of place, and we have a team that is working to resolve the crisis in the PDP.

“This is not something we want to make public, but let me tell you that the G5 governors are also willing for peace, Wike (Rivers State governor) has said so. We have a team that is working on that, and for now, we are not willing to make the outcome public, but we are working.”

Okonkwo also added that: “Even in those states where those rifts are going on, there are still campaigns going on, and the plan is to vote PDP from top to bottom. In Abia, you have heard of the five-over-five slogan, and all our governors are still campaigning for Atiku.

“In all their (G5 Governors’) demands, they have never said they have any problem with Atiku personally. It is not a matter that can not be resolved.”

Speaking on the itinerary of the candidate in Anambra on Thursday, Okonkwo said the party expects massive mobilisation, and that a number of activities have been lined up for him.

“Arrival is by 10 am, we will

meet him at the airport and also move to the Governor’s Lodge, where the presidential candidate will meet with Governor Chukwuma Soludo. From there he will have an interactive non-partisan meeting with the traditional rulers of Anambra State.

“He will commission the campaign office, and also interact with town union leaders, market leaders, at Ekwunife Centre, before hitting the campaign arena.”

The party had earlier announced a public holiday among all PDP members in the state, and Okonkwo said the decision stands, and that a massive crowd is expected at the campaign.

I’m the breath of fresh air Nigeria needs – Accord presidential candidate, Imumolen

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

Accord (A) presidential flagbearer, Professor Christopher Imumolen has again urged Nigerians to endorse his candidature to demonstrate that they want a break from the ugly past of rudderless leadership.

The youngest candidate believes the best way the people can point the way to a better

future is for them to reject the old order and support a younger man with fresher ideas for a new era of all-round development.

Speaking to reporters after a rally, he said shunning the old breed of leaders, who have had nothing to offer despite decades of being at the helm, would revamp the nation.

“Nigerians have almost cried themselves hoarse for good leadership for so long now,

without any respite,” Imumolen told newsmen.

“For so long, we have had leaders who cared more about themselves not the people; self-serving leaders who would rather line their pockets with the country’s common wealth, than work towards the collective good.

“We have had leaders who recycle themselves to such extent that the same leaders we knew while growing up are still

struggling to remain relevant, even when it is obvious that they have passed their prime.

“But thank God that people like us have been given the grace to offer ourselves to Nigerians as ones better prepared to lead this country to the next level.

“Nigerians should carefully consider the options before them and choose those they know have the capacity and wherewithal to lead them out of this quagmire.

“I am well prepared to lead. In private capacity, I have been positively affecting lives and bringing succour to the depressed and underprivileged through self-sponsored initiatives, schemes and programmes that put smiles to millions of faces.

“I am in no doubt that I will do more if given the chance to be president of this great country,” Imumolen added.

Over 100 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Youths Supporters Storm Kaduna City to Clean all the Street in Kaduna Metropolis over All Progressive Congress (APC) Rally Yesterday, in Kaduna Wednesday 14/12/22

2023: PDP will lose, APC has failed Nigerians –Kwankwaso

By Christiana Ekpa

The presidential standardbearer of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has described All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as dead political parties who have nothing good to offer the country anymore.

Kwankwaso made the disclosure during his visit to AdoEkiti, as part of his campaign tour in the Southwest part of the country, to canvass for votes ahead of the February 2023 general polls.

Speaking at the Palace of the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adeyemo Adejugbe, he berated both parties over what he termed bad leadership, economic problem, adding that the two major political parties have failed the nation.

The former Governor of Kano State recounted achievements his administration garnered when he was the Governor, saying such would make life more abundant for every Nigerian citizens if elected come 2023.

“APC and PDP are dead, they are finished, and it is our party that will win the next year Presidential Election by God’s grace, we are on ground in the North, we will win the polls.

“Why I’m different from all Presidential Candidates, is that I go round the country on roads, not only the state capital, not only the local government areas, this made me had first hand information on the way and manner our people live.

“The NNPP is based on the talakawa (masses), voters and good people of this country who believe in us. Nigerians know the APC and the PDP very well and they’ve failed. The two political

parties themselves know that they’ve failed. The only chance they have is to buy votes.

“If the Election take place today, NNPP has a brighter chance, no Political party can defeat NNPP, the PDP has been wounded in the Southeast by the emergence of some Political parties, of course in the North, we have caged PDP, even in the South South they are no longer popular because of the Presidential primary contest, and

the APC has failed the citizens, no right thinking Nigerian will want the status quo to remain, meaning this terrible situation to continue.

“I’m part of the formation of the PDP in 1999, so also the APC, Unfortunately the two Political parties drew Nigeria back to square one, or even worst in performance, this is why we formed the NNPP as a credible alternative to the two Political parties, we want new Nigeria. So, I’m so happy we have this

party NNPP, and also happy that all Nigerians especially those earning their living, especially the masses, women and young men are trooping into the NNPP.”

He also noted that the dilapidated road network in Ekiti State and other states has affected security, economy and education of the country hence, his decision to contest again in order to make the country better.

“The road from here, AdoEkiti, Osogbo to Abeokuta and from here to Akure is in

deplorable condition, it’s the same story, it’s the same story about us, the roads are reflection of what is happening in other sectors of transportation, like railways, waterways even in the aviation industry, and put them together they are also a reflection of what is happening in this country, in terms of economy, in terms of insecurity, in terms of education and so on, and all these put together, are the reasons while I decided to contest again to right the wrong.” He said.

You don win, You don win,’ supporters tell Tinubu in Niger State

By Musa Baba Adamu

Amammoth crowd of supporters converged on the Trade Fair Complex, Minna venue of the All Progressives Congress Presidential campaign rally in Niger State on Wednesday to receive the party’s Presidential Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The electrifying crowd was too estactic to see Asiwaju Tinubu shortly after he was in Minna when he attended the Town Hall meeting with farmers and agro commodity traders.

The shout of “Asiwaju, you don win, you don win, don’t say anything” rented the air.

An obviously elated and overwhelmed Tinubu seeing the level of support and goodwill from the people, thanked them profusely for their love and readiness to vote for him.

Tinubu who had come with a prepared speech had to abandon the speech to just express his

gratitude to the people.

The rally was attended by Vice Presidential Candidate, Kashim Shettima, Senate President, Dr. Ahmed Lawan and several governors of the party including Abubakar Sani Bello (Niger), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi), Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Babagana Zulum (Borno), Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa), Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano) and Simon Bako Lalong (Plateau) who is also the DirectorGeneral of the campaign.

Also at the rally were former governors, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Abdulaziz Yari and the party’s governorship candidate in Niger State, Muhammed Umar Bago.

Shortly after the rally, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the party’s National Chairman, joined the campaign entourage.

Before heading back to Abuja, the APC presidential candidate paid a courtesy call on the Emir of Minna, Alhaji Umar Farouk Bahago, and inaugurated two

campaign offices donated by Senator Sani Musa Mohammed and Alhaji Mohammed Idris.

In the prepared speech that he couldn’t read, Tinubu promised to ensure that Niger State and in deed all states in Nigeria will reap the benefits of the available resources they have.

Specifically for Niger State, he pledged routine dredging of River Niger and full development of Baro Port.

The APC presidential flagbearer said Niger is blessed with resources which the state can benefit from for economic advancement.

“Your State has ample resources and large potential. Not only does Niger cover the largest land mass of any State in Nigeria, but it also serves as the home to three hydroelectric power plants that symbolically light the way forward to hope renewed.

“By God’s grace, I shall be elected. If so, my administration will further empower Niger State so that you reap the full benefits

of its bounteous resources. We appreciate your vital role as the state that powers the nation. The nation will show its gratefulness by investing in your future. The power state will become the More Powerful State,” Tinubu said.

He underscored his economic plan which include building roads for easy movement of agricultural products and creating better opportunities for the farmers.

The speech says further, “Our economic plan will make strategic investments in industry and infrastructure, giving our talented people the chance to make a good living while producing valuable goods that will improve the quality of life for those who buy them.

Federal roads such as the Minna – Bida road, Lambata – Bida road, Suleja – Minna road, Birnin Gwari – Jebba road, and Minna –Kotangora road will be improved such that that they become better avenues of travel and commerce for wellbeing and prosperity of all of us. My Action Plan calls for a modern railway network such

that you shall be able to move the things you make and produce to markets throughout Nigeria, West Africa and beyond.

“We must continue to plant and grow the seed of food security by pressing forward with the expansion of our agricultural sector. We will return farming to its glorious past by giving it an even better future. We shall ensure that farmers realize the full value of their produce. Commodity Exchange boards will set minimum prices for strategic agricultural produce, ensure our farmers do not toil in vain but earn a decent income for their toil.”

Tinubu also promised to address the problem of irrigation in the state, developing water management/ catchment systems and irrigation that tame the cycle of flood and drought.

Just like he promised in other northern states, the former Lagos State governor also promised to address the security challenges the state is faced with.

Over 100 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Youths Supporters Storm Kaduna City to Clean all the Street in Kaduna Metropolis over All Progressive Congress (APC) Rally Yesterday, in Kaduna Wednesday 14/12/22

YPP Reps candidate charges politicians on issue-based campaigns

By Abubakar Yunus

Young Progressive Party (YPP) candidate for IfakoIjaye Federal Constituency in Lagos State, Hon. Peter Folajimi Buraimoh has charged politicians jostling for political positions to ensure their campaigns focus on how to provide solutions to developmental issues.

Folajimi made the call in a statement, a copy of which was made available to newsmen in Abuja,on Wednesday.

He said there was political eclipse which had beclouded the nation’s democracy in the recent time.

According to him, majority of his colleagues do not base their campaigns on developmental issues but on frivolities.

“In the past, after getting people’s mandates and authority, people asses politicians’ performances by all their manifestos and analysis during the electioneering, but today everything has changed.

“Politicians are now turning the table and limiting it with the ideas of the cash carriers take it all.

“Most of them focus more on how much to spend on voters on election day than to engage the citizens on developmental issues and programmes,” he said.

Speaking further, Folajimi said that the country could only get good governance through debatable issues and analysis the politicians gave while campaigning to the people.

He also said that the foundation of democracy should not be on corruption, noting that when such happens, the outcome could not be detrimental to the country.

Northerners selling their PVCs for less than N2000 -NEF raises alarm

By Abubakar Yunus

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has raised alarm over the mopping up of Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) from prospective electorates by politicians in Northern Nigeria.

NEF, who described this action as a way of disenfranchising large numbers of citizens, said each PVC is sold for less than N2000. In a statement signed by the

Director, Publicity and Advocacy of NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, it said this action is voter suppression attempt to reduce the voting powers of the North.

“Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has confirmed what the public has been aware of in the last few weeks. This is the widespread and targeted buying of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) in many parts of the North and a few other

parts of Nigeria.

“Northern Elders Forum (NEF) had followed this worrying phenomenon, advising community leaders and major stakeholders on the dangers of disenfranchising large numbers of citizens. We have also undertaken our own investigations, which prompt this public warning.

“Thousands, or possibly even millions of Northern voters, particularly women, are being

made to surrender their PVCs for a pittance, in most instances not more than N2000.

“In some instances, they are told their cards will be returned to them after they are processed for additional payments as poverty relief. No cards are returned.

“Our investigations suggest that this an aggressive and blatant voter suppression attempt to reduce the voting powers of the North,” the statement said.

Adamu, Modu Sheriff, Okechukwu to attend Media Roundtable on 2023 polls

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

National Chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu will on Friday lead dignitaries to a media roundtable on the 2023 general

election.

The event which is part of the annual lecture series of the APC Press Corps will be chaired by a former Governor of Borno state, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff and hosted by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Barr. Felix Morka.

A statement issued by the Chairman, Organizing Committee of the event, Mr Babatunde Ayeni disclosed that party chieftain and Director General of Voice of Nigeria VON, Mr Osita Okechukwu would make a lead presentation titled; “The Press; The Public: Critical

Agents for Effective Democratic Deliveries in 2023 and beyond”.

