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OPS Backs Proposed $20 Oil Price Benchmark in 2020 Budget Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja, Dike Onwuamaeze and Nume Ekeghe in Lagos Members of the organised private sector (OPS) and some analysts have hailed the plan by the federal government to further review downward the

oil price benchmark in the 2020 budget to $20 per barrel.

The analysts said this during separate interviews with THISDAY. The federal government had last month proposed a review of the oil price benchmark from $57 per barrel to $30

per barrel, but the new bill to back the proposal was not sent to the National Assembly.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, on Tuesday said the latest plan was to review it to $20.

The Director-General of

the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Mr. Ayo Olukanni, described the development as inevitable following the crash in the global prices of crude oil, which was brought about

by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Olukanni noted that the situation had again brought to the fore the country’s overdependence on crude oil and the need to focus on the diversification agenda of the federal government as was captured in the Economic

Recovery and Growth Plan 2017-2020.

“While NACCIMA notes that the 2020 federal budget has been passed into law by the National Assembly, we envision the seamless Continued on page 8

Aviation Stakeholders Hail FG’s Plan to Bail Out Airlines... Page 5 Thursday 7 May, 2020 Vol 25. No 9159. Price: N250

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Nigerians Yet to Come to Terms with Deadly Nature of COVID-19, FG Laments Warns against dangers ahead of non-compliance with guidelines Says Buhari concerned about increasing infection among health workers Extends flight ban by four weeks, predicts many airlines won’t survive Asks states to increase isolation centres To inaugurate THISDAY’s 320-bed isolation centre Tuesday Cases rise to 3,145 with 534 discharged, 103 dead Martins Ifijeh in Lagos, Olawale Ajimotokan, Onyebuchi Ezigbo, Udora Orizu in Abuja and Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano The federal government yesterday lamented, for the second time since Monday’s easing of the lockdown of the

Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun states, the refusal of citizens to comply with its guidelines on steps to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Saying Nigerians were yet to come to terms with the deadly nature of the virus, it warned that there were great dangers ahead as the disease

might spread exponentially with the attendant potential to overwhelm the public health system.

Nigeria recorded 195 new cases yesterday, bringing to 3,145 the total number of confirmed cases in the country.

In an update last night, the Nigeria Centre for Disease

Control (NCDC) said Lagos recorded 82 new cases, Kano 30, Zamfara 19, Sokoto 18, Borno 10, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) nine, Oyo eight, Kebbi and Gombe five each, Ogun four, Katsina three, while Kaduna and Adamawa have one each.

"So far, 3,145 confirmed cases

of COVID-19 are in Nigeria,” it said, adding: “534 persons have been discharged, while 103 have died."

At its daily briefing in Abuja, the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Mr. Boss Mustapha, expressed the government’s dissatisfaction

with the misconduct of the citizens across the nation, particularly in the epicentres, particularly FCT and Lagos, pointing out that all the basic rules, including mask-wearing, physical distancing and ban on inter-state travel had been

THISDAY DOME TREATMENT CENTRE, SUPPORTED BY SAHARA, CACOVID, AFC, ETC

Continued on page 8

Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (left), and Chairman/Publisher, THISDAY Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele (left), and Minister of Newspapers and ARISE TV, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, during the inspection of the 320-bed isolation and Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, during the inspection of the 320-bed isolation and treatment centre for COVID-19 patients donated by THISDAY and its partners in Abuja…yesterday treatment centre for COVID-19 patients donated by THISDAY and its partners in Abuja…yesterday

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Group News Editor Ejiofor Alike Email Ejiofor.Alike@thisdaylive.com, 08066066268

Aviation Stakeholders Hail FG’s Plan to Bail Out Airlines Condemn evacuation of Nigerians by foreign airlines

Chinedu Eze Aviation industry stakeholders have applauded the plan by the federal government to provide bailout for domestic airlines to assist them to surmount the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The stakeholders and the House Committee on Aviation, however, condemned the decision by the federal government to engage the services of foreign airlines to evacuate Nigerians overseas.

Addressing a web conference on Monday, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, had said the federal government was “also looking at how to support the aviation sector.� “Like you know, a lot of planes are parked and this is causing almost N21 billion (loss) on a monthly basis. We are looking at how to provide some form of bailout support to ensure that the industry doesn’t die," he had said.

Speaking to THISDAY on the minister’s comments, the Chief Executive Officer of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi, described the government’s plan as good development, noting that the airlines are looking forward to receiving the support as, without a bailout, many of the airlines would go under.

Sanusi, however, added that the bailout must be well

organised and transparent to ensure that most vulnerable airlines get support.

He explained that the bailout should be different from the previous ones that were misapplied and it should be a grant or soft loan targeted at solving particular problems for the airlines. “This is very commendable but the bailout should be tied to achieving certain goals for the airlines; maybe, some airlines want to use it to pay salary of their workers, to lease aircraft, to pay for training, aircraft maintenance or other objectives, but the money, whether soft loan or grant, should be given with defined condition, which may include that the beneficiary airlines must not sack their workers and not seek services outside the country, when there are local concerns that can efficiently provide such services,� Sanusi said.

The Chairman of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Nogie Meggison, also hailed the government for its proposed bailout, saying the airlines were happy because the body had made such an appeal to the government in the past.

He identified the problem of airlines as global because they are the most affected by the present COVID-19 pandemic.

Meggison said because of the critical role airlines play, as a catalyst to a nation’s economy, there should be global support for

Infectious Diseases Bill Violates Constitution, Human Rights, Says CAN Emma Okonji and Nosa Alekhuogie Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), North-central Zone, Rev. Israel Akanji, has joined other Nigerians to criticise the proposed Control of Infectious Disease Bill, which seeks to compel Nigerians to embrace vaccination and other prophylaxis against COVID-19.

Akanji, who is a Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church in Abuja, spoke against the proposed bill yesterday, during an interview on Arise Television, the broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspapers.

According to him, the bill gave so many powers to the Minister of Health and the DirectorGeneral of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which would negate the constitution and the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.

He, however, commended the members of the National Assembly for listening to public outcry against the proposed bill, by accepting to hold a public hearing on the bill before further deliberation on the bill. “The first area of concern for CAN members is that the proposed bill has to do with human lives and it appears to be under a hurried discussion by members of the National Assembly. We see a lot of rush in the process of deliberation and we are questioning the speed at which the bill is being discussed at the National Assembly. We also

noticed that the proposed bill gave undue powers to the Minister of Health and NCDC Director-General, which in our views, could be abused, if not amended. “The bill also contravenes the fundamental human rights of Nigerians as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.

"The bill negates the belief system of the different religious groups in the country. The bill does not address certain religious beliefs of the people and should, therefore, be rejected by all Nigerians, irrespective of their religion. For example, some religions do not believe in autopsy, which the bill is projecting,� he added.

Akanji explained that the kind of bill that Nigeria needed now in the COVID-19 era, should be the bill that would galvanise local researchers into generating vaccines for the cure of COVID-19. “Nigerians are intelligent and the government should be able to empower indigenous science researchers to develop a vaccine for the cure of COVID-19.

Other countries of the world are researching into the cure for Coronavirus and they are making progress, which Nigeria could emulate. We rather need a bill that will empower Nigerians to advance research and come up with a vaccine that can cure COVID-19 pandemic than having a bill that contravenes religious belief and fundamental human rights,� he said.

the operators with every country giving a bailout to its airlines. “Governments all over the world face one challenge: to kick-start the economy after the COVID-19 lockdown. This is because aviation is a catalyst for economic development. So, to bring the economy back, nations support their airlines. Members of the European Union, China, the United States are supporting their airlines. It is good Nigeria is also doing the same. We say thank you to the federal government,� he stated.

Aviation industry consultant and Principal Partner, Etmfri Group, Mr. Amos Akpan, commended the federal government for the planned bailout and called on the Ministry of Aviation to drive the process. “We welcome the announcement because the bailout is required. But we need clarifications. We want the

Ministry of Aviation to drive the process. Our minister knows us and he is part of us. His ministry should take the responsibility of drawing up the bailout application and implementation programme. “The main challenge in the recommencement of flight operations is the rules and practices of carrying passengers, while the coronavirus exists in our society. The new ways of life and procedures will affect the airlines' economy. This is why the bailout is welcomed. But who will benefit? What portion goes for what? We should learn from our past mistakes. “Currently only one airline in Nigeria has the resources and capacity to operate more than five scheduled domestic routes daily. This statement assumes that the bankers of that airline will restructure its existing facilities to reduce the stress of meeting

repayment deadlines,� Akpan said.