The APC Press Corps, a platform for accredited representatives of all the major media organisations covering the activities of the ruling party.

According to the organizers,

the aim of the event which holds at the ‘Buhari House’ National Secretariat of the party by 9am “is to improve its cordial relationship with the rank and file of the ruling party for better coverage of party policies and programmes, thereby helping to deepen our democracy”.

Lawan, Omo-Agege’s absence stalls plenary, senator complains

The Senate did not start Wednesday’s plenary until about 12:40 p.m., which was over two hours behind the scheduled time of 10 a.m.

Although lawmakers of the ninth assembly are known for starting plenary sessions late, Wednesday’s incident was different.

Lawmakers began to arrive at the chamber at about 10 a.m. and exchanged pleasantries but

after over an hour, some of them were seen leaving the room. There was no sight of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and his deputy, Ovie Omo-Agege. There was no communication regarding suspension or delay in the commencement of the plenary.

Both presiding officers were away on official assignments at the time.

Mr Omo-Agege however, arrived at the chamber a few

minutes past noon. And took over the plenary.

A few moments after the plenary started, Rivers senator, George Sekibo, raised a point of order to complain about the delay.

He cited Orders 10, 11, 20a and 21 of the Senate Standing Rules.

The rules provide that where the Senate President and his deputy are absent from plenary, another senator can be appointed to chair the plenary in their place.

Sekibo, a PDP senator, who said he was not raising the issue “in bad faith”, wondered why no communication was made to senators who had arrived at the chamber and waited hours for plenary.

“Thank God we were able to arrive here to sit at 12 p.m., but senators are not supposed to come and wait…,” he queried.

“Next time, if you know you’re in a tight corner, kindly inform

someone and make necessary arrangements rather than keep them waiting…”

He warned that Wednesday’s incident if ignored will set a precedent, which will not look good for the Senate.

He was however ruled out of Order by Mr Omo-Agege who said he does not agree with Mr Sekibo’s opinion. He did not offer an apology or an explanation.

L – R: Mr. Olusegun Ogungbemide, Sector Commander, Lagos Sector, FRSC; Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, Vice Chancellor, Bowen University; Mr. Reuben Muoka, Director Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, at the Nigeria Technology Awards, where the NCC was awarded ‘Excellence in Technology Deployment Federal Regulatory Agency’ on 11th December 2022 at the Admiralty Conference Centre, Naval Dockyard, Victoria Island, Lagos State

UK inflation falls to 10.7% as petrol prices drop

ABUBAKAR YUNUS, Abuja

The United Kingdom’s inflation rate dropped slightly to 10.7 percent in November, down from the 41-year high of 11.1 percent in October.

Economists had expected the inflation rate to fall to 10.9 percent, rather than the 10.7 per cent announced on Wednesday.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), lower petrol prices helped to ease the rate of price increases in the country.

The agency said the largest upward contributions came from “housing and household services (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), and food and non-alcoholic beverages.”

It said the largest downward contributions over the month came from “transport, particularly motor fuels, with rising prices in restaurants, cafes and pubs making the largest, partially offsetting, upward contribution.”

Meanwhile, food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose by 16.5 percent in the 12 months to November, slightly up from 16.4 percent in October.

Grant Fitzner, ONS chief economist, said:“Although still at historically high levels, annual inflation eased slightly in November.”

“Prices are still rising, but by less than this time last year, with the most notable example of this being motor fuels.

“Tobacco and clothing prices also rose, but again by less than we saw this time last year.

“This was partially offset by prices in restaurants, cafes and pubs, which went up this year compared to falling a year ago.”

The inflation data came ahead of the monetary policy announcement of the Bank of England (BoE) on December 15.

Last month, the bank raised its interest rate to 3 percent, the eighth consecutive rate increase in the year.

It also said the country was heading into a prolonged recession.

Cash Withdrawal: Northern groups call for Emefiele’s resignation

ABUBAKAR YUNUS, Abuja

The Coalition of Northern Group, CNG has called for for the immediate unconditional resignation of Emefiele from the position of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria and an unreserved apology to Nigerians.

This is as the group also call on the National Assembly in the alternative to initiate the immediate process of removing Emefiele from the position of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, order for his probe and consequent prosecution.

CNG Spokesperson ,AbdulAzeez Suleiman made the call during press briefing yesterday in Abuja.

He said we strongly and unequivocally back the National Assembly’s resolve to compel

Emefiele to suspend the implementation of this policy and hold him to account for his roles in causing the dwindling value of the Naira, rising inflation, oil theft, ballooning foreign debt, and getting millions of Nigerians into poverty realm.

He said the group embark on the mobilization of Northerners for a massive protest to resist the attempt by Emefiele or any other authority to place more misery on Nigerians at a time when businesses are groaning under the burden created by notwell-thought-out Government policies.

Speaking further, he said the CNG is resolved to taking further necessary actions to stop Emefiele and the CBN from going ahead with the implementation of this and other manifestations of inconsistencies

and misalignments between the fiscal and monetary policies of the Government.

This is because it is embarrassing that the CBN has been making announcements without any regard to the constitution and other relevant laws on the national economy and complete defiance of the Money laundering Act.

According to him ,Section 2 of the Money Laundering Act, 2022 for instance, provides as follows: “2. (1) No person or body corporate shall, except in a transaction through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding (a) N5,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of an individual or (b) N10,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of a body corporate.

“(2) A person shall not conduct two or more

transactions separately with one or more financial institutions or designated non-financial businesses and professions with intent to (a) avoid the duty to report a transaction which should be reported under this Act and (b) breach the duty to disclose information under this act by any other means.”

He said the action by the CBN amounts to a brutal violation of the fundamental right to property under Section 44 (1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

“We therefore hold the draconian decision by Emefiele unacceptable as it is in clear breach non-negotiable fundamental right of Nigerians that cannot be derogated from under Section 45 of the Constitution; and to that extent, absolute.”

ABUBAKAR YUNUS Abuja

Abubakar

Aliyu, minister of power, says the current administration will leave an installed capacity of about 22,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Aliyu said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the 11th edition of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Scorecard Series (2015-2023)’.

The annual event is designed to show off the achievements of various ministries to the media and the general public.

According to Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Nigeria’s total installed capacity currently stands at 10,396 MW.

He said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration will also ensure Nigeria is on a path for 8,000MW of electricity supply.

He said the 8,000MW comprises 5,000MW on-grid and 3,000MW of industrial captive off-grid.

“We will set the country on a stable path for 10,000 megawatts of the supplied energy,” he said.

“Today, we are at 8,000 megawatts with 5,000 megawatts on-grid and above 3,000 megawatts of industrial captive off-grid. And we will leave an installed capacity of almost 22,000 megawatts.

“There are ongoing programmes with facilities and investments secured at more than $3 billion to eliminate the gap between transmission capacity and supplied energy.

“We will complete and commission the 700MW Zungeru Hydro Power Plant in the 1st quarter of 2023. We will also see to the operationalisation of the 240MW Afam III and 300MW Okpai Phase II to mention a few.

“The Hydropower component of the Kashimbila Multipurpose Dam was designed and upgraded from six megawatts to 40 megawatts.

“This was in phase one of the evacuation infrastructure,

covering 245km of 132kv transmission lines and three substations, connecting Takum, Wukari, Rafin Kada, Dounga and Yandev in Taraba and Benue States.

“Phase two of the evacuation infrastructure is currently at 45 percent completion level.

“This is covering a 56km extension of the 132 kilovolts (kV) transmission line from Yandev to Makurdi and complete rehabilitation of the Yandev substation.

“Phase two of the evacuation infrastructure will lead to the electrification of 24 host communities, including ZakiBiam, Anyi, Buruku, Birama, Bibi, Shibong, among others within Benue State.”

Aliyu said the administration had changed the narrative of the sector from consumption spending on subsidies to real infrastructure spending.

He said 105 power transformer projects were completed from 2015 to 2022, adding a capacity

of 6,216 megavolt ampere ( MVA) to the grid.

“This is with 73 of the power transformers installed by TCN engineers in substations across the nation,” the minister said.

“Some of the completed Power Transformer and Substation projects are 150 MVA, 330 and 132 kilovolts (kV) Interbus Power Transformer at Ughelli, Delta IV Transmission Substation.

“Also, there are 150MVA, 330 and 132kV Power Transformer at Ayade Transmission Substation, 2x150MVA 330 and 132 and 33kV Substation at Lafia, Nasarawa State.

“There is also the 2x60MVA 132 and 33kV Dawaki/Gwarinpa Substation which was recently completed in November 2022 under the Abuja Feeding Scheme.

“Others are 2x60MVA 132 and 33kV Gagarawa Substation, 2x60MVA 132 and 33kV Substation at Adiabor, 2x30MVA 132 and 33kV Yelwa Yauri, 1x30MVA 132 and 33kV Ilashe Substation, 1x40MVA 132 and

The minister also said that a number of substations and bay extensions were being completed and expected to be inaugurated by the first and second quarters of 2023.

According to him, the substations are “2x150MVA, 330/132/33kV and 2x60MVA 132/33kV Substation in Akure, 2x150MVA 330/132/33kV Substation at New Apo” under the Abuja Feeding Scheme, among others.

He also said a review of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) showed that the sector recorded progress.

“In the recent October billing cycle, the sector recorded a new milestone with the highest ever collections in history at N74 billion,” he said.

Additionally, Aliyu said tariff shortfalls had been reduced by more than 80 percent even as the ministry is on the path to having a sustainable market.

33kV Substation at Bichi.”

Minister: Buhari will leave behind 22,000MW power generation capacity

BU$IN€SS

MTN lands subsea cable in South Africa to deepen internet connectivity

ABUBAKAR YUNUS, Abuja

Senate confirms reappointment of Aishah Ahmad, Edward Adamu as CBN deputy governors

The senate has confirmed Aishah Ahmad and Edward Adamu for a second term as deputy governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

committee, they fielded questions on the country’s cashless and withdrawal limit policies.

had said.

MTN

Group says it has received a 45,000-kilometre subsea cable to connect African countries to Europe and the Middle East.

The subsea cable named 2Africa is a joint project of MTN South Africa and MTN GlobalConnect as well as a partnership with a consortium.

The consortium includes MTN GlobalConnect, China Mobile International, Meta French telecoms company Orange SA, Telecom Egypt, Vodafone, Mauritius-based infrastructure provider WIOCC and Saudi Arabia’s center3.

In a statement on Tuesday, the telecom giant said the subsea cable would lay the foundation for improved global internet access, connecting people and continents.

It said the subsea cable will play a big part in delivering much-needed capacity in Africa from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

It added that the 2Africa landing is one of several cable landings taking place across 46 locations in 33 countries.

Speaking on the partnerships as well as the subsea cable project, Ralph Mupita, chief executive, MTN Group, said it would deepen the continent’s internet adoption.

“Strategic partnerships, such as the one we have with the 2Africa consortium, will help us accelerate and deepen internet adoption and socioeconomic progress across the African continent. Data traffic across African markets is expected to grow between four and five-fold over the next 5 years, so we need infrastructure and capacity to meet that level of growth and demand,” Mupita said.

“Our target, which is underpinned by MTN’s ambition 2025 strategy, is to roll out a total of 135 000 km of proprietary fibre by 2025, generating up to $1 billion in revenue. Entrenching MTN as the number one African fibre player, by building subsea and terrestrial scalable capacity and resilience.

“This cable landing adds to another milestone to the digital railroads we are building around Africa, making telecommunications accessible and available.”

On his part, Frédéric Schepens, chief executive officer, MTN GlobalConnect, said the initiative complements our terrestrial fibre strategy to connect African countries and to the rest of the world.

“We are building scale infrastructure assets to meet the explosive growth in data traffic and accelerate the digital economy on the continent by creating a pan-African fibre railroad driving affordable connectivity,” he added.

“We are proud of the progress made on our journey and the key role we are playing in providing South Africans and the rest of Africa with the benefits of a modern connected life.”

According to the statement, 2Africa subsea cable system will support western and eastern sides of Africa once complete in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

The development is coming a year after Google launched Equiano undersea cable on the continent.

The subsea cable projects targets delivering a much-needed internet capacity, reliability, and improved internet performance across large parts of Africa, underpinning the further growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for millions of people.

President Muhammadu Buhari had renominated the duo and asked for the confirmation of the upper legislative chamber. They were screened by the banking committee last week. While appearing before the

“Agents could perform an increasing variety of transactions including cash in cash out, bill payments and even account opening. Under the CBN’s SANEF initiative, the agent network had grown to 1.4 million agents available in every local government in Nigeria,” Ahmad

“The various options open to Nigerians to perform financial transactions including mobile money, USSD, internet banking, mobile apps, eNaira, agents and mobile POS etc.

“All of these would ensure that Nigerians would seamlessly adapt to the cashless policy to enable financial inclusion and economic growth.”

The upper legislative chamber confirmed them on Wednesday after Uba Sani, chairman of the senate banking committee, presented a report on the matter.

Sani said they met the requirements expected of them during the screening process.

Thereafter, Ovie Omo-Agege, deputy president of the senate, put their nominations to a vote for confirmation or otherwise.

World Bank approves additional $18m to strengthen disease surveillance in West Africa

ABUBAKAR YUNUS Abuja

The World Bank says it has approved an additional $18 million to reinforce health systems and support effective disease surveillance in West Africa.

In a statement posted on its website, the Washington-based institution said the money would support the implementation of the ongoing regional disease surveillance systems enhancement programme (REDISSE) respectively in Benin ($6 million), Senegal ($7 million) and the West Africa Health Organisation ($5 million).

REDISSE is a regional multisectoral programme currently involving 16 countries in West and Central Africa – Angola, Benin, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Congo Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo,

Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and Togo.

In addition to 16 beneficiary countries, two regional entities — the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) — also participate in the programme to ensure a high-level policy and regulatory harmonisation with a cross-sectoral approach aimed at improving cooperation and coordination of disease surveillance and epidemic preparedness across West and Central Africa.

The World Bank explained that the programme aimed to strengthen national and regional capacities to address disease threats at the human, animal, and environmental interface, which is the source of the most known epidemic-prone and novel

pathogens.

“The REDISSE programme was approved in four phases in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively, with total financing from the World Bank of US$657 million. The new additional financings bring this total to $688.13 million,” the statement reads.

“The REDISSE programme was established prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and has proved to be instrumental to the initial emergency COVID-19 response activities, repurposing its funding to allow participating countries to undertake surveillance and contact tracing activities; conduct laboratory testing and diagnosis; procure essential drugs, equipment, material, and commodities; and organise training for healthcare staff.”

Commenting on the

development, Boutheina Guermazi, World Bank regional integration director for subSaharan Africa, the Middle East and northern Africa, said the existence of the REDISSE programme in the countries prior to COVID-19 allowed the use of an already established platform, nascent systems, and financing to quickly kick-start COVID-19 emergency response, thanks to the flexibilities allowed by the programme’s design.

“These additional financings will help Benin, Senegal, and WAHO to complete the remaining originally planned activities to enhance surveillance and information systems, strengthen the laboratory systems, and build capacities to foster inter-country collaboration and coordination of disease surveillance and epidemic preparedness in West Africa,” she explained.

BU$IN€SS

CBN: Our agric interventions saved Nigeria from famine, food crisis

Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says its various development finance interventions have boosted food security in Nigeria.

Yusuf Yila, CBN director, development finance department, said this on Monday at the 2022 retreat for the department in Abuja.

Yila said although some people had raised concerns over the rising food inflation, the CBN interventions had saved the country from famine.

“The CBN has been at the forefront of ensuring Nigeria achieves food security in collaboration with other fiscal authorities, also stimulating growth in collaboration with ministry of industry,” Yila said.

“Food security in Nigeria has received massive boost in the last five years since the CBN intervened in the sector to curb

over-reliance on imported goods.

“We have traversed the length and breadth of Nigeria, empowering farmers and MSMEs in access to finance and agric-business and also using target credit facility. It became a comfort for households especially during the covid 19.

“For those looking at food inflation to discredit the work we have done in the development finance department, I just want to tell them that Nigeria is part of a global system, and shocks from one facet of this system have a concomitant effect in the other parts. We are not alone because we are not aliens.

“While this is hardly any comfort over the rising prices of food, had we not intervened, we could have been facing a certain food crisis and severe famine of historical proportions.

“Currently, we have developed an advanced system for linking farmers to input

suppliers and providing access to the market for farm products.

“The entire agricultural value chain has seen a transformation not witnessed before, and we are certain the global headwinds, which have distorted outcomes for most economies across the world, will abate.

“Nigeria is on the path of sustainability and food security. The Development Finance Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria is committed to the goal of sustainable economic growth.

“While we are committed to making today a comfortable day to live in, we are also minded on sustainable development which is defined as “the development which meets the needs of today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Also speaking at the event, Aishah Ahmad, deputy governor, financial system

stability directorate of the apex bank, expressed concerns over the poor repayment of loans provided by the bank.

She urged beneficiaries of the CBN loans to pay back in order to enable others to benefit from the interventions.

“In recent years, the efforts and interventions of the CBN have ushered in a lot of growth and impact. It helped us combat extreme poverty, food insecurity and grow the agricultural sector and manufacturing base,” Ahmad said.

“But it also brings in considerations, and we are well aware of these considerations. Of course, the most obvious is the risk of poor recovery rate on some of the loans we give out, which may be a burden on the institution, but most importantly may affect the sustainability of our initiatives.

“We also try to empathise with all stakeholders that all of

these are loans and not grants. It is important you pay back so that others can also get the same opportunity.”

The CBN said it had disbursed N9.714 trillion through various intervention funding programmes across several real sector industries.

According to the bank’s development finance department (DFD) report made available at the retreat, the manufacturing/ industry sector had the highest allocation of 32.6 percent.

It was followed by energy/ infrastructure and agriculture with 23.1 percent and 22.8 percent allocations, respectively.

Yuletide: NIS sets up passport desks at airports for Nigerians in diaspora

ABUBAKAR YUNUS Abuja

The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has directed an immediate opening of passport desks in international airports in the country.

The directive is geared towards attending to Nigerians in the diaspora who plan to return home during the Yuletide.

In a statement, Tony Akuneme, NIS public relations officer, said the new policy is to ensure that there is a seamless passport process for all Nigerians coming home and those who may desire to process their passports.

Falana: CBN cash withdrawal policy illegal — the law says N5m

Femi Falana, human rights advocate, has faulted the new cash withdrawal policy introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

On December 6, the CBN directed deposit money banks and other financial institutions to ensure that weekly overthe-counter cash withdrawals by individuals and corporate entities do not exceed N100,000 and N500,000, respectively.

The policy, which is expected to take effect nationwide from January 9, 2023, has elicited varied reactions among Nigerians.

Reacting to the policy, Falana,

in a statement on Monday, said the apex bank’s new cash withdrawal limit was “illegal and null” and contravenes provisions of section 2 of the money laundering act, 2022.

The human rights advocate said section 2 of the act, limits cash withdrawals by individuals and corporate entities to N5 million and N10 million, respectively.

He argued that since the act has not been amended, the new CBN policy is “null and void”.

“Since the money laundering act, 2022 (which has fixed maximum cash withdrawal to N5 million) has not been amended, the limitation of cash withdrawal of not more than

N20,000 per day and N100,000 per week fixed by the Central Bank of Nigeria is illegal, null and void in every material,” Falana said.

“We urge the Nigerian people to ignore the illegal announcement.

“However, we are compelled to call on President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the management of the CBN to withdraw the illegal guideline and stop announcing more policies that are designed to sentence poor citizens to more excruciating economic hardship.”

Meanwhile, section 2 of the money laundering act 2022 states thus:

“(1) No person or body

corporate shall, except in a transaction through a financial institution, make or accept cash payment of a sum exceeding—

(a) N5,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of an individual; or (b) N10,000,000 or its equivalent, in the case of a body corporate.

“(2) A person shall not conduct two or more transactions separately with one or more financial institutions or designated non-financial businesses and professions with intent to — (a) avoid the duty to report a transaction which should be reported under this act; and (b) breach the duty to disclose information under this act by any other means.”

“In line with this, CGIS has also directed passport offices across the country to give priority attention to such citizens living outside the country and their families, bearing in mind that most of them have a specific time of returning to their countries of residence,” the statement reads.

“The CGIS affirmed the commitment of the service to continue rendering effective and efficient service delivery to all Nigerians both at home and abroad, as well as non-Nigerians who are desirous of using any of the service windows.”

The development is coming a few weeks after the NIS directed selected passport offices across the country to work on Saturdays until January 2023 in order to clear the backlog of applications.

Last month, the NIS said Nigerians in the diaspora with expired passports can return home without hassles.

ABUBAKAR YUNUS,Abuja

From left. Wife of the Vice President Dolapo Osinbajo ; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha during Messiah Christmas Concert at the State House Banquet Hall Abuja on Tuesday ( 13/12/22)

METRO

IGR: FCT Minister reads riot act to tax evaders

By Stanley Onyekwere

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, has issued a strong warning to tax defaulters in the nation’s capital, admonishing them to desist from such menace, as it impedes on effort at improving the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) revenue base of the Territory.

Bello noted that their actions are not only morally wrong as they ride on the sweat of others, but are also serious criminal offences for which they can face very severe penalties on they conviction.

He made this point in his keynote address delivered by the FCT Permanent Secretary, Olusade Adesola, yesterday, at a town hall meeting organised by the FCT Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS), aimed at enlightening FCT residents and other stakeholders on the processes involved in the issuance of Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC), in Abuja.

He reiterated that if the relevant authorities of the FCT Administration are to continue to provide world class infrastructure for the city, they need a greatly improved revenue base which can only be attained by a robust tax policy where all

who call FCT home also contribute through taxes to her development.

“As residents and business owners, you have a sacred responsibility of paying your tax to help the Administration in ensuring the FCT that we desire.

“ I therefore, use this opportunity to send a note of strong warning to tax evaders to desist from their actions”, he stressed.

According to him, the efforts of the FCT IRS, with the cooperation of residents of the FCT has ensured that the FCT is the second highest internally generating sub-national in the country.

He however, noted that the FCT Administration is not unmindful of complaints about multiple taxation and other sundry challenges in FCT tax regime.

“This matter is also of grave concern to us and we are taking measures to resolve the issue because it also impacts negatively on our efforts of encouraging investment in the Territory.

“I therefore, commend the Ag. Executive Chairman and management of the FCT -IRS for the initiative of holding this public gathering that will enable residents and other stakeholders to fully grasp the

import of this tax policy which is designed to ultimately benefit us all”.

Earlier, in his welcome address by the Ag. Executive Chairman FCT-IRS, Haruna Y. Abdullahi, said while working towards ensuring provision of Taxpayer-centric services, it will not hesitate to take punitive measures on defaulters of the law.

Abdullahi however urged FCT residents and other stakeholders to choose voluntary compliance over compulsion, which would be last resort.

He said the growth and development of the FCT can easily be achieved when residents of the FCT pay their taxes as and when due.

According to him, “the demand and verification of tax clearance affects specific transactions required by individuals (residents of FCT) from FMDAs, FCT-SDAs and Financial Institutions to mention a few.

“Consequently, the failure to demand and verify a Tax Clearance Certificate presented by an individual is liable to sanctions and possible conviction with a fine of N5,000,000.00 (Five Million Naira) or three years imprisonment or both the fine and imprisonment according to the relevant tax laws.

Why we established Mining Dept in FCTA -official

By Stanley Onyekwere

The Permanent Secretary of the FCT Administration, Olusade Adesola, has explained the philosophy underlining the establishment of the Department of Solid Minerals and Allied Matters in the FCT.