He added that as the lockdown eases and the industry prepares to restart operations, “we need to know the kind of assistance we will receive; the framework to fit in our new operational systems and procedures.�

AON, House Condemn Evacuation of Nigerians with Foreign Airlines Meanwhile, AON and the House Committee on Aviation have condemned the decision of the federal government to engage the services of foreign airlines to evacuate Nigerians overseas.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Aviation, Hon. Nnolim Nnaji, condemned the decision to shun local carriers in the repatriation and called on the federal government to

employ Nigerian operators for the evacuation.

Nnaji frowned on the engagement of foreign airlines like Ethiopian Airlines, British Airways and Emirates to airlift stranded Nigerians from Dubai, London, and the United States by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.

The lawmaker called for the immediate cancellation of the contracts and the employment of domestic operators, noting that America and Britain recently evacuated their citizens from Nigerian without the use of other countries' carriers.

"The action of those responsible for this action is not only a disservice to the local airlines, which have done their best to provide patriotic service to Nigerians but equally detrimental to our national pride and dignity,�

Nnaji stated.

FIGHTING THE SIEGE...

L-R: General OďŹƒcer Commanding, 8 Division, Brig-Gen Aminu Bande; Chief of Defence Training and Operations, Maj-Gen Leo Irabor; Katsina State Governor, Hon. Aminu Masari; Chief of Defence Civil-Military Cooperation, Rear Admiral OH Ngalabak; and Secretary to Katsina State Government, Alhaji Mustafa Inuwa, during a courtesy call on the governor by the top brass of the military in Katsina‌yesterday

Mohammed, Omotoso Mourn THISDAY Judicial Correspondent Family, friends, colleagues pay tributes at wake Abiodun Eromosele Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotosho, yesterday commiserated with THISDAY Newspapers over the death of its Judiciary Correspondent, Mr. Akinwale Akintunde.

In a condolence message, Mohammed expressed his sympathy to the management and staff of THISDAY over the loss.

He also sympathised with the family of the deceased and prayed to God to give them the fortitude to bear the loss.

Omotosho said the death of Akintunde came to him as a shock.

While praying to God for his soul to rest in peace, he asked God to give the management and staff of THISDAY as well as the family of the deceased the fortitude to bear the loss.

It was an outpouring of grief yesterday as colleagues, friends and family members gathered at the residence of the late Akintunde to bid him farewell.

At a service of songs held in Lagos, pastors from the church he attended, journalists and neighbours took their turns to testify to his forthrightness, humility and dedication to duty and family.

A senior pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Mr. Kayode Akinwale, who delivered the sermon at the service, described the deceased as dutiful and a respected member of his parish.

He urged Christians to live what they preach, adding that nobody knows the time they would die.

He said: “We must all live a good life as we don’t know when our time will come. Akinwale’s death shook the entire province with over 150 parishes. He was a

responsible member of his parish and testimonies abound about his contribution to the growth of the church.�

He urged Christians to always remember the book of Psalms, which says, “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.�

His Parish Pastor, Ms. Alice Friday, said Akinwale was humble and was respected by everyone no matter their status. “Akinwale was a Sunday school teacher and he lived what he preached. When we heard the news of the accident that claimed his life and we gathered to pray, I saw him waving at us and I realised he is in a better place,� she said.

Akinwale’s immediate younger sister, Mrs. Afolabi Morenike, said her brother would be missed by the larger family as he was always on hand to assist whenever the need arose.

His neighbour, Mr. Omole

Michel, said he was still in shock and found it hard to believe that he had died. “He was a good neighbour; whenever we have anything to do in the house, he was there.

I can tell you that he had been here for sometimes and I have not seen him quarrel with anyone. We lived like brothers and sisters; we are going to miss him a lot," he stated.

Speaking on behalf of his colleagues at THISDAY Newspapers, Mr. Eromosele Abiodun described Akinwale as a friend to everyone. “Akinwale loved his job and was dutiful. He was dedicated and attended to anyone who needed his assistance in whatever way. I have never seen him quarrel with any staff. Anytime you come to the office, he was always seating at his desk doing his work.

No matter what you tell him, he would smile and face his work,� he said.

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Equities Market Gains N804bn in Eight Days Goddy Egene Against the expectations of most operators, the Nigerian equities market rose for the eight session yesterday as the main index appreciated by 1.28 per cent after oil price climbed above $31 a barrel and investors continued to take advantage of low valuations.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index (ASI) and market capitalisation have garnered 6.8 per cent in the last eight trading days.

While the ASI rose from 22,599.38 to 24,143.37, market capitalisation added N804 billion, appreciating from N11.778 trillion to N12.582 trillion.

Some analysts said the oil price was improving on hopes for a recovery in demand as some countries ease COVID-19 lockdowns.

After dipping by over shedding 20.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, the market recovered in April, with the main index rising by 5.3 per cent, while market capitalisation gained N604 billion in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Senior Equity Research Analyst at Cordros Capital, Mustaha Wahab, had attributed the April’s market return to the fact that equities risks

appeared to have been largely priced in. “For us in Cordros, we believe the ultra-selloffs witnessed in March were an overreaction and that the market is now in a stronger condition than at the beginning of this COVID-19 episode. In other words, the panic element has eased significantly in our opinion. There have been a few developments over the recent past weeks, which I believe provide respite for investors.

"For one, Nigeria received the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s approval for $3.4 billion (N1.2 trillion) loan request. The approval came earlier than expected and is the IMF’s largest COVID-19 emergency financing provided to-date. While the loan will do little to address the significantly stressed balance of payment condition, it sure will provide some notable support to the 2020 budget in a year where government spending is necessary,� Wahab said.

He noted that the positive results posted by some companies in the Q1 of 2020 impacted the growth posted in April “On the corporates side, we have seen some fairly impressive first quarter results thus far. The cumulative

banks' earnings that have been published to date show earnings growth of eight per cent with core income lines and asset quality are fairly strong. For consumer goods companies, we like the fact that Nigerian Breweries Plc maintained revenue at last year’s level, even though profit was weaker (owing to high operating expenses).

"As expected, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc delivered strong numbers, driven by strong growth across revenue lines,� he said.

A stockbroker and Managing Director of Network Capital Limited, Mr. Oluropo Dada, had said the digital channels deployed by the NSE to support remote trading, which was overwhelmingly embraced by the traders, was also a contributing factor. “Everything worked seamlessly to the advantage of the market. The Q1 results of those big banks that provide over 65 per cent of the trading activities in the sector were released to the market and those results compared favourably with the historical records, meaning that those banks are still creating values.

Also, the dividend declared for 2019 financial years were paid by major banks during the month, thereby providing liquidity to the shareholders and by extension to the market,� Dada said.

ASO ROCK IN THE FRAY...

Police personnel utilising the newly installed hand washing machine at the Presidential Villa in Abuja to curb the spread of COVID-19‌yesterday godwin omoigui

Buhari Appoints Abba as Chairman of PTF Board INEC Meets Today over Edo, Ondo Gov Elections Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday named a former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Suleiman Abba, as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Nigeria Police Trust Fund.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said in a statement that the appointment was in compliance with the Nigeria Police Trust Fund Establishment Act, 2019.

The president also appointed Mr. Ahmed Sokoto as the Executive Secretary of the board; Mr. Nnamdi Mbaeri as representative of the Ministry of Police Affairs; Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, as the representative of Nigeria Police Force; and Mr. Usman Bilkisu as the representative of the Ministry of Justice.

Others are Mr. Ben Akabueze, Director-General of Budget and National Planning as the representative of the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning; Mr. Mansur

Ahmed as representative of the organised labour; and Dr. Michael Adebiyi to represent the civil society groups.

The presidency said the appointments were in furtherance of the Buhari administration’s commitment and drive to retooling policing architecture in the country by emplacing the Police Trust Fund to meet the aspiration of a wellfunded, equipped and highly professional Nigeria Police Force in line with international best practices.

"This objective informed President Buhari’s reestablishment of the Ministry of Police Affairs on August 20, 2019,� it said.