Adesola said the creation of the department is to ensure that all Mining activities in the FCT are properly coordinated for improved Internally Generated Revenue ( IGR), and boost the socio-economic activities in the Territory.

A statement from Director, Information & Communication, FCT, Muhammad Hazat Sule,

said the Permanent Secretary, who made the disclosure, while receiving a delegation from the National Steel Council of Nigeria, led by the Executive Secretary, Amb. Abdulkadir Musafari, noted that there are a lot of illegal mining activities that are going on in the FCT.

He, therefore, charged the leadership of the newly created Department of Solid Minerals and Allied Matters which is a common service department, to come up with policies that would end illegal mining and enhance the development of the sector.

He said the FCT has a lot of infrastructural projects to undertake for the well-being of the residents,

but constrained by inadequate funding which underscores the need to widen its revenue base by onboarding other sectors, such as mining to complement the allocation from the Federal Government.

Adesola commended the FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Musa Bello, for approving the creation of the department.

Earlier, the Executive Secretary of the National Steel Council, Amb. Abdulkadir Musafari said they were in the FCT to solicit partnership and support of the administration to strengthen its operation.

Musafari said the responsibility of the Council is to regulate the Steel sub-sector of

the Nigerian Economy to ensure that it conforms with the Acts that established it in 1979.

He stated that Abuja is a developing city, and there are a lot of constructions that are going on in the Territory, which falls under the responsibility of the Council to ensure that Steels that are used by the construction companies are strong enough to support buildings and other structures.

According to him, Ajaokuta which was created at the same time as the FCT is expected to serve as an economic zone for the country but regretted that not much has been achieved in the development of the Steel sector.

“As the relevant tax authority for Personal Income Tax administrations, we have a vital role to play in ensuring strict adherence to the contents of this publication.

“To this end, the FCTIRS has trained its staff on effective monitoring and enforcement procedures as well as investigation for violations of any aspect of the tax laws”.

On his part, Chairman, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Abuja, Kennedy Iwundu, who described the event as apt, urged FCT-IRS to tackle the issue of touting in the tax system, through streamlining the activities of tax practitioners in the FCT.

Among those who graced the occasion include Chairmen of FCT Area Councils, representatives from CBN, FMSDAs, FCT-SDAs, tax practitioners, Corporate and financial institutions.

Members, Pan African Women Projects (PAWP), Jane Nwabuzuba, Ms Bontle Matjila, The President, Market Men and Women Association of Nigeria, Chief Mrs. Felicia Sani , Head of Mission PAWP, Dr. (Mrs) Eno B. Udensi and à Member of PAWP, Mrs. Joyce Nana Ndem, during the Pan African Women Projects in Partnership with INEC sensitization campaigns on PVC collection Drive for women at the Garki model Market in FCT, theme: “Women your PVC is your Power”, held yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Justin Imo-owo

world news

Ukraine War: US planning to send Patriot air defence missiles

The US is planning to send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine, US media reports say.

President Joe Biden is likely to announce the move this week, according to unnamed officials.

Ukraine has been requesting further air defence support for some time, as Russian attacks have continued to kill civilians and cause major blackouts.

Patriot is one of the most advanced US air defence systems but supplies to Ukraine are likely to be limited.

It is not known how many of the batteries will be sent to Ukraine.

Once the move is approved, the systems are likely to be sent over in the coming days, with Ukrainian soldiers trained to use them at a US Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany, the officials said.

The Patriot system would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

2px presentational grey line Analysis box by Jonathan Beale, defence correspondent This significant decision

recognises that the greatest immediate threat is currently from the air, not the ground.

Russia has been regularly targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure with missiles and drones - leaving millions without power, electricity and running

water in the middle of winter.

In recent months Ukraine has been supplied with advanced air defences from the Westincluding NASAMs and Iris-T systems. But it still needs more. It needs air defences not just to intercept missiles fired at power

supply and distribution centres in and around its cities, and to prevent Russia from gaining air superiority near the frontline. Ukraine is struggling to do both.

Justin Bronk, a senior fellow at the defence think-tank Rusi, believes that the US decision to

supply Patriot batteries is linked to Western concerns that Iran may supply Russia with longer range ballistic missiles.

The supply of Patriot batteries to Ukraine will likely be limited. The system is in high demand right across the world, it is expensive, and it requires significant training to operate.

All reasons why this decision has not been fast, and Ukraine’s initial pleas for Patriots were ignored. But the threat of Iran supplying Russia with long-range ballistic missiles has changed the equation.

2px presentational grey line

The news came as explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, in the latest of a steady stream of attacks by Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure since October.

Ukraine has been asking the US for more air defence support for months.

What weapons are being supplied to Ukraine?

How is Russia using ‘kamikaze’ drones in Ukraine?

US says Iran now Russia’s ‘top military backer’

Four people detained by police investigating an alleged bribery scandal involving World Cup host Qatar are to remain in custody.

They were detained last Friday as Belgian investigators found bags containing €1.5m (£1.3m) in a flat, a house and a suitcase at a hotel.

Greek MEP Eva Kaili missed the hearing and will return to court next week.

The court ruled two others should stay in pre-trial detention and a third must wear an electronic tag.

As the hearing took place in Brussels, it emerged that Belgium’s VSSE state security service had been working on the inquiry for more than a year, with the aid of other European countries.

World Cup host Qatar has strenuously denied any claims of misconduct as unfair and “gravely misinformed”.

Qatar has not been named officially by the prosecuting authorities, who initially referred to a Gulf state. However, the term Qatargate was being widely used by members of the European Parliament as they reacted to the unfolding drama.

Justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne told Belgian

media that more than one country had been involved in the suspected bribery of members of the European Parliament.

Allegations that bundles of cash were handed over in return for influence first emerged last Friday with the arrest of six people, two of whom were later released.

Belgian police have since released pictures of stacks of

euro notes in €200, €50, €20 and €10 denominations in a case that prosecutors allege involved corruption, money laundering and criminal organisation within the European Parliament.

Eva Kaili, 44, was taken to a jail on the outskirts of Brussels and has since been stripped of her role as one of 14 vice presidents of the European Parliament. Her Greek lawyer

denied she had done anything wrong and said she had only ever carried out official EU policy.

He also denied allegations that she had accepted bribes amid reports that €150,000 had been found in her Brussels flat.

Sources in Brussels said another €600,000 had been found at the home of one suspect, and another €750,000 in a suitcase in a Brussels hotel

room.

Belgian reports suggested that a strike involving prison staff had prevented Ms Kaili from attending Wednesday’s hearing. Another appearance has been scheduled for 22 December.

In a communique, the Belgian prosecutor said the Tribunal of First Instance in Brussels had confirmed that two other suspects should remain behind bars.

Although only the men’s initials were given, the pair have been widely named as Eva Kaili’s partner, Francesco Giorgi, and an Italian former member of the European Parliament, Pier Antonio Panzeri.

Mr Panzeri now runs a human rights group, Fight Impunity, and Mr Giorgi used to work for him a a parliamentary assistant. Mr Panzeri’s wife and daughter were also reportedly arrested in Italy but have not been charged.

The fourth suspect is another lobbyist, Niccolò FigàTalamanca, who runs a group in the same building as Mr Panzeri. His custody terms involve wearing an electronic ankle tag, so he will be allowed to leave prison.

Sjource; BBC

A US Patriot missile system used in a joint training mission with Israel in 2018

Eva Kaili was unable to appear before judges on Wednesday and will remain in jail until 22 December (file pic)

Son sues Meta over father’s killing in Ethiopia

Facebook’s algorithm helped fuel the viral spread of hate and violence during Ethiopia’s civil war, a legal case alleges.

Abrham Meareg, the son of an Ethiopian academic shot dead after being attacked in Facebook posts, is among those bringing the case against Meta.

They want a $2bn (£1.6bn) fund for victims of hate on Facebook and changes to the platform’s algorithm.

Meta said it invested heavily in moderation and tech to remove hate.

A representative said hate speech and incitement to violence were against the platform’s rules.

“Our safety-and-integrity work in Ethiopia is guided by feedback from local civil society organisations and international institutions,” the representative said.

The case, filed in Kenya’s High Court, is supported by campaign group Foxglove.

Meta has a content moderation hub in Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the conflict between the Ethiopian government and forces in the northern Tigray region, with 400,000 others living in faminelike conditions.

Charlene Ruto: Kenya’s ‘first daughter’ denies using public money

Following a national outcry, the daughter of Kenya’s president has denied that public money is being used to fund what she calls the “Office of the First Daughter”.

Since her father’s inauguration in September, Ms Ruto has held several highprofile events and meetings under the title.

In Kenyan law, no such office exists.

Many Kenyans online have been expressing anger over her engagements, and asking who is funding them.

Some have described her as a “low budget version of Ivanka [Trump]”, who regularly attended political functions while her father Donald Trump was US president.

Some have nicknamed her Quickmart Ivanka - referencing a low-cost Kenyan supermarket.

But Ms Ruto doesn’t seem to be too upset and tweeted a video of herself smiling, while walking around the grocery chain.

Ms Ruto has been meeting leaders across the country and attending international forums with foreign dignitaries since her father William became president.

In one video being shared widely online Ms Ruto is seen speaking to an audience at a summit in Tanzania where she introduces her “team from Kenya” including her adviser and another who is the “head of trade

and investments at the Office of the First Daughter”.

The audience appear to respond loudly with claps and some laughter.

“I don’t get what is funny,” Ms Ruto responds as she attempts to continue with the introductions.

She became one of the top Twitter trends in Kenya on Wednesday as people asked whether she was using taxpayers’ money.

She responded with a statement saying: “The Office of the First Daughter is a private entity. It is neither a constitutional office nor is it being funded by the Kenyan taxpayer.”

She goes on to explains that her “office” has an “independent structure and facilitators” and praises its “objectives of championing youth based agendas and climate change advocacy”.

Communications strategist Mark Bichachi told the BBC: “If it’s a private entity, why call it that? Use a private name, it’s tied to her father being president.”

While political commentator Daisy Amdany said Ms Ruto was “within her rights” to do whatever she wants but warned that she needed to be careful about the image she is portraying: “It offends the public that her father ran on [a] platform of ending

DR Congo floods leave more than 120 dead in Kinshasa

More than 120 people have been killed following the worst floods in years in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa, the authorities say.

Major roads in the city centre were submerged as heavy rains continued for hours and several homes collapsed.

Many of those who died were in hillside areas which suffered landslides on Tuesday.

The government has announced a three-day period of national mourning.

Entire neighbourhoods were flooded with muddy water, and houses and roads ripped apart by sinkholes, including the N1 highway that connects the capital to the country’s main port of Matadi.

Kenga Mwamba told BBC News Swahili that his house had collapsed, trapping his family inside.

“There was no way of getting inside my house. I was only able to rescue one child. I saw my wife’s body floating in the house. I saw my other three kids under the rubble, they were already dead. Neighbours came

to help remove the bodies after the rain stopped.”

An AFP journalist saw the bodies of nine members of a single family who were killed when their home collapsed.

“We’ve never seen a flood here on this scale,” said Blanchard Mvubu, who lives in one of the worst affected areas.

“I was asleep and I could feel water in the house. It’s a disaster - we’ve lost all our possessions in the house, nothing could be saved.”

Prime Minister Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde led a government delegation through parts of Kinshasa to assess the damage on Tuesday.

He said officials were still searching for more bodies.

Earlier on Tuesday, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo joined the United States in blaming climate change for the major flooding.

“The DRC is under pressure but unfortunately it’s not sufficiently heard or supported,” President Félix Tshisekedi told Secretary of State Antony Blinken as they met at a USAfrica summit in Washington.

The flooding was an example

of “what we have been deploring for some time,” he said, adding that those countries which were responsible for pollution should do more to help those which are suffering.

His spokesperson said the president might cut short his trip to the US because of the

disaster.