It said the president commended state governors, members of the National Assembly and Nigerians for their patriotic and spirited efforts at reforming policing architecture to deepen the country’s internal security.

"The Minister of Police Affairs, Muhammad Maigari Dingyadi, will announce the inauguration date of the Board of Trustees of the Police Trust Fund," the statement added.

Chuks Okocha in Abuja Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would meet today to review the situation in its offices across the country and take a decision on whether or not to review the dates and guidelines for the gubernatorial elections in Edo and Osun states.

The commission was also expected to fix dates for the elections to fill vacant senatorial, House of Representatives and state Houses of Assembly seats nationwide.

It would also clarify the resumption modules of activities that would be adopted at the meeting in line with the announcement by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr. Festus Okoye, had said the commission would meet today to take decisions on these issues.

Okoye said the meeting

would deliberate on some issues, including preparations for the conduct of governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states scheduled for September 19 and October 10, 2020, respectively; the forthcoming by-elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Plateau states and plans for resumption of normal activities at the commission’s offices nationwide.

The electoral body had before the outbreak of the pandemic fixed September 19 for the governorship election in Edo and October 10 for the gubernatorial poll in Ondo State.

In the timetable for the election activities for Edo State governorship election, INEC stated that the conduct of primary election and resolution of disputes arising from primaries would be between June 2 and 27, while the campaign would start on June 21.

INEC had fixed September 17 for the end of the campaign, stating that “Section 99(1) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) provides 90 days

for the commencement of campaigns by political parties and end of same 24 hours before polling day.�

Okoye, however, urged all stakeholders to wait for further communication from the commission on the resumption of normal activities.

He said the commission understood and appreciated the need for timely resumption of activities in view of the governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states and the by-elections in Bayelsa, Imo, and Plateau states.

The commission would be conducting by-elections in three constituencies as a result of the deaths of some serving members of the national and state legislatures.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, had also declared vacant the seat for Magama/ Rijau Federal Constituency of Niger State.

It added that the Speaker of Kwara State House of Assembly had also declared vacant the seat for Patigi State Constituency, while the

Speaker of Sokoto State House of Assembly had also declared Kebbe State Constituency seat vacant.

INEC had said these by-elections would hold simultaneously in the three states on March 14.

But these dates have been overtaken by the effects of the pandemic and a new date was expected to be announced by the commission.

Apart from these, there are outstanding by-elections in two senatorial districts in Bayelsa State to replace the governor and deputy governor who were senators before November 16, 2019 gubernatorial election.

The incumbent Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, represented Bayelsa Central, while his deputy, Senator Ewhrudjakpo, represented Bayelsa West.

INEC was also expected to announce dates to fill the vacancies as a result of the death of Senators Ignatius Longjan (Plateau South Senatorial District); Rose Okoh (Cross River) and Benjamin Uwajumogu (Imo).

ICPC Issues Guidelines for Management of Pandemic Funds Iyobosa Uwugiaren in Abuja Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has drawn up guidelines to prevent graft in the management of relief funds by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19.

ICPC, in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its spokesperson, Mrs. Rasheedat Okoduwa, said the guidelines were in furtherance of the objectives for which the commission recently set up a monitoring team to collaborate

with PTF in ensuring the transparent utilisation of funds, donations, and other receipts mobilised towards combating the outbreak of the virus in the country. “Salient among the several provisions of the guidelines are: first, the Bank Accounts Policy, which allows PTF chairman the discretion to designate bank accounts solely for the collection of funds and donations, as well as a specific bank account that receipts are swept into for expenditure whose signatories, though

appointed by PTF chairman shall not have approving powers. Reconciliations of the accounts and books maintained shall be submitted to PTF chairman monthly. “Also, there is the expenditures and payment provision which requires payments to vendors, suppliers and ad hoc staff to be mainly by bank transfer after they have made supplies or rendered service in order to leave trails,� the statement added.

ICPC said PTF chairman was responsible for procurements,

adding that all such procurements are required to adhere to the provisions of Section 43 of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 in the emergency period.

Also, all post-COVID procurements must comply fully with the comprehensive provisions of the procurement law.

The statement added that the guidelines also required all cash advances to be subject to the Financial Regulations (FR) and Public Service Rules (PSR), while petty cash advances may

be made to an officer for petty cash transactions as approved

by PTF chairman. “Officials who receive such advances shall be personally accountable and financially liable for the custody and management of the advances.

They must account for the advances at any given time and are to report weekly to the chairman or as he may direct. �What is more, the guidelines make quite useful and specific provisions to take care of approval thresholds, audit, monitoring and evaluation,

while encouraging the task force to engage the active participation of individuals or groups outside the public sector to enhance accountability, transparency and promote public participation and contribution. “This is to ensure that information is made available to the public and for them to provide feedback through ICPC toll-free telephone lines, email, social media platforms, etc to eliminate the suspicion of corruption,� the commission stated.

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Masari Bemoans Relentless Killings in Katsina by Bandits Says 50 persons murdered in two weeks

Francis Sardauna in Katsina Katsina State Governor, Hon. Aminu Masari, yesterday said the state was under siege by bandits and kidnappers despite the peace accord he signed with them.

The governor explained that in the last two weeks, the bandits had killed over 50 persons and rustled unspecified number of animals in some communities bordering the deadly Rugu forest.

Masari, who was speaking when he received the Chief of Defence Training

and Operations, Defence Headquarters, Maj. Gen. Leo Irabor, who paid him a courtesy call in Katsina, said heinous activities orchestrated by the bandits were becoming worrisome.

He said the bandits on Tuesday invaded a village in Sabuwa Local Government Area and killed five people and rustled all their animals, leaving many others with varying degree of injuries.

The governor stated that the bandits also kidnapped the Administrative Head of Danmusa Local Government Area, who is an indigene of

Sabuwa, and his son.

He added that because of the resurgence of banditry and kidnapping in the state, citizens doubted the ability of the government to protect them and were threatening to resort to self-defence.

The governor, who admitted that the state was in a serious and desperate condition considering the resurfacing of banditry and kidnapping, said food shortage might engulf the state following the inability of farmers to access their farmlands.

He stated that the bandits were converging on Zamfara,

Kaduna and Katsina states before launching onslaughts on communities within the states, adding that the recalcitrant among them are overpowering those who accepted the peace accord.

He said: "I am in a very confusing situation considering the terrible condition some of our people living in the villages bordering the forest are going through.

"Yesterday (Tuesday), the DPO of Faskari Local Government Area was nearly killed. Presently, he is at the orthopedic hospital suffering from two gunshots and we

hope he will survive the injuries.

"In the same light, in the village of Sabuwa Local Government Area, five people were killed and all their animals were rustled.

The head of Danmusa Local Government Area, who comes from Sabuwa, was also kidnapped alongside his son.

"Two weeks ago, we lost over 50 people. The bandits now carry out operations on a daily basis. People are losing confidence in us and are threatening to take arms.

Yesterday (Tuesday) around

3.00 a.m., I have to plead with the political leadership of Faskari because they have mobilised to fight back.

"We are in a very serious and desperate condition. As the raining season approached, even those who can access their farms cannot because of the activities of bandits who have now taken over major parts of the state."

Responding, Irabor said the military and other security agencies would continue to work assiduously with the state government to end bloodletting in the state and the North-west.

“Given the current supply glut, only a deep cut in output

by OPEC and OPEC+ will save the day."

According to him, the fact is that a budget is supposed to be guided by the principle of conservatism, which means those saddled with the responsibility of its preparation are expected to err on the side of caution.

He added that should oil price appreciate above the budget reference price, then it presents an opportunity to build buffer or earmark any excess for critical infrastructure.

"Having noted that the implication of this development is grave not only for the federal government but also for state governments whose budget assumptions are also predicated on that of the former, it calls for cost-cutting measures and prioritisation of spending. “Borrowing to finance the deficit should only be made after a thorough cost and benefit analysis," Uwaleke, a former Head of Department, Banking and Finance, Nasarawa State University, said.

He noted that because oil revenue drives the economy although it constitutes just roughly 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the economic headwinds of 2020 occasioned by the twin shocks of oil price crash and the COVID -19 pandemic would combine to depress economic activities in Nigeria.

He explained that based

on the current reality, the projection of a 3.4 per cent negative GDP growth rate should not surprise anyone.