Kinshasa is located on the River Congo and has seen a huge population influx in recent years, with 15 million people now living there.

Many dwellings are shanty houses built on flood-prone slopes, and the city suffers

dynasties and it looks like they want to establish dynasties, I don’t think it’s okay.

Mr Ruto won the August election against Raila Odinga, the son of a former vicepresident, who was backed by the outgoing president Uhuru Kenyatta, himself the son of Kenya’s first leader.

“She probably means well, but it doesn’t come across well,” Ms Amdany continued.

Ms Ruto herself has said that some of the comments about her were “hurtful” but that she knows she is doing the right thing in trying to help Kenya’s youth.

from inadequate drainage and sewerage.

“One of the main reasons why this is happening is because of the poor housing, and poor planning,” Longombo Dieudonné from the Red Cross rescue team told the BBC.

Source; BBC

Charlene Ruto is the second-born daughter of President William Ruto

Heavy rains caused floods and landslides in Kinshasa

F rom A si A

Olivier Vandecasteele: Iran jails Belgian aid worker for 28 years - family

Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to 28 years in prison on unknown charges, his family has said.

Olivier Vandecasteele, 41, was arrested during a brief visit to Tehran in February and accused of espionage.

On Wednesday, his family said they had been informed of his sentence at a meeting with Belgium’s prime minister.

There was no confirmation from Iran, but the news comes days after Belgium’s constitutional court halted a controversial prisoner exchange treaty.

Iran wants to swap Mr Vandecasteele for its alleged top intelligence official in Europe, Assadollah Assadi. He was given a 20-year jail sentence in Belgium last year for plotting to bomb an exiled Iranian opposition group’s rally.

Mr Vandecasteele worked for six years in Iran for the Norwegian Refugee Council and other aid agencies.

He left the country last year, but returned in February against Belgian government advice in order to close down his apartment in Tehran.

During the brief visit he was arrested by Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) operatives and taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where a number of European and US citizens are being detained on spying charges.

His family allege that he has been subjected to “inhumane conditions” that amount to torture while in detention.

They say he has been kept the entire time in solitary confinement in a windowless

basement cell and has suffered various health problems.

The latest picture of Olivier Vandecasteele from a mobile phone in November

On 28 November, Belgian consular officials were allowed to speak to Mr Vandecasteele for the first time in seven weeks, according to his family.

He told them that he had appeared before a court without the knowledge of Belgian diplomats or his Iranian lawyers.

During the hearing, he was convicted of all charges brought against him without being told what he was alleged to have done, he said. His court-appointed lawyer did not even address the court.

Mr Vandecasteele also told the consular officials he had started a partial hunger strike in mid-November to protest against his treatment.

On Wednesday, his family said in a statement that they had been told by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo

that he had been given a 28-year jail term and that a prisoner swap was the only way to secure his release.

“It is no longer a matter for debate but of life or death,” the statement added. “Are we choosing to leave an innocent Belgian in Iran’s jails until he is 69?”

“What is going on within Belgian institutions for the fate of a Belgian victim to mean nothing?”

Mr De Croo’s office said he had promised them to “continue to explore all possible avenues that could lead to return of Olivier Vandecasteele”.

His government introduced a law in June aimed at ratifying the prisoner exchange treaty with Iran, which would allow Assadollah Assadi to be sent back to Tehran to serve the rest of his sentence in return for Mr Vandecasteele’s release.

But the Iranian opposition group targeted by Assadi and human rights activists warned that it would violate the right to life of the victims and risk encouraging Iranian agents to carry out unlawful acts abroad to crush dissent.

Last Thursday, the Belgian constitutional court suspended the treaty pending a final ruling within three months, saying that “Belgium knows or must know that Iran will not actually enforce [Assadi’s] sentence.”

The Iranian foreign ministry said it was saddened that “political views” had affected bilateral ties and that it hoped the treaty would be allowed.

China diplomats leave UK over Manchester protester attack

China has removed six officials from Britain - including one of its most senior UK diplomats - two months after violence at its Manchester consulate.

The UK had requested the officials waive their right to diplomatic immunity to allow detectives to question them about October’s incident.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly expressed his disappointment that none of the six would now face justice.

The group included consul-general Zheng Xiyuan, who denied beating a protester.

Pro-democracy protester, Bob Chan, a Hongkonger, was injured after being dragged onto the consulate grounds and beaten by men on 16 October.

Mr Zheng, who was effectively in charge of China’s Manchester outpost, denied attacking Mr Chan after he was identified in photographs, and accused of doing so by a senior Conservative MP.

But he later told reporters he had been trying to protect his colleagues, adding that Mr Chan was “abusing my country, my leader. I think it’s my duty”.

China’s decision to remove the diplomats is seen by some as an attempt to de-escalate the dispute and avoid further tit-for-tat exchanges between it and the UK.

However, the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in London said on Wednesday the UK had failed to protect its staff, adding it had launched its own representations with Britain over the incident.

It said Mr Zheng had returned to China under a “normal rotation of Chinese consular officials” after completing a term of office.

UK officials made clear the embassy was

fully aware that if the diplomats did not agree to take part in the police investigation, then there would be consequences.

This is likely to have included the men being declared persona non grata and expelled from the UK.

Instead, China has chosen to avoid that outcome by recalling the diplomats themselves.

Mr Cleverly said China’s removal of Mr Zheng and five other officials demonstrates the seriousness of the UK’s response to the incident.

“We will continue on the world stage and domestically to abide by the rule of law and we expect others to do likewise,” he said.

He added in a written statement to the House of Commons: “I am disappointed

that these individuals will not be interviewed or face justice.

“Nonetheless, it is right that those responsible for the disgraceful scenes in Manchester are no longer - or will shortly cease to be - consular staff accredited to the UK.”

The UK government had informed China the six officials needed to waive their right to diplomatic immunity, a status reserved for foreign diplomats, by this week.

It followed a request by Greater Manchester Police, Mr Cleverly said.

Mr Chan said of the officials’ departure: “It has been two months since I was attacked in Manchester by staff members of the Chinese Consulate.

“Today, I hear that some members

from that consulate have been sent back to China. While it may have taken two months for this to happen, I believe this is one way of solving this complicated diplomatic problem.

“I relocated to this country with my family to live freely. What happened on 16 October 2022 was unacceptable and illegal, and the withdrawal of these Chinese diplomats gives me a sense of closure.”

In theory, diplomatic immunity means officials and their families cannot be arrested or prosecuted for any crime or civil case.

China had initially claimed that there had been attempts to illegally enter the consulate grounds.

Police said at the time that up to 40 protesters had gathered outside the consulate - a smaller diplomatic office that is UK territory but cannot be entered without consent.

Greater Manchester Police said a group of men “came out of the building and a man was dragged into the consulate grounds and assaulted”.

“Due to our fears for the safety of the man, officers intervened and removed the victim from the consulate grounds,” a statement said.

Former Conservative Party leader, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, said the UK should have formally declared the diplomats persona non grata.

“The flagrant assault on a peaceful democracy campaigner in Manchester needs more than allowing those responsible to leave the UK uncharged and with their heads held high. Letting China take them back isn’t justice,” he said.

Source: BBC

Olivier Vandecasteele was arrested when he returned to Tehran for a brief visit in February

A still from a video shows a scuffle outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester

US-Africa leaders summit: Buhari restates energy target of 30 gigawatts by 2030

President Muhammadu Buhari Tuesday in Washington, USA, restated the determination of the Nigerian government towards achieving the vision of 30 Gigawatts of energy by the year 2030.

The President said this during the discussion panel on Just Energy Transition at the ongoing US-Africa Leaders Summit in the American city. He used the opportunity to outline the comprehensive Energy Transition Plan unfolded by his administration in response to the issues associated with the climate change.

According to President Buhari, “as part of the National Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy, we set the vision 30:30:30 which aims at achieving 30GW of electricity by 2030 with renewable energy contributing 30% of the energy mix. Last year, Nigeria became the first African country to develop a detailed Energy Transition Plan to tackle both energy poverty and climate change, and deliver SDG7 by 2030 and net-zero by 2060.

“Our Federal Executive Council approved the plan earlier this year and adopted it as a national policy. As part of the plan, we intend to completely eliminate the use of petrol/diesel generators by 2060 and therefore need to deploy renewables, particularly solar, at an unprecedented scale. For instance, the Energy Transition Plan requires that 5.3 GW of Solar be deployed annually until 2060 to achieve our targets.”

The President stressed that the Nigerian government has embarked on several reforms, one of the best in Africa, on minigrid regulations as well as the integration

of renewable energy into the national grid. He disclosed some of the reforms which have positively impacted the energy sector in Nigeria.

“Our aggressive power sector reforms have resulted in cost-reflective tariffs in the power sector for the first time since privatization. Under the Nigeria Electrification Project, over 4 million people have been impacted through solar mini-

grids and solar stand-alone systems. With respect to hydro, the Zungeru hydropower project is nearing completion and will add 700MW in capacity to the grid.”

While also stressing the resources that the administration has committed towards the realisation of the vision, the Nigerian leader however, called for “considerable financial and technical support” to achieve the goals.

“For instance, our analysis shows that delivering the Energy Transition Plan requires $1.9 trillion spending up to 2060, including $410 billion above business-asusual spending. This additional financing requirement translates to a $10 billion investment needed per annum. Between 2000 and 2020, just $3 billion per year was invested in renewable energy in the whole of Africa.

“Consequently, the $10 billion per year target of our Energy Transition Plan represents a significant scaling of current investment flows and we need support from the U.S. to mobilize the needed resources.

It is important to note that for African countries, the cost of finance and perceived investment risk remains significantly higher than for developed economies despite vast improvements in stability and governance. For our clean energy market to scale, Nigeria and more broadly Africa needs concessional, low-interest capitalled investments.

“Furthermore, we believe that the Nigeria Energy Transition Plan and the net-zero compliant investment pipeline we have developed is prime for a just energy transition partnership like the one offered to South Africa and, more recently, Indonesia. Nigeria too seeks support from the US to be included in the G7’s Climate Partnerships List for the co-creation of a Just Energy Transition Partnership.”

President Buhari also called on US businessmen and the global community to tap “into the innovation and potential returns in our enormous market which is yet to be fully optimized.”

President Muhammadu Buhari with L-R: Minister of Environment Mohammed Abdullahi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All Damilola Ogunbiyi, President of the Rockefeller Foundation Dr. Rajiv Shah and US Secretary of Agriculture Mr. Tom Vilsak during the US-Africa event on Supporting Conservation, Climate Adaptation, and a Just Energy Transition on 13th Dec 2022

In bid to strengthen anti corruption fight: FG proposes more protection for whistle blowers

Says policy has lost steam

As FEC approves N9.24bn Life Insurance Cover for public servants

By Egena Sunday Ode

To strengthen the anti corruption fight, the Federal Government has approved a bill to be presented to the National Assembly to reinvigorate the whistle blowing policy by giving protection to citizens who may volunteer information to the authorities on the menace.

This was disclosed to newsmen on Wednesday by the Minister for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed after the weekly Federal Executive Council, FEC, meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Ahmed admitted that the Whistleblowing policy that was launched on December 21, 2016 by the Federal Government and facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Finance to encourage citizens to voluntarily disclose information about fraud, bribery, looted government funds, financial misconduct, government assets and any other form of corruption or theft to the ministry has lost momentum, therefore the news for the legislation.

The policy is meant to reward anyone who provides information about any financial mismanagement or tip about any stolen funds to the ministry’s portal with 2.5% - 5% percentage of the recovered funds by the Nigerian government.

Council approved the draft bill to strengthen the fight against corruption and to also enable protection for whistleblowers that provide information for use by government, according to her.

She said: “The Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning presented a number of memos today. The first is the draft whistleblower bill for 2022. This memo has been reviewed by council and approved with a provision to ensure alignment with the Evidence Act.

“The purpose of operationalizing and putting in place a whistleblower bill is to strengthen the fight against corruption and to also enable protection for whistleblowers that provide information for use by government.

“As you know since 2016, the council had

approved the setting up of the Presidential Initiative of Continuous Audit (PICA). PICA has been working in partnership with EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NFIU as well as the office of the Attorney General of the Federation.

“We noticed that the whistleblower policy response has lost momentum. We embarked on engagements in the six geopolitical zones and one of the main outcome that we found is that people are concerned about their safety as a result of providing information. So this bill is critical to ensure the effectiveness of the retention of the whistle blower policy.”

The minister also said the council approved a total of N9.24 billion for the 2022/2023 Group Life Insurance Cover for Nigeria public servants.

Ahmed, who said the memo was presented to Council by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan, explained that the insurance is meant to cover all government officials.

The council also approved the Finance Bill 2022 designed to support the implementation of the 2023 budget.

Ahmed said: “If you recall at the public presentation of the budget to the National Assembly, by His Excellency Mr. President, the President had committed to the parliament that a 2022 Finance bill will be submitted to the parliament by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to support the implementation of the 2023 budget.

“So we have been working on this bill and have done a lot of consultations. The bill we presented before Council today has five focus areas including tax equity reforms, climate change and green growth provisions, job creation and economic growth reforms, reforming tax incentives as well as generating revenue enhancing tax administration.

“The purpose of the tax equity reforms is to combat tax evasion and aggressive tax planning practices that some companies operating in Nigeria are involved in but also enabling the utilization of ICT tools and using international best practice to assess taxpayers tax on a fair reasonable basis.

“The climate change green growth focus will complement non-fiscal reforms

that are designed to reduce greenhouse emissions and also to facilitate domestic and international investment in climate adaptation, as well as mitigation and also to enhance green growth and create jobs.

“The third focus area, job creation and economic growth is also designed to complement the ease of doing business and other reforms to support capital formation by the private sector as well as to foster enabling business environmental for micro, small and medium enterprises for youth as well as women in businesses. It will also help to enhance the performance of businesses that are in the FinTech, the ICT, entertainment, fashion, sports as well as the art space.

“The fourth tax incentive is to phase out antiquated pioneer, and other tax incentives for mature industries and moving a revised set of incentives to a real infant industries, through economic governance reforms, we’ve also made proposals to reduce tax expenditure which is equivalent to foregone revenue to support the fiscal space and also based on statistics to gradually transition away from expensive and redundant tax incentives to incentives that are rewarding performance.

“The fifth Focus Area revenue generation and tax administration is to complement the ease of doing business and other reforms that enhanced tax administration, as well as introduced targeted… this kind of non fiscal reforms to amend, address and cure defects in existing tax and non tax laws as well as regulations.

“This Finance bill is amending a number of fiscal laws, including the capital gains tax, company income tax, customs excise tariff Act, Federal Inland Revenue Service Act, personal income tax, stamp duties act, tertiary education tax, VAT act, Insurance Act, Nigerian police Trust Fund Act, as well as the National Agency for Engineering Act NASANI. finance control management act, as well as the fiscal responsibility.

“So with this approval from Council, His Excellency Mr. President will be conveying to the National Assembly, a request for the consideration of this bill.”

Ahmed said the council also approved

the memo for the design, construction and supply of nine numbers Ballistic Riverian assault boats, as well as nine numbers patrol boats with all associated accessories in favor of Messers Sewa West African limited in the sum of N689,722,681.30 inclusive of 7.5% VAT for the Nigerian customs service.

On his part, Minister of State for Budget, Clem Agba, said the council also approved the revised National Social Protection Policy presented by the Minister of Finance and Budget and National Planning.

He said: “Council approved the revised national social protection policy 2021 to 2025. This revised national social protection policy is an offshoot of a previous policy that was implemented from 2017 to 2020. The review was carried out in collaboration with all relevant ministries departments and agencies at both the federal and state levels as well as other key stakeholders, including development partners.

“Recall that when the first policy was in place, there was no ministry like humanitarian affairs. Now we have that ministry. And since it’s part of the review process to do this every four years, the review had to be done.

“In review this policy statewide consultations were embarked upon to harness and advise ideas from all from all stakeholders for the efficient and effective coordination of the policy.

“The National Social Protection Council is to be set up to be chaired by His Excellency the Vice President, with the Secretariat domiciled in the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, the ministers of labour and employment and then the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, disaster management and Social Development who serve as Vice Chair of that council. Also, there’s going to be a technical working group, which will be co chaired by those two ministers.”

Also, Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu said council approved contract for procurement of 20 number transformer tons ratio analyzes awarded to Segulu Stembek Global Services Ltd, at the sum of N564,231,854.08 with 7.5% VAT with a completion new period of four months.

FG released N148 Billion to Niger Delta in 7 years

By our correspondent

It emerged yesterday that a total of N147,571,816,586.25 Billion has been released to the Ministry of Niger Delta between 2015 and 2022 by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for capital projects.

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Okon Umana Okon released the figures in his presentation at the 12th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari scorecard series initiated by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

The released amount is out of the total N220,554,515,629.55 Billion budgeted for the Niger Delta during the seven years period.

This accounts for a shortfall of N72,982,699,043.30, representing 66.82 % of release to appropriation during the period.

The breakdown of the seven years capital budget showed that 2018 got the highest

release of N28,813,825,001.00 billion, followed by the figure of N25,100,750,000.00 Billion released in 2017.

2015 saw the lowest amount released to the Niger Delta Ministry for capital projects standing in the sum of N4,150,000,001.00 Billion.

Umana also disclosed that the recovered funds released by EFCC to the Ministry are to be utilized to fund specific critical projects and programmes in the region, but he did attach figures to the amount released by the anti corruption agency.

He said following the forensic Audit on NDDC, out of over 4000 projects directed for termination, a total of 1,250 have been so far terminated as part of the implementation of the Forensic Audit Report.

The White Paper on the exercise is being awaited, he said, and that some funds have been returned by contractors due to nonperformance and other reasons.

He added that the Ministry has completed 553 projects and programmes between 2015-2022. Some other projects, he said, are ongoing at different completion stages in the Nine (9) States of the Niger Delta Region.

He said the East-West Road project is a dual carriageway and a priority project that spans a total length of 338km with well over 41 bridges. It runs from Warri through Port Harcourtto Oron, with a proposed extension to Calabar, he said.

He said 291km out of the 338km dual carriageway has been completed and all the 41 bridges were also completed with two deck on pile bridges substantially completed by the Ministry before the road project was transferred to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in 2021.

According to Umana, the Niger Delta Ministry is constructing Inter-State and other Road Projects in the Region to increase number of road infrastructure in the Niger Delta Region.

“Within the period under review, a total of 102.55km and 5 Nos. Bridges have been completed. 102 Nos. Road Projects are ongoing in the Region at different completion levels. Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.

“The Ministry is constructing Skills Acquisition Centres (SAC) in the Nine (9) States of Niger Delta Region at a cumulative cost of about N36billion with: 3 Nos. Skills Acquisition Centres completed; and 5 Nos. SAC ongoing in 5 States of the Niger Delta.

“We have carried out Land Reclamation and Shoreline Protection, embarkment for Flood and Erosion Control, Rehabilitation and Reclamation of degraded Eco-system, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Engineering Design, Pollution Control etc. in the Nine (9) States of the Niger Delta Region at the cost of N18,183,096,377.42 within the period under review; and 21 Nos. Environmental Projects are ongoing,” the Minister said.

African govt must demand climate justice at COP27

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

Africa is on the menu again. This time, it’s a renewed scramble for oil and gas by Global North Governments like France, Germany, the United States, and Italy. Renewed interest in fossil fuels in Africa spiked since Russia cut off gas to most of Europe in response to sanctions imposed on it by the bloc after its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Beyond the climate crisis that has engulfed most of Africa and the Global South at large heightened by fossil fuel extractions, the new scramble for fossil fuels will only lead to economic, social, and political underdevelopment by provoking conflict and displacement of African peoples.

In the last six months there has been a disturbing rollback of commitments by mostly European countries to their climate commitments at COP26 and earlier. In a poll of 1,299 voters by public broadcaster ZDF between September 6-8 most Germans want their nuclear power plants kept up and running in response to Russia’s halt on gas supplies to that country. Germany, which had claimed it wants to become carbon neutral by 2045 and will generate all its electricity from renewable sources by 2035 now wants to discard a plan to shutdown nuclear power plants. In the September 2022 poll more than half of German voters called on the Economy Minister Robert Habeck to keep the country’s three remaining nuclear power plants in operation to help secure energy supply.

Habeck, a member of the Greens party, subsequently announced that two of the plants would be kept in reserve and only the third would be shut down at the end of 2022, prompting widespread criticism by climate activists. But there are more developments in the reverse. In May 2022, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, met with Senegalese President Macky Sall with the thrust of discussions centering on that country supplying Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe. The gas will come from Senegal’s substantial deposits along its border

with Mauritania. Italy has also engaged Algeria to keep supplying extra volumes of gas beyond 2022. It is also discussing with Angola, Egypt, and the Republic of Congo about massive deals.

Work on the 1,445 kilometer East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), also known as the Uganda–Tanzania Crude Oil Pipeline (UTCOP) has been stalled owing to human rights concerns, especially land grabs, eviction of thousands of community people from their land and arbitrary arrest of activists. These developments notwithstanding, French oil giant -TotalEnergies and its Chinese partner – funding the project see that as a minor distraction and are still hellbent on getting the project up and running. The EACOP will enable the extraction of oil which will generate over 34 million tons of CO2 emissions every single year to worsen the already precarious climate crisis on the continent.

The flurry of discussions on how to shore up Europe’s oil and gas stocks through these so-called investments is not good news for Africa. As the scramble grows, foreign military presence to protect fossil fuels investments on the continent is also growing in the guise of countering terrorism. Djibouti has agreed to host American naval and drone bases to address the crisis in the Horn of Africa. France also has a military base in Djibouti from where Spanish and German troops operate. The US is also working with different groups in the Sahel. Russia’s covert Wagner Group is also in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR).

With these examples and more, it’s clear that the agenda that the Global North will be pursuing at the Climate talks in Egypt, will not address the climate burdens that Africa currently carries. In the last few months many countries on the African continent have experienced more unusual occurrences attributable to climate change. To mention but a few, South Africa has experienced mudslides occasioned by unusually heavy rains, leaving over 450 persons dead in April. Nigeria is currently in the throes of catastrophic flooding occasioned by crazy

rain patterns that forced its neighborCameroon to release waters from one of its biggest dams. 27 out of Nigeria’s 36 states have been flooded and more than 800 dead. Vast hectares of farmlands are also under water, prompting the projection of many experts that a food crisis is imminent in the country. Chad and the Republic of Benin are also battling similar floods and loss of lives and livelihoods.

Mozambique which was barely recovering from the devastations caused by Hurricane Idai in 2019 has also been hit by new cyclones, droughts, and floods this year.

With such devastation already happening, the question is, will African governments attending COP27 in Egypt unite against the Global North’s fossil

fuel appetite and false solutions that will derail and delay real climate solutions? Will Global South governments remember the plight of their people in the frontlines of this climate crisis? Will they remember the historical debt owed Africans and fearlessly demand for climate and Loss and Damage Finance?

The world is watching, but not silently this time. The people of the Global South, especially frontline communities will not take no for an answer. Now more than ever, there is an unprecedented Global South frontline collaboration whose efforts shall be felt at COP 27 and beyond. All they want is Climate justice and they want it NOW!

: Philip Jakpor works with Corporate Accountability & Public Participation Africa

NTCA,CAPPA calls on NBC to ban smoking in Big Brother Naija Season 6s

By Mashe Umaru Gwamna

The Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) and the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) have urged the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to sanction the organizers of Big Brother Naija Season 6 for wilfully defy the agency’s directive on smoking in the Big Brother Naija Show.