"Faced with this reality, the major concern of the government should be to reduce the recession cycle and minimise its knock-on effect on the ordinary citizen through the right spending targeting health, education, power and roads, while CBN continues to focus on and possibly scale up its interventions in agriculture and small and medium enterprises," he added.

The Founder, Foundation for Economic Research, Prof.

Akpan Ekpo, urged the federal government to always prepare what he termed a non-oil budget. “What I have been saying for years is that anytime we have high crude oil price, we should always see it as a windfall, save a lot of the revenue and target it for spending on infrastructure.

I worked with Anthony Ani when he was Minister of Finance and we planned to do a non-oil budget. “If you look at the Nigerian economy, oil contributes only 10 per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while the non-oil sector contributes 90 per cent. So, we can actually do a non-oil budget. If we had been doing it for years, we would have gotten used to it, so that if the oil price does well, it becomes like a windfall. Let us demystify the oil sector because oil may finish one day,� he said.

OPS BACKS PROPOSED $20 OIL PRICE BENCHMARK IN 2020 BUDGET collaboration between the executive and legislative branches of government on the process of passing and approving an amended budget.

"It is our expectation that the issues of recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure and debt servicing will be adequately considered to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our economy, while ensuring that the debt burden on the future generations is negligible,� he said.

Similarly, the DirectorGeneral of Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Dr. Timothy Olawale, said the move was timely, adding that it aligned with current economic realities. “With the new realities, as global oil prices hovers around $20/barrel, it is obvious that further reduction in the benchmark price of oil for the budget and the production estimation should be reviewed as well as the revenue estimates. “This, we believe, will threaten the realisation of the objectives of 2020 budget and lead to a slowdown in economic activities at a time we need more injections into the economy for economic revival,� he added.

Olawale explained that the decline in oil revenue would put pressure on the foreign reserves and hinder the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s ability to defend the naira. “We have over time advised that in order to achieve

sustainable and significant economic growth, the revenue base should be de-linked from oil, and recurrent expenditure in the form of cost of governance should be cut down. This will allow for the channelling of increased revenue to key sectors, including manufacturing and mining sectors,� he said.

Commenting on the plan to reduce the crude oil’s projected benchmark, the Director General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Muda Yusuf, said it would have been better if the federal government worked with a projection of zero revenue from oil.

Yusuf said this approach would place the country in a better position to appreciate the depth of Nigeria’s macroeconomic fundamentals. “The truth is that several decades of oil dependence have deepened the vulnerability of the Nigerian economy. We avoided reforms that would have effectively diversified the economy and strengthen our economic fundamentals. There can be no better opportunity to undertake major reforms than now. “The approach should be holistic and focused on building a competitive non-oil economy. We need to address issues of governance cost and prioritise investment in social and economic infrastructure.

"Investment, trade and foreign exchange policies must

be attuned to the attraction of private capital inflows through FDI channels,� he said.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of BIC Consultancy Limited, Dr. Boniface Chizea, the federal government’s intention to slash oil benchmark price to $20 should be commended as it would align with current economic reality.

Chizea, however, noted that the country had earlier reviewed the price of oil from $57 to $30 upon the commencement of the pandemic and warned that the government should desist from frequent reviews of critical economic indices. “As I observed elsewhere, the situation is still fluid. My preference would have been that we suspend any review at this time and allow some time to monitor the trajectory of things,� he said, adding: "My recommendation is that we tarry awhile so that we can make a better measured move.�

Other analysts told THISDAY that the adjustment would help Nigeria to balance its income expectations.

The Chief Executive Officer/ Managing Director of Eczellon Capital, Mr. Diekola Onaolapo, described the plan as logical. “The significant downward review is okay in order to avoid dashed expectations because we do not know whether it is going to increase or not,� he said.

The Head of Consulting, Agusto & Co, Mr. Jimi

Ogbobine, said the adjustment was in line with Nigeria’s current reality. “The adjustment of the oil prices largely reflects the realities of the current market conditions. It also reflects the missed opportunities of the last four years. Nigeria’s reluctance to spin-off more deep wells is a decision the country will rue at this time.

With depressed oil prices, it will become harder to spin-off these deep offshore assets at this point in time,� he said.

Also, a former Commissioner for Finance in Imo State, Prof. Uche Uwaleke, said it would be unrealistic to stick to $30 per barrel as the reference price in view of unfavourable developments in the international crude oil market and against the backdrop of the forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA) of low oil demand through 2020.

He said: "In any case, I expect that a lot of traders, leveraging derivatives, must have locked-in low prices for future delivery of crude oil at least for the next few months in view of the uncertainties occasioned by COVID-19. By implication, in the event of an unlikely oil price spike, oil revenue may not be significantly impacted.

"So, the haircut in oil price benchmark stands to reason. I had also expected a further slash in oil production benchmark from 1.7 million barrels per day for the same reason I mentioned earlier.

NIGERIANS YET TO COME TO TERMS WITH DEADLY NATURE OF COVID-19, FG LAMENTS wantonly disobeyed.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari had become worried by the increasing spread of the virus among health, adding that the federal government had directed state governments to increase the number of isolation centres as the cases of the pandemic soar.

The federal government has also stepped up efforts to increase the number of isolation centres in FCT with the planned inauguration on May 12 of the 320-bed THISDAY Isolation and Treatment Centre, donated by the Chairman and Publisher of THISDAY Newspapers and ARISE NEWS CHANNEL, Prince Nduka Obaigbena, and his partners.

The centre has a section for intensive care unit.

Mustapha, who is also the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), told

reporters at the news briefing that the early assessment of the easing of the lockdown phase revealed a lack of compliance with social and physical distancing guidelines.

He cited the higher-thanadvised congregation of people in banks, traffic gridlocks, particularly at entry points to metropolitan areas and disregard of guidelines on carrying capacity of vehicles, as evidence of the violation of COVID-19 protocol.

He cited the increase in the level of interstate movements, worsened by the concealment of people in food-carrying vehicles and unhygienic and ill-advised use and sharing of masks, especially multiple fittings before buying from vendors, as part of the people's disregard for safety measures emplaced by the federal government to combat the virus.

He said: “I am a bit sobered by the dangers I see ahead.

The overall direction of the

modelling we have developed points in the direction of danger ahead. I want to emphasis that so that we know that what we are playing with is very serious and it is a very sober thing to reflect upon.

It points in the direction of danger. We need personal discipline and awareness to avert this. “It is obvious we need to do much more because we have the collective responsibility to own this fight. It is not the federal government's fight; not the state governors’ fight; it is your fight for your life.

When we say stay at home, observe social distancing, put on a mask, it is not to protect any of us. It is to protect you and your loved ones. We can’t go on like this and expect a different result. “I want to reiterate the fact that our individual and collective safety is in our hands and I re-echo my call and appeal to Nigerians to demonstrate our duty to

ourselves and loved ones by minimising the risk of getting infected by the virus.�

Mustapha said PTF recognised the challenges earlier encountered at the bank, but assured Nigerians that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as well as the Bankers’ Committee had put in place strategies that would reduce such re-occurrence. “I, therefore, plead with Nigerians to be patient and schedule their physical appearances at banks,� he said, adding: “On the other hand, I wish to repeat my call to the banks to also quickly address issues related to difficulty with using their online platforms, especially revalidating expired ATM cards amongst others.�

The SGF identified public transportation as a major clustering the area through which the virus could easily be transmitted and called on the leadership of various transport unions to properly enlighten their members on

the dangers of non-adherence to the COVID-19 containment guidelines and ban on interstate travels.

Buhari Worried By Increasing Spread among Health Workers Mustapha also expressed the president's concern about reports on the increasing rate of infection of medical doctors and personnel, saying while the government renewed the efforts at training the frontline workers about the infectious nature of the virus, it urged that utmost care be taken in managing cases.

States Asked to Increase Isolation Centres During the briefing, Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, urged state governments to increase the number of Continued on page 10

TOP GAINERS NGN NGN % CHI PLC 0.03 0.33 10 NIGBREW 3.00 33.00 10 ARDOVA 1.25 13.95 9.8 CAP PLC 0.07 0.84 9.5 UPDC 0.08 0.92 9.5 TOP LOSERS NGN % C & I LEASING 0.30 4.70 6.0 UACN 0.25 6.95 3.4 UNIONDAC 0.01 0.31 3.1 INTERBREW 0.10 4.90 2.0 HPE Nestle Nig Plc â‚Ś975.00 Volume: 426,642 million shares Value: N4.102 billion Deals: 7,384 As at yesterday 6/5/2020 See details on Page 27

THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 • T H I S D AY

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THURSDAY, ÍżËœ ͺ͸ͺ͸ Ëž T H I S D AY

NEWS

Malami: Why I Referred to Recovered Loot as ‘Abacha Assets’

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has faulted those criticising him for describing the recently repatriated Abacha loots as “Abacha assets�

Malami, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by his Special Assistant on Media, Dr. Umar Gwandu, said his

attention had been drawn to the needless media hype relating to purported characterisation of the recovered assets associated with the former Head of State as “Abacha Assets.�

He maintained that the choice of words was deliberate. “It is to be noted that by way of antecedence, I have been consistently describing

the recovered funds as “Abacha loot� at several fora during the process of recovery particularly before the eventual repatriation of the funds. “The point needs to be made that when the seal of legitimacy was appended to the funds by way of repatriation it became an asset in favour of the federal government as a beneficial

owner of same. “Beyond the issues of verbal dexterity and vocal acrobatics, Nigerians should focus more on the effective utilisation of the recovered funds in accordance with the content of the signed tripartite agreement in the interest of Nigerians.�

He said the use of the word "assets" in relation to the

post-recovery of looted funds is to qualify same as federal government assets. “It is palpable that news about successful return of the looted assets has brought nightmares to nay-sayers and pessimists who wanted to frustrate the repatriation process through a campaign of calumny. “They resorted to rhetoric

instead of burying their heads in shame.�

He added that the return of the looted funds demonstrated not only commendable efforts of the present government, but also a pointer to the level of confidence, trust and respect the international community accorded the Buhari-led federal government.

The federal government said it had opened talks with northern traditional leaders to help sensitise the people on the urgent need to abide by the health advisory on the pandemic.

Ehanire said he had taken part in a teleconference with northern traditional leaders organised by the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) in a bid to get them to help sensitise their subjects on how to curtail the pandemic.

"We have also continued to train and retrain our health care workers as well as provide them with the necessary personal protective equipment.

Community mobilisers have been deployed in the grassroots to continue to sensitise our people through the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency. “I participated earlier this week in a teleconference of northern traditional leaders’ committee organised by NPHCDA, in which the need for urgent engagement of all traditional, religious and community gatekeepers was emphasised and agreed on," he said.

On the situation in Kano, the minister said progress had been made in collaboration with the state epidemiologists to restore routine medical services to hospitals and further drive the ongoing investigations.

According to the minister, organised ambulance service is already in operation, bringing relief to citizens who need to access emergency medical services, especially in view of restrictions of movement.

need drugs unless they develop symptoms, as the drugs cure only symptoms and not the virus.

He attributed the seemingly high fatalities to self-medication by patients who refused to report at the treatment centres until when their cases worsen.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the centre had been relying on data in administering the curtailment measures.

According to him, NCDC could now give accurate details of the distribution of face masks and hand sanitisers across the country.

The centre has also developed a tool for managing misinformation around the pandemic. “So, we started a gradual process of developing a new tool called the Surveillance, Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS). We have used it to collect data from health facilities up to the local government level and the national.

"At the time COVID-19 started through various interventions, we have managed to implement and deploy this tool to 22 of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. We have had to work with development partners, especially the European Union who supported the project," he said

NIGERIANS YET TO COME TO TERMS WITH DEADLY NATURE OF COVID-19, FG LAMENTS isolation centres to cope with the rising cases. “The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Nigeria has continued to rise not unexpectedly, in view of prevailing circumstances in certain states.

We are encouraging and supporting states to increase the number of isolation centres nationwide and we are extremely grateful to corporate organisations and philanthropists who have donated isolation facilities, diagnostic equipment, commodities and sundry supplies relevant to our response efforts to COVID-19 threat,� he said.

THISDAY Dome Isolation Centre for Inauguration May 12 The federal government said it would on May 12 inaugurate THISDAY Dome, which has been converted to isolation and treatment centre for COVID-19 patients.

The centre would now complement the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada and National Hospital, Abuja as the two major centres for the treatment of the virus in the FCT. Mustapha described the completion of the centre, which was fitted with medical equipment imported by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), as a boost in the provision of isolation facilities in Abuja.

Ehanire inspected the centre yesterday Ehanire said the federal government was grateful to corporate organisations and philanthropists who donated facilities, diagnostic equipment, commodities and sundry supplies relevant to the response efforts to curb the pandemic.

"One example is the THISDAY Dome, which has been purposed by donors, to be a 320-bed Isolation Centre with a 10-bed ICU (Intensive Care Unit), which is to be commissioned next week to significantly ease the supply of bed spaces."

The treatment and isolation centre was donated by THISDAY and ARISE Media Group in association with notable partners as part of efforts to address the shortage of bed spaces for patients.

The centre is located at the THISDAY Dome in the Central Business District, Abuja with capacity for 360 beds which could be scaled up to 500 beds if the need arises.

Ehanire, who was accompanied to inspect the facility by the top management team from the Federal Ministry of Health, expressed satisfaction

with the conversion of the THISDAY Dome to an isolation centre. “We are extremely grateful to Obaigbena for the generous donation," the ministry tweeted yesterday on its Twitter handle.

The partners in the project are: Sahara Foundation; the Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), African Finance Corporation (AFC) and the Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company, which handled the internal partitioning amongst others.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, were among top government officials who visited the centre ahead of its formal opening next week.

Gbajabiamila, who was accompanied to the inspection by the top management team of the Federal Ministry of Health; Emefiele and members of the House Committee on Health, expressed satisfaction with efforts put together by the stakeholders to contribute to the fight against COVID-19.

"What I’m seeing here today is even beyond my expectation, a comprehensive well-equipped facility, about 300-bed isolation centre. The people that put this together thought about everything. There’s an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and the facility is made as comfortable as possible for whoever is coming here, whether as workers or as patients,� he said.

The Minister of State for Health, Senator Adeleke Mamora, said from what was put on the ground, the concerns over where to keep infected people after being tested and confirmed had been addressed with the facility.

Obaigbena and Sahara Group CEO, Temitope Shonubi, said they put resources together to build the facility because the government could not be left alone to provide all resources needed to combat the virus.

Survival Rate of Patients on Ventilators Very Low Responding to the clamour for the provision of more ventilators at isolation centres, PTF National Coordinator, Dr. Sani Aliyu, said 70 per cent of the global pandemic victims did not recover even when they are put on ventilators.

He said the chances of survival for anybody with COVID-19, within the risk group like immune-suppression, the elderly, diabetes or cardiovascular disease, and who would require a ventilator was low. “You have a greater chance of not coming off the ventilator, even in the best health system.

That is why people have been dying out there in Europe, the US and others. Most of the deaths have been linked to

the ventilator. We have very few ventilators in the country anyway. “So, the 20 per cent that we talk about that will require hospitalisation are those that require oxygen. And about 25 per cent of them will require ventilators but you don’t really want to be in that group. That is why I keep emphasising on the prevention aspect. It is better than cure and it particularly applies to COVID-19 infection,� he said.

Closure of Airspace Extended by Four Weeks The federal government yesterday extended by four weeks the closure of the country’s air space as a precaution against the spread of the pandemic.

Mustapha said they made the decision after assessing the situation in the aviation industry in addition to the available facts and the advice given by experts.

With this latest development, Nigeria’s airspace and the four international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt would be closed to traffic for four weeks.

Many Airlines Won’t Survive Pandemic Also speaking, the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, warned that many airlines would not survive the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

Sirika said though COVID-19 affected different sectors of the economy, the aviation sector was the worst hit.

He put the loss suffered by the Nigerian aviation industry at N24 billion, saying the loss could never be recovered.

According to him, “Certainly in civil aviation, we’re in very difficult moments like everyone else. All of this started because someone travelled. Unfortunately, he came back home with it and the consequence is what we’ve been going through. “We are very aware of our responsibilities and the weight attached to this. We are the worst hit among all the sectors.