The NBC had issued a directive prohibiting smoking in the show following a letter jointly written by NTCA and CAPPA on July 16, 2021, drawing the agency’s attention to the organisers’ violation of the provisions of the National Tobacco Control Act 2015 and the National Tobacco Control Regulations 2019 pertaining to the ban of Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsorships (TAPS).

Section 12(1) of the NTC Act 2015 defines tobacco advertising and promotion to include “any form of commercial communication, recommendation, or action with the aim, effect, or likely effect of promoting a tobacco product or tobacco use directly or indirectly. That section also states that: “no person shall promote or advertise tobacco or tobacco products in any form.”

In the letter jointly signed by CAPPA Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi and NTCA Programme Manager, Chibuike Nwokorie, dated 23rd August 2021, and addressed to the Director General of the NBC, Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, both organisations said that the organisers of the Big Brother Naija Season 6 have continued to flout the directive.

They revealed that the infractions by the Housemates shown smoking cigarettes

in the Big Brother Naija Season 6 were noticed on the 2nd, 5th, 10th, 11th, and 13th of August 2021.

In the letter, the NTCA and CAPPA stated that findings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) show that movies and entertainment materials are the most veritable tools of the tobacco industry which has been instrumental in the transfer of ideas and promotion of alternative lifestyles to kids.

“The kids, generally impressionable, are enticed by what they see and are initiated into using tobacco products through advertising and subliminal promotion of smoking scenes in movies, music videos and product placements.

“Big Brother Naija Show has a great impression on the youths, and it is unfortunate that smoking scenes are being promoted at a time that research

has shown that smokers are more susceptible to developing complications or even death if they contract the Coronavirus. ..This is also happening at a time that the government is working relentlessly to reduce smoking initiation in the country”.

While the organisations commended the NBC for prompt response to their letter dated 16th July 2021 requesting the enforcement of the NTC Act 2015 and the Regulations, they said it was disheartening that there has been blatant disregard of the directive in the ongoing Big Brother Naija Season 6.

They urged the NBC to enforce the NTC Act 2015 and the NTC Regulations 2019 by sanctioning the organizers of Big Brother Naija Season 6 for wilfully disobeying the directive and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Source

Philip Jakpor works with Corporate Accountability & Public Participation Africa

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France edge past Morocco to set up Argentina final

France were pushed all the way by World Cup wild cards Morocco before the holders sealed a place in Sunday’s final against Argentina.

The first African side to reach a World Cup semi-final refused to buckle despite suffering the early blows of losing key defender Nayef Aguerd to injury after he was named in the starting lineup, and then going behind to Theo Hernandez’s scrambled fifth minute goal.

France, for all Morocco’s endeavour and spirit, were more clinical and substitute Kolo Muani ensured they will defend their crown against Argentina and Lionel Messi at Lusail Stadium on Sunday when he turned in Kylian Mbappe’s deflected shot 11 minutes from time.

Morocco also lost the clearly unfit Romain Saiss to injury before half-time but, roared on by their fanatical support, they came close to drawing level, especially when Jawad El Yamiq’s overhead kick was kept out by a combination of the post and France keeper Hugo Lloris.

France, with Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate outstanding, kept their composure in the hothouse atmosphere of Al Bayt Stadium and had chances of their own, Olivier Giroud striking the post in the first half.

Didier Deschamps’ side always threatened on the break and so it

proved as the lurking Muani finally broke Morocco’s resistance late on.

France needed to keep their nerve to stay on course to become the first country to retain the World Cup for 60 years following Brazil’s triumphs in 1958 and 1962.

They faced a wall of sound from Morocco’s support, with ear-splitting whistles every time they had possession, and while it was not a classic performance, France remained organised and got the job done to set up a final of two giants to conclude this Qatar

World Cup.

Konate, in for Dayot Upamecano who was short of match fitness, epitomised French solidity and coach Deschamps will be hard pushed make a change in that crucial defensive position on Sunday.

And of course, the narrative of Mbappe against Messi will come to a climax on Sunday as France try to repeat their 2018 triumph in Moscow when they beat Croatia in the final.

The under-stated Deschamp

has put together a France team spearheaded by the brilliant Mbappe and they rode their luck at times.

France, however, are in another World Cup final and the 54-yearold Deschamps, who captained them when they claimed the crown on home soil in 1998, now has the chance to make history by winning the tournament twice as a coach.

Follow live coverage of France v Morocco Fifa World Cup schedule World Cup TV coverage guide

Morocco’s night of pride

Morocco’s players and coaching staff were giving a huge and prolonged ovation from their supporters, who have been a real highlight of this World Cup, when they went towards them to take the acclaim after the final whistle.

And it was completely deserved after yet another performance of talent and character which showed exactly why they have been such a glorious surprise package at this World Cup.

Morocco coach Walid Regragui could have been forgiven for feeling the fates were against them after losing crucial players before and shortly after kick-off, as well as going behind.

Inspired by the magnificent Sofyan Amrabat, Morocco redoubled their efforts and were so close to restoring parity when El Yamiq’s effort was kept out by a combination of the post and Lloris.

Morocco also had a clear penalty appeal waved aside in the first half when goalscorer Hernandez flattened Sofiane Boufal in the area. Not only was the spot-kick not given but Boufal was mystifyingly shown a yellow card.

Still Morocco pushed after the break but they wasted opportunities with a reluctance to shoot, a failing that left them vulnerable to a second France goal, which duly came.

Chelsea’s Broja to miss rest of season with knee injury

But he only scored his first Chelsea goal in October and missing the rest of the season could mean he falls down the pecking order when he does eventually return.

Broja, 21, collided with Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa during a mid-season friendly match in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

“Scan results have unfortunately confirmed an anterior cruciate ligament rupture and that surgery will be required,” the club said.

“He will work closely with the club’s medical department during his rehab.”

The Albania international thanked everyone for their messages of support and added on social media: “It’s been difficult to process everything over the past few days, but I am determined to come back even stronger and better than before.”

Broja has made 12 Premier League appearances for Chelsea this season, 10 of them as a substitute, and scoring once following a successful loan spell at Southampton last season.

Chelsea, who lost three games in a row before the World Cup break, play Bournemouth at home on 27

December. They sit eighth in the Premier League table, 16 points adrift of leaders Arsenal.

The

Chelsea were already short of strikers. Romelu Lukaku is on loan at Inter Milan for the remainder of the campaign, meaning Pierre EmerickAubameyang is now their only fit out-and-out marksman. That should trigger another move from the club into the transfer market in January.

Chairman and interim sporting director Todd Boehly has already made a move for RB Leipzig’s Christian Nkunku, but any deal is likely to come in the summer. Chelsea now need a stop-gap option and the lure of Cristiano Ronaldo may be tempting for Boehly.

The question remains whether it’s also tempting for the manager. Last summer Thomas Tuchel said no to a deal for Ronaldo. Will Graham Potter think the same? Or will the Englishman think he has enough cover up top, especially as previouslyout-of-favour wingers Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech have performed well at the World Cup?

Armando Broja: Chelsea striker out for season with anterior cruciate ligament injury

Chelsea striker Armando Broja will miss the rest of the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament, the club have confirmed.

Analysis

Alistair Magowan, BBC Sport Armando Broja’s injury will come as a hammer blow to a striker who is yet to fully establish himself at Chelsea, and continues the club’s

long-running problems in attack.

21-year-old is highly thought of at Stamford Bridge, having signed a new six-year deal at the club last summer.

World Cup 2022: Meet Morocco’s unlikely history makers in Qatar

Morocco are one step from a sensational place in the World Cup final, with boss Walid Regragui embracing the “craziness” ahead of their semi-final meeting with defending champions France.

Their achievements in Qatar, becoming the first African team to reach this stage, have come as a surprise to many, especially after the coach who led the Atlas Lions to the tournament was sacked in August.

Arguably one of the biggest underachievers of North African football, with their sole continental title coming in 1976, Morocco’s 2-0 win over Belgium in their second game in Group F was their first victory at the World Cup since 1998 - having failed to qualify for four straight tournaments immediately afterwards.

Fourteen of Morocco’s 26-man squad were born outside the country - more than any other team at the tournament - with an eclectic mix of players from growing migrant communities across Europe helping them break new ground.

A crucial turning point for the team came just three months before the finals when Vahid Halilhodzic was sacked as coach and replaced by Regragui, who won the domestic league and African Champions League titles with Wydad Casablanca last season.

That change has helped soothe tensions in the squad, with Chelsea winger Hakim Ziyech coming out of international retirement, while the improvement on the pitch has also been remarkable.

Morocco have been vociferously backed at the first World Cup held in the Arab world and their legions of supporters will be joined by thousands more as state carrier Royal Air Maroc operates 30 special flights from Casablanca to Doha on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Estimates of the fluctuating numbers of Moroccan supporters in Qatar vary from 20,000 to as many as 40,000.

The players have become heroes amid joyous victory celebrations across North Africa, and by the diaspora in Europe, but have remained grounded - exemplified by Achraf Hakimi kissing his mother after victories and winger Sofiane Boufal dancing with his on the pitch after beating Portugal in the quarter-finals.

The team have also displayed their Islamic beliefs, bowing down for sujud (prostration) in front of their fans after their progress through the knock-out rounds.

But who makes up the side which is aiming to upset France - former colonial masters from whom Morocco gained independence in 1956 - at the Al Bayt Stadium on Wednesday (19:00 GMT)?

Defensive solidity has been a key factor, with just one goal conceded in eight matches under Regragui - with even that being an own goal in the win over Canada.

Right-back Hakimi is undoubtedly the squad’s poster-boy and is no stranger

to Europe’s top clubs, with spells at Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan already behind him at the age of 24.

He has had to temper his attacking instincts somewhat, but the Paris StGermain star showed a flash of his temperament and talent with his Panenka penalty to wrap up the last-16 shoot-out win against Spain.

Morocco beat Spain 3-0 on penalties after a 0-0 draw in the last 16, with Hakimi netting the clinching spot-kick

Captain Romain Saiss, called ‘the Moroccan Maldini’ by former Wolves coach Bruno Lage, and West Ham’s Nayef Aguerd have been rock solid at centreback, but with both being injury doubts for the game against France, Jawad El Yamiq and Badr Benoun could be called upon to start.

Now playing in Spain for Real Valladolid after a stint in Italy, 30-yearold El Yamiq was part of the Morocco squad which won the African Nations Championship, a competition for domestic-based players, in 2018 while Benoun stands at 6’3” tall and was nicknamed ‘Sultan’ by his Al Ahly teammates before moving from the Egyptian giants to a Qatari club this year.

Morocco one of four best teams in the world - Regragui

With Bayern Munich’s Noussair Mazraoui ruled out of the quarter-final through injury, Yahya Attith-Allahone of three players in the squad from Regragui’s old club Wydad - has stepped in and looked composed despite making his international debut in March.

Get the better of a mean defence and then you have to find a way past Yassine Bounou, born in Canada and known as Bono.

Back-up in Russia four years ago, the 31-year-old was a Europa League winner with Sevilla in 2020 and won the Zamora Trophy last season for being the top goalkeeper in Spain’s La Liga.

“When you have one of the best goalkeepers in the world, it gives you confidence, and Yassine gives us that,” said Regragui after his side knocked out Portugal.

“He helped us a lot and when he gets into the game, we’re virtually unstoppable.”

‘Where does that boy come from?’Hard-working midfield Sofyan Amrabat has been one of the stand-out players in the run to the last four, with his relentless pressing and tough-tackling providing a solid screen to the Morocco defence.

The younger brother of former Watford winger Nordin, whom he replaced in one game at the 2018 finals, Dutch-born Sofyan represented the Netherlands at Under-15 level and has returned to form for Fiorentina this season.

Alongside him in centre midfield is Azzedine Ounahi -one of four players in the squad who are products of the Mohammed VI Academy in Sale - whose

strong box-to-box-displays mean he is garnering interest from some of Europe’s biggest clubs.

“My goodness, where does that boy come from?” asked Spain boss Luis Enrique after their last 16 exit on penalties.