Some N17 billion is being lost by the airlines monthly, thanks to COVID-19. The sector is highly regulated and very coordinated and has set standards that must be followed at all times, regardless, because we speak to safety. “This is the situation of civil aviation. It is really a pathetic one and I can guarantee you that several airlines won’t come out of this, unfortunately. Based on the trend of events prior to COVID-19, the total loss is about N21 billion approximately plus about N3 billion. It is divided in this form: N7 billion for aviation (what they lose in a month), N10 billion for

airlines, N4 billion for ground handling, catering, etc., and then the taxation is N3 billion. “Also, since you’re interested in dollars, what we got from the International Airline Transport Association (IATA), they’ve given us economic impact on Africa’s largest aviation markets. For Nigeria, airline revenue loss is $994 million, and in terms of employment at risk, 125,370 jobs. Loss of contribution to the GDP of the country is $885 million. Now, these are IATA figures.�

Lagos Discharges 37 More Patients Lagos State Government yesterday said it had discharged 37 more patients from its isolation centres, bringing to 358 the total number of successfully treated persons in the state.

Governor Babajide SanwoOlu said the patients were 19 females and 18 males, including an Indian national.

"Five of the patients were discharged from the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba; 25 from the Onikan Isolation Centre and seven from the Eti-Osa (Landmark) Isolation Centres.

"With this, the number of patients successfully managed and discharged in Lagos has risen to 358," he said.

22 Nurses, Physiotherapists Test Positive in Kano, Others No fewer than 18 nurses and four physiotherapists have tested positive for the virus in Kano and other states.

The National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNW) said yesterday that 18 nurses tested positive for the virus in Kano.

The Chairman of Kano branch of the association, Mr. Ibrahim Muhammad, told journalists that 86 samples of nurses were taken and the results indicated that they all tested positive.

He said nine of them are from National Orthopedic Hospital Dala; seven from Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and two from state hospitals.

Also, 34 doctors tested positive in Kano while four members of the Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy (NSP) tested positive for in Bauchi, Kano, Lagos and Jigawa states.

The association also lost one of its members in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State as a result of the pandemic.

The National President of the association, Dr. Rufai Ahmad, confirmed the figures to reporters in Kano yesterday.

Task Force Engages Northern Traditional Rulers

High Fatalities Linked to Self-medication Ehanire also attributed the high death rates to self-medication, noting that patients resort to self-treatment until their cases worsen before they go to isolation centre.

He explained that the Federal Ministry of Health is sending supporting teams to Sokoto and Katsina states for training and capacity building in case management and infection prevention and control.

On claims by some people that they have developed curative drug for the virus, especially the traditional medicine practitioners, Ehanire stated that they had to go through the process of validation and subject their drugs to clinical trials before it could be prescribed for use.

He added that the federal government could not give out-patients for the testing of those drugs, as the producers have to do trial with larger animals and clinical trials with volunteers.

He said patients at the isolation centres would not

BUA Donates Five Ambulances, 20 Hilux Vehicles to Kano Meanwhile, BUA Foundation has donated five ambulances and 20 Hilux vehicles to assist Kano State Government in stemming the spread of the virus in the state as part of its COVID-19 Health Infrastructure and Response Grant for the state.

The foundation is the philanthropic arm of Africa’s leading foods and infrastructure conglomerate, BUA Group founded by Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu.

Speaking while presenting the vehicles to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, Rabiu noted that a united effort was needed to curtail the pandemic.

Represented by the Government Relations Director, BUA Group, Dr. Idi Hong, he stated that the vehicles would enable the state government to tackle the pandemic.

Rabiu said: “I should tell you that these vehicles and ambulances are to support the state government’s good effort in controlling this COVID-19 pandemic from contact tracing to movement of supplies, logistics and also quick response to clinical cases.�

11

THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 • T H I S D AY

EROTON EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION COMPANY LIMITED Operator of the OML18 Asset

RC1137060

TENDER OPPORTUNITY FOR

INTERCONNECTING PIPELINE (BUGUMA CREEK – KRAKAMA FLOWSTATION – CAWTHORNE CHANNEL 3 (EEP18-0098) NipeX Tender Number: 1000004518 1. Introduction EROTON E&P Company Limited; the operator of NNPC/Eroton JV invites interested and reputable contractors with suitable equipment and relevant experience to tender for the laying of carbon steel crude evacuating pipeline from the Krakama manifold pig launcher to the pig receiver at Cawthorne Channel 3 flowstation.

2. Scope of Work The Scope of work covers the underlisted services: (a) 8-inch x 7.2km Carbon steel crude evacuating line extending from the Krakrama manifold pig launcher to the pig receiver at Cawthorne Channel 3 flow station, and installation of pipeline end manifolds (PLEM) and pig trap system. (b) Production of Detailed Engineering Design package. (c) Ancillary piping for connection of pig trap systems to PLEMs. (d) Creek crossings, waterway crossings and river crossings. (e) Pipeline crossings. (f) Road crossings. (g) Cathodic protection systems for the Carbon steel crude evacuation pipelines. (h) Baseline intelligent pigging, coating survey and cathodic protection survey. (i) Procurement and installation of pipeline valves, barred tees, SDVs, and associated instrumentations in addition to all other long lead items required for the project during or upon completion of route verification survey and detail design work. (j) Pipe supports and other civil scopes. (k) Coating the Carbon steel line pipes at joints using external 3-layer Polyethylene anti-corrosion coating. (l) Tie-ins at CAWC 3 flowstation with associated instrumentations (m) Engineering, procurement and installation of block valves on the pipelines at major river crossings including installation of a high-security citadel cage over the block valves. (n) Concrete weight coating for buoyancy control on the carbon steel pipeline.

The contract duration shall be for a period of two (2) years primary period plus one (1) year optional extension.

3. Mandatory Requirements t 5P CF FMJHJCMF GPS UIJT UFOEFS FYFSDJTF JOUFSFTUFE DPOUSBDUPST BSF SFRVJSFE UP CF pre-qualified in the 4.05.04 Pipeline Systems categories of the NipeX Joint Qualification (NJQS) Database. All successfully pre-qualified suppliers in this category will receive Invitation to Tender (ITT). t 5P EFUFSNJOF JG ZPV BSF QSF RVBMJĂśFE BOE WJFX UIF QSPEVDU TFSWJDF DBUFHPSZ you are listed for: Open http://vendors.nipex-ng.com and access NJQS with your log in details. Click on Products/Services Status tab to view your status and product codes. t *G ZPV BSF OPU MJTUFE JO B QSPEVDU TFSWJDF DBUFHPSZ BOE ZPV BSF SFHJTUFSFE XJUI DPR to do business, contact NipeX office at 8, Bayo Kuku Street, Ikoyi Lagos with your DPR certificate as evidence for verification and necessary update. t 5P JOJUJBUF UIF +24 QSF RVBMJĂśDBUJPO QSPDFTT BDDFTT www.nipex-ng.com, click on services tab followed by NJQS registration. t 5P CF FMJHJCMF BMM UFOEFSFST NVTU DPNQMZ XJUI UIF SFRVJSFNFOUT PG UIF /JHFSJBO Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, 2010. Non-compliance shall result in disqualification from bidding for this opportunity.

4. Nigerian Content Bidders are to note that they will be requested during the technical tender to give full details of their relevant strategy to ensure that they fully comply with provisions of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act 2010.

Consequently, bidders’ submissions shall be evaluated strictly with the minimum evaluation criteria defined in ‘The Act’. Failure to meet the Nigerian Content requirements is a “FATAL FLAW.�

In line with the above, Tenderers responding to this advertisement are required to submit the following in compliance with the Nigerian Content Act, 2010: 1. A Nigeria Content Execution Plan, which shall explain the methodology of how it intends to comply with the requirements of the Plan, and how to achieve the set target(s) in the Schedule of Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development Act, and any targets set by the Nigerian Content Monitoring Board.

2. Demonstration that the entity is a Nigerian Registered Company, or Nigerian Registered Company as the contracting entity in genuine alliance or joint venture with foreign company with details on scope and responsibilities of parties for this work. Such companies must show evidence of joint venture binding agreement duly signed by the CEO of both companies including evidence or plans of physical operational presence and set-up in Nigeria.

3. Development of a Technology Transfer Plan which shall explain the methodology of how it intends to promote the effective transfer of technologies from alliance partners to Nigerian individuals and companies.

4. Development of an employment and training plan which shall explain the contract hiring and training needs with a breakdown of the skills needed and anticipated skill shortage in the Nigerian labour force.

5. Development of plan for the procurement of goods and services manufactured in Nigeria.

6. Demonstration of a plan for the utilization of third-party services of Nigerian origin and Nigerian sub-contractors in executing the work.

7. In line with the NCD Human Capacity Development Initiative, Bidder shall commit to providing Project-Specific training, man-hour, budget, skill development and understudy plan for Nigerian personnel utilizing OGTAN registered trainer(s) or other approved NCDMB training institution(s).

8. For projects that entails Research and Development, develop a Research & Development Plan which shall explain the methodology of how it intends to promote education, attachments, training, research and development in Nigeria in relation to the contract.

9. Possession of a Nigerian Content Equipment Certification (NCEC) for OEM equipment to be supplied in delivering the service to the contract.

10. Any other requirement in relation to the work scope Note: Land and Swamp operations are exclusively for Nigerian indigenous service companies that have a minimum of 51% equity shareholding.

5. Closing Date t 0OMZ 5FOEFSFST XIP BSF SFHJTUFSFE XJUI /+24 1SPEVDU DBUFHPSZ (4.05.04 Pipeline Systems) as at May 28, 2020 being the advert close date shall be invited to submit Technical and Commercial Bids.

6. Additional information t *OUFSFTUFE TVQQMJFST NVTU CF QSF RVBMJĂśFE GPS UIJT QSPEVDU TFSWJDF DBUFHPSZ JO NJQS. t 'VMM UFOEFSJOH QSPDFEVSF XJMM CF QSPWJEFE POMZ UP DPOUSBDUPST UIBU IBWF CFFO successfully pre-qualified in NJQS. t 5IJT BEWFSUJTFNFOU TIBMM OPU CF DPOTUSVFE BT B DPNNJUNFOU PO UIF QBSU PG EROTON to award a contract to any supplier and/or associated companies, subcontractors or agents. t 5IJT BEWFSUJTFNFOU TIBMM OPU FOUJUMF QSF RVBMJĂśFE DPNQBOJFT UP NBLF BOZ DMBJNT whatsoever and/ or seek any indemnity from EROTON and/ or its partners by virtue of such companies having been pre-qualified in NJQS. t "MM DPTUT JODVSSFE JO SFHJTUFSJOH BOE QSF RVBMJGZJOH GPS UIJT BOE PUIFS QSPEVDUT services categories in NJQS shall be borne solely by suppliers. t 4VQQMJFST UIBU BSF QSF RVBMJĂśFE GPS UIJT QSPEVDU TFSWJDF DBUFHPSZ JO /+24 NVTU ensure that the name and contact details (physical address, email address and telephone numbers) of their company and authorised/responsible personnel is up to date in their company profile in the NJQS data base. t &3050/ TIBMM DPNNVOJDBUF POMZ XJUI UIF BVUIPSJTFE SFTQPOTJCMF QFSTPOOFM PG pre-qualified companies and not through unauthorised individuals or agents.

Please visit NipeX portal at www.nipex-ng.com for this advert and other information ES/NCDMB/EEPL – ADV/3001/2020/MID/PROVISION OF INTERCONNECTING PIPLELINES (BUGUMA CREEK-KRAKAMA FLOWSTATION – CAWTHORNE CHANNEL 3

12

T H I S D AY ˾ THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020

POLITICS

Group Politics Editor NSEOBONG OKON-EKONG Email nseobong.okonekong@thisdaylive.com (08114495324 SMS ONLY)

‘Many Feared Freedom of Information Act Would Allow Government Pry into their Private Lives’ In a chance encounter that coincided with the World Press Freedom Day, Chuks Okocha spoke with Ambassador Jerry Sunny Ugokwe, the former federal lawmaker from Anambra State who championed the Freedom of Information Bill

H

ow did the idea of the Freedom of Information Bill start in the first place?

As a graduate student and later a government staff in the United States of America, I followed closely the evolution of the Freedom of Information Act of the United States of America.

In the process I became so interested that I promised myself that whenever Nigeria frees herself from the shackles of military dictatorship and returns to democracy that I will champion a Freedom of Information Bill if God favoured me to be elected to the National Assembly.

So, what happened when you became a member of the House of Representatives?

Late 1998 and early 1999 Nigeria began the process of democratization.

When in 1999 Nigeria’s return to democracy was declared and election dates were announced I was quick to return home to Nigeria to contest for a seat to represent Idemili North and South Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. I contested for the nomination under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was duly nominated. God answered my prayer and I had an overwhelming victory at the polls to become a member of the House of Representatives.

As soon as I made up my mind to return home to Nigeria I took time to draft the Freedom of Information Bill. My victory gave meaning to my desire and aspiration to be one of the foot soldiers in the fight for press freedom in Nigeria and one way I believed the war could be won was through a Freedom of Information Law that will grant everyone unfettered access to information.

A few days after my swearing-in as a member of the National Assembly in June, 1999, I presented the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, with a draft bill for an Act of National Assembly to make it easy for Nigerians to have access to information, otherwise known as Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. Several sessions were organized between the legal department and myself as the Assembly was new and many people were still learning the ropes. The legal department in my several discussions with them confessed that the draft bill that I presented was as detailed, organized and complete and that it required that no amendment to bring it to conformity. The draft was then printed and gazetted accordingly. In other words, the Freedom of Information Bill was the first private member bill presented in the House of Representative in 1999.

What were the challenges?

It was a long hard road to convince my colleagues to buy into it and support it on the floor of the House. It was highly misunderstood and shot down many times on the floor of the Assembly. This was no surprise to me as Nigeria was newly getting out of the shackles of dictatorship and all the attendant symptoms were visible. My colleagues in the National Assembly both Senate and House of Representatives opposed the bill openly. I received calls from many “big men” outside the National Assembly questioning my motive for sponsoring such, in their own words, “a controversial bill.”

Many feared that it would cause government to pry into their private lives, while others believed that it was not necessary at that time in the stage of our democratic development where many had been tented with colours of military corruption and not yet willing to shed the toga. It was a tedious effort and hard work to bring many of my colleagues on the same page. However, at the very long

Ugokwe last, after rigorous defending and long hours of meetings and public hearings the bill was finally passed by the House of Representatives toward the end of the session of the 4th Assembly. The bill was transmitted to the Senate for concurrence but the Senate did not get to consider it before the 4th Session of the National Assembly ended. The end of the 4th Session of the National Assembly without concurrence by the Senate meant the end of the road for the FOI Bill.

When it was not signed into law, what happened?

On my re-election into the 5th Session of the National Assembly and the House of Representatives in 2003 I re-initiated and re-introduced the Freedom of Information Bill. With the gruelling and unpleasant experience I gathered in the 4th Session of the National Assembly, it was easier to convince my colleagues to support the Bill. In 2005, the Freedom of Information Bill again was passed by the House of Representatives.

Drawing from my past experiences it was easy to form a coalition of the media, other agencies and Non Governmental Organiza-

tions to put pressure on the Members of the Senate for concurrence. Finally in 2006 the Senate concurred to the Bill Passed by the House of Representative and the Freedom of Information Bill was transmitted to the President for assent for the last huddle.

Everyone waited patiently for Mr. President’s assent to the Bill but it was not forthcoming. We began to ask questions and even began to brace up for an override. As events unfolded it was obvious something was amiss. Probing further, the Presidency “claimed” that the Bill was never transmitted to Mr. President. It sounded like a joke knowing that the process of transmitting Bills from the National Assembly to Mr. President was not so complicated that the Bill could get lost in transit. Incidentally year 2007 crept in and electioneering process reached a crescendo and no one could spare the time for Freedom of Information Bill anymore. Soon after the 5th Assembly of the National Assembly and the Federal Executive Council were dissolved, without a Freedom of Information Act in place.

In 2007 the 6th Session of the National Assembly was convened. I did not return

In some quarters many agencies and parties have jumped on the bandwagon to propagate the epistle of Freedom of Information Act. No one has cared to extend invitation to the originator of the Bill to seek for further and in-dept understanding of the spirit and the intent behind the conceptualization of the Act. It is convenient to forget the beginning and only celebrate the end, however, if there was no beginning, the end would never have come

to the Assembly but was appointed to serve as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Austria with Concurrent Accreditation to Slovakia. At the resumption of the 6th and with my absence in the National Assembly, Hon. Abike DabiriErewa, who encouraged me as a journalist while working with the NTA and partnered with me when she was elected to the House of Representatives in 2003 took up the challenge and dusted up the Bill and re-introduced it in the House of Representatives as required by the rules. With the support of those members who had followed the journey of the Bill so far joined hands to pull the Bill through the House of Representatives. Subsequently the Senate again concurred and President Goodluck Jonathan willingly assented to the Bill soon after it was transmitted to him. A Freedom of Information Act was finally born and my dream was realized at last! Thus the long walk for Freedom came full circle.