“He plays like the Spanish players. He hasn’t stopped running, he must be exhausted.”

Azzedine Ounahi and Sofiane Boufal celebrate a win for Morocco

Azzedine Ounahi (left) and Sofiane Boufal (right) play together for Angers, who are bottom of France’s top flight Playing for lowly Angers in France,

stage draw with Spain in 2018.

“I have always believed in Youssef because he gives great energy,” Regragui said.

“Any coach would love him to be in their team because he works so hard for the team, like (Olivier) Giroud for France.”

Youssef En-Nesyri celebrates his goal against Portugal

Youssef En-Nesyri has scored from all three of his efforts on target at the World Cup finals - one in 2018 and two this year

Ziyech is well-known talent from his time with Ajax and Chelsea, but Regragui has got the best from a player whose club

the technical but rangy 22-year-old made his international debut in January and scored twice in the World Cup play-off win over DR Congo two months later to help Morocco qualify.

“Is the phone ringing? It’s ringing quite a lot,” Angers chairman Said Chabane told France’s RMC of the interest in Ounahi and countryman Boufal, who has also started every game in Qatar.

Meanwhile, playmaker Selim Amallah, once coveted by former Belgium manager Roberto Martinez, has also impressed even though he has not played a club game since September because of a contract stand-off with Standard Liege.

Like Giroud for France - Energy in attack

Youssef En-Nesyri leads the line and, despite being without a league goal for Sevilla this season, the 25-year-old has his own place in Morocco’s World Cup history books.

His winners against Canada and Portugal have made him his country’s alltime leading scorer at the finals with three goals, having also netted in the group-

form can be inconsistent.

The 29-year-old was in the international wilderness between June 2021 and September this year after a public falling-out with Halilhodzic, but now his eight appearances at the World Cup finals is a joint national record alongside Hakimi.

Boufal, one of two Morocco players born in France (Saiss the other), is back to his best international form while at Angers, after just three goals in 70 Premier League appearances during a four-year spell at Southampton which ended in 2020.

He is among five members of the squad who ply their trade in Ligue 1, alongside Zakaria Aboukhlal (Toulouse), Achraf Dari (Brest), Hakimki and Ounahi.

Hakimi’s insider knowledge of France star Kylian Mbappe, a team-mate in Paris, will be a factor if Morocco can pull off what would be arguably the World Cup’s greatest upset in its history.

“We aren’t satisfied with the semi-final and being the first African team to do that. We want to go further,” Regragui said.

LATEST SPORTS Real Madrid: Cristiano Ronaldo training at former club after Manchester United exit

Between lofty rhetoric and tangible outcomes: US – Africa Summit Guest

heads of state and governments or their representatives and other top government officials from Africa are in Washington on the invitation of U.S President, Mr. Joe Biden for a second summit of the United States and African Leaders. The first of such summit was convened in 2014 by former President Barack Obama with a follow up summit now, coming in eight years after the first one.

According to the U.S government, “the summit will demonstrate the United States enduring commitment to Africa and will underscore the importance of U.S – Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared priorities”. The summit would be coming against the backdrop of the New U.S strategy toward Sub – Saharan Africa released about three months ago in which the U.S acknowledged that “Sub – Saharan Africa is critical to advancing our global priorities”, being “one of the world fastest growing populations, largest free trade areas, most diverse ecosystems and one of the largest regional voting groups in the United Nations”, and added that “the strategy reframes the region’s importance to U.S national security interests”.

Cristiano Ronaldo has been using Real Madrid’s training base to keep fit after Portugal’s World Cup exit.

After his contract at Manchester United was cancelled last month, Ronaldo is free to join another club on 1 January.

Saudi Arabian club Al-Nassr have made a big-money offer for the 37-year-old forward, although it is understood he has other options.

Ronaldo trained alone at Real’s Valdebebas base and there is no option of a return to the Spanish club.

Ronaldo’s second spell at Manchester United was brought to a premature end after a controversial interview in which the five-time Ballon d’Or winner criticised the club and said he had “no respect” for manager Erik ten Hag.

That came two days before Portugal began their World Cup campaign and Ronaldo started their first three games, reacting angrily when he was substituted in the final group game against South Korea.

The Portuguese Football Federation denied that Ronaldo threatened to leave the squad after being told he would not start the last-16 game against Switzerland, and his replacement Goncalo Ramos went on to score a hat-trick in a 6-1 win.

The tournament in Qatar was expected to be Ronaldo’s last chance to win a World Cup, and he came off the bench against Switzerland and Morocco but could not prevent the African side knocking out Portugal.

However, major concerns for Africa which are mostly investments and trade, peace and security, inclusive and sustainable development, all very vital categories in dealing with the issues of poverty, social and political challenges in Africa has considerably nosedived in Africa – U.S relations at least since the first leaders’ Summit between the two sides was held in 2014.

The violent U.S led NATO regimechange intervention in Libya which left the country in complete chaos, following the brutal killing of its leader seriously undermined peace and security in Africa especially in the Sahel , Western and Central regions of Africa. The brutal insurgency of the Boko haram extremists in Nigeria and the rise of other criminal elements in the region were largely inflamed and driven by the flows of illicit weapons from the huge Libyan military armory flung wide open and left unsecured by the U.S led NATO military intervention.

It should never be forgotten that the U.S-led violent regime change in intervention in Libya in 2011 came against the background of a concerted effort of Africa through the regional body, A.U to pursue a negotiated settlement of the Libya’s political conflict. The U. S-led NATO summarily snubbed the Africa, s regional effort.

On the economic front, Washington needs to step up because the facts and figures are brutally abysmal. The United states exports of goods to Africa were 26.7 billion US dollars in 2021, a 30% drop from a high of 38.1 billion USD in 2014. Two-way trade in 2021 was just mere 1% of U.S total global commerce at 64.3 billion USD, down from a high of 141.9 billion USD in 2008.

Prior to the first summit in 2014 former President Bill Clinton has initiated the Africa Growth and opportunity Act or AGOA at the turn of the century in 2000. It was a trade Preferential program and part of wider legislation by president Bill Clinton designed to strengthened U.S trade ties with Africa and Caribbean. The act was supposed to be unilateral, which means that it did not require reciprocal lowering of trade barriers from African

Columnist

By

Charles Onunaiju

countries but the then U.S president said that the U.S economy will benefit from the act with “hundreds of millions of potential consumers” in Africa. However, despite the early enthusiasm that greeted the act, Africa – U.S trade remained underdeveloped and very modest. After initial jump, exports fell to their 2000 level with less than 1% of imports to the U.S in 2019 coming from Sub – Saharan Africa, a 56% decrease from 2000, the year of AGOA was started with diversification in trade significantly lagging behind. Apart from South Africa, whose mostly automotive exports constitute more than 50% of the total region’s export with the U.S in 2021, the slump in exports from other countries in the region were obvious. For example, textiles and apparels, observed as the most AGOA – related jobs generating sector, especially in East Africa considerably slumped. AGOA which was renewed in 2015 will expire 2025. Its process and trajectories since its inception has been tainted by political maneuverings by the United states with either suspending participant as it did recently, when Mali and Guinea were suspended on the basis of military coups and Ethiopia for poorly defined human right abuses.

Like William Schurz, second president of the American Institute for foreign trade, wrote that “Borders frequented by trade seldom need soldiers”, would the United States convert its perennial obsession with security and geo politics to trade and investment, especially in her relations and cooperation with Africa. Already in her new strategy toward Sub –Saharan Africa, Washington craftily set the stage to launch Africa, into a theatre of geopolitical competition of major powers. It claimed that “the People’s Republic of China (PRC)... sees the region (Africa) as an important arena to challenge the rules – based International order, advance its own narrow commercial and geopolitical Interests, undermine transparency and openness, and weaken U.S relations with African peoples and governments”. In the same breath, the new strategy accused Russia of viewing “the region as a permissive environment for Private military companies, often fomenting instability for strategic and financial instability...” It is no gain saying that African peoples and their respective governments sees either the partnership with China or cooperation with Russia differently from the way, Washington has crafted it. And using any forum whether of the upcoming leaders’ summit or any other one, to impose such toxic definitions of the relations between Africa with China or Russia will not fly, especially in the face of what Africans know and experience about the relationship. Any such effort by the U.S to canvass its view of Africa’s relations with China on Africa would be

utterly counterproductive.

At the same period in 2021, when Africa’s two-way trade with the U.S was at a historic low of barely 64.3 billion USD, China has maintained the momentum of Africa’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade reaching a historic high of 254 billion USD.

In 2018 at the 3rd summit of the Forum of China – African cooperation(FOCAC) in Beijing, China announced the establishment of China – Africa Economic and Trade Expo to be organized biennially by its Ministry of Commerce to deepen economic and trade cooperation with Africa. Despite outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, the expo has held on schedule. At the second edition of the expo which held last year, about 176 items in trade, investment, project contracting and strategic cooperation with a value of 15.93 billion USD was signed.

Also during the Eight ministerial conference of the Forum on China. Africa cooperation(FOCAC) held in Senegal last year, President Xi Jinping announced nine cooperation programs between Africa and China, among which is the iconic trade promotion under which Beijing will open “green lanes” for African, agricultural exports to China. Measures would be taken by the Chinese side to “speed up the inspection and quarantine procedures and further increase the scope of products enjoying zero – tariff treatment... in a bid to reach 300 billion U.S dollars in total imports from Africa in the next three years”, from 2021. In addition, China will build a pioneering zone for in-depth China – Africa trade and economic cooperation and a China – Africa Industrial park for Belt and Road cooperation in China.

While Beijing does not engage in the perennial ideological luxury of lecturing Africa about whose activities in the continent is ‘harmful” why she is a preferred friend, facts on the ground in Africa speaks louder than voice.

During the U.S – Africa leaders’ summit in Washington this week, it is most likely African leaders would demonstrate their openness for meaningful, credible and purposeful partnership with the world including the U.S and Washington can use the moment to demonstrate genuine good will beyond lofty rhetoric to define a practical roadmap in supporting Africa to tackle the challenges of poverty through trade and investment and not just humanitarian aid.

The U.S can through this summit breath life to its fledging Build Back Better world (B3W) initiative by outlining specific undertakings in infrastructure construction in Africa. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s flagship framework of international cooperation has significantly boosted the construction of critical infrastructures in Africa,

fostering connectivity within and across countries in the region. Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria has just commissioned her first ever deep sea port built under the framework of the Belt and Road partnership cooperation which Nigeria signed in 2018. The historic deficit of infrastructure connectivity, which has previously hobbled the pan African notion of regional integration and unity is gradually been overcome with the continent’s pragmatic cooperation with China. The U.S can add momentum to the process of the enigmatic Africa’s renaissance through trade, investment and infrastructure construction which are themselves critical indices for social and political stability and democratic resilience in the region.

The U.S – Africa cooperation have bright prospects but must be nurtured through a process of mutual respect and acknowledgement of the different and unique historical trajectories of the two sides, while working together to secure and expand common grounds. The U.S – Africa leadership summit would be more mutually rewarding, it finds institutional ambience in the Washington’s routine schedule rather than just an arbitrary convenience of any U.S leader.

After eight years of ceaseless changes in Africa, following the lacuna since the first summit in 2014, Washington might just be learning the reality of China’s historic opportunity to the continent, for which Africa is diligently and dutifully engaging.

A Report, by a U.S based international management consortium, Mckinsey &Co in 2017 from a field study on how Africa and China are evolving in their engagement said “we evaluated Africa’s economic partnerships with the rest of the world across five dimensions: trade, investment stock, investment growth, infrastructure financing, and aid. China is in the top four for Africa in all these dimensions. No other country matches this depth and breadth of engagement”.

The broad sentiment in Africa to the expectations of the Washington summit is that, it should deliver on the tangible and practical needs of the continent, especially in trade and investment beyond the effusions of lofty rhetoric.

Mr. Onunaiju is research director of a think tank in Abuja

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