In some quarters many agencies and parties have jumped on the bandwagon to propagate the epistle of Freedom of Information Act. No one has cared to extend invitation to the originator of the Bill to seek for further and in-dept understanding of the spirit and the intent behind the conceptualization of the Act. It is convenient to forget the beginning and only celebrate the end, however, if there was no beginning, the end would never have come. I am therefore grateful to Mr. Chuks Okotcha who was a journalist covering the National Assembly at the time I was a Member and at the time of sponsoring of the great bill now an Act, for reaching out to me at this auspicious time of World Press Freedom Day to recast for posterity the genesis of the FOI Act and the challenges faced to bring it to fruition. I am immensely grateful to you for this singular action and may God bless you. It is only if and when recognitions such as this is achieved shall we truly celebrate Freedom of Information Act – A long walk to Freedom for all Nigerians!

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THURSDAY, ÍżËœ ͺ͸ͺ͸ Ëž T H I S D AY

TRIBUTE

The Essential Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Tuesday, 5th May marked the 10th anniversary of the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. In this tribute, first published on 5th June 2010, his spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi reflected on what might have been

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here has been a massive outpouring of tributes to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua since his passing a month ago, such that it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to recognize the man I served for almost three years. In typical Nigerian fashion, everybody, including those who ‘cabalised’ his last days, is now eulogizing the late president. It seems one of our major attributes as a nation is that we are ever generous to, and most often hypocritical about, the dead.

However, beyond the familiar graveyard orations, the Yar’Adua Presidency, like all previous governments, deserves a rigorous and more honest interrogation to enable us learn useful lessons about the past and secure a good guide for the future. This is an important task which I am sure many Nigerians will undertake once tears are dried and tempers have simmered. As a front-row witness, I plan to document my own experience and reflections about this period in the next two years when hopefully, I would have the time and presence of mind to put things in proper perspective. For now, let me offer a few words about the late Yar’Adua based on my interactions with him as his official spokesman.

In all the tributes paid to him, a common thread has been that while he had his personal failings like all mortals, President Yar’Adua exhibited certain attributes uncommon with people who hold leadership positions in our clime, and that made a significant difference. These attributes were: humility, integrity and humanity. Though interrelated, these enduring values reinforce one another, and cannot stand alone. As a leader, if you don’t have the first, you definitely cannot have the others.

Humility, which Ezra Taft Benson argues is concerned with what is right as distinct from who is right, is the core of those human virtues which work in tandem with other positive character traits. It is therefore no surprise that Yar’Adua was as honest as he was humble and he had nothing but contempt for the primitive accumulation of the Nigerian political elite who place their personal greed above the collective need. Yar’Adua’s humility was particularly telling because aside his well-heeled family background, he had been the governor of a state for eight years before becoming president.

In that office, Yar’Adua chose the road less travelled by. He didn’t allow power to change him. From the outset, he recognized that a leader must place the system above himself and use power cautiously and only for the advancement of human dignity. With the late Yar’Adua, I saw this disposition at play in several instances but will cite only one.

Whatever little credit this administration can take for the Niger Delta amnesty process, President Yar’Adua’s personal humility was a critical catalyst. I recall that the entire agenda could have been scuttled from the outset when some hardliners in government stoutly opposed the idea of releasing Mr. Henry Okah from detention and granting him amnesty. The late Yar’Adua never for once agreed with people who argued that it would be demeaning for the President of Nigeria to hold meetings with those they considered ‘criminals’. In the course of his dealings with the Niger Delta militant leaders, the late President exemplified the enduring lesson of a Hausa proverb (once shared with me by Senator Uba Ahmed) that stooping before a dwarf does not cost you your height.

Whenever there was a crisis or a likelihood of one, President Yar’Adua would personally call on phone the leader of whichever group was involved. That explains why Chief Government Ekpomupolo alias Tompolo had easy access to the late president who also brokered meetings between the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi and Mr Ateke Tom in order for peace to reign in the Niger Delta.

One of the reasons Okah bought into the amnesty process was principally due to the disposition of President Yar’Adua during their first encounter. Perhaps only few leaders would have the temperament to absorb what Okah told the president that night about what he described as the ‘crazy arrangement’ in Nigeria vis-a-vis the Niger Delta people. Rather than express anger, President Yar’Adua assured Okah that he could understand his rage while pledging to redress wrongs. That parley, brokered by my former boss and mentor, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena, was particularly instructive. When the late President (with me and Mr. David Edevbie by his side) eventually met with the ‘Aaron Team’ of the

Late Yar’Adua Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), comprising Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, Admiral Mike Akhigbe and Major General Luke Aprezi (rtd), they can all attest to the fact that by the time he laid his cards on the table, there was little to argue about as it became quite clear he had a roadmap towards resolving the Niger Delta problem.

Apart from the desire to do what was right, President Yar’Adua held resolution of the Niger Delta issue very dear. He could see in it enormous potentials for the nation at large. It is within this context that the current argument about whether or not the ‘seven-point agenda’ should be reviewed not only begs the question but shows little understanding of what the agenda is all about. The ‘seven-point agenda’ is not an economic blueprint but rather a conceptual framework of the critical areas of our national life that the administration considered of utmost priority. Even at that, President Yar’Adua himself had realised before he died that there was need to focus principally on a few items which would unlock the door to the others.

Three were identified: Land Reform, Niger Delta and Power. On Land Reform, Professor Akin Mabogunje has done extensive work and the Bill is now before the National Assembly.

President Yar’Adua said several times with respect to Niger Delta that the amnesty deal was just the easy bit: the foundation for resolving the crisis in an enduring manner. The solution, he believed, would be in empowering the oil producing communities and this informed his decision to direct that ministerial committees be set up to work out modalities for implementing the report of the Special Adviser on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah.

Titled ‘Equity Distribution in Petroleum Administration: Proposal for the Involvement of Host Communities in the Ownership of Petroleum Assets in Nigeria’, the Egbogah report, which seeks to give oil producing Niger Delta communities a stake similar to land owner royalty, was very detailed. Unfortunately, that turned out to be President Yar’Adua’s last official engagement as he fell ill only a few days later and travelled to Saudi Arabia. The rest, as they say, is history. As for the power sector, President Yar’Adua felt it would be delusional to think that electricity could be generated and transmitted

on a sustainable basis in Nigeria if resolution of the Niger Delta question remained literally or figuratively in the pipelines.

Another area where President Yar’Adua’s distinction shone through was his abiding faith in the rule of law. For President Yar’Adua, the good society is one where impunity is a taboo, and where the rights of the rich and poor are equally protected. On reflection, I believe President Yar’Adua actually understood the seeming intangibles which have held us back as a nation with a clear idea of what needs to be done. He was ready to chart the course.

Today, I can recall several discussions I had with him on the primacy of rule of law to the development of any society. For him it was not mere rhetoric. It is indeed to the eternal credit of the respect the late President had for institutions and constituted authority that he never for once dabbled in the affairs of the National Assembly.

Not even when there was media pressure on him to do so during the Mercy Etteh crisis in the House of Representatives, which members eventually resolved on their terms. He also stayed away from the internal politics of his party, the PDP. And he gave unfettered freedom to the judiciary as the last arbiter. But for President Yar’Adua’s unwavering commitment to the rule of law, it is most unlikely that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole would be Edo State Governor today.

The same goes for Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State. And in Anambra State, the recent election would most certainly not have been conducted given the fact that there were people within his party who held on to the belief that they already had a ‘Governor-in-waiting’!

On a personal level, I can also attest that President Yar’Adua was an open-minded leader and a loyal boss. Between 22nd April, 2007 (when I was first contacted for the job) and 29th May, 2007, I turned down the offer to be his (presidential) spokesman several times and only accepted on 30th May after the decision had been taken out of my hands. Notwithstanding, President Yar’Adua was faithful to me, especially at a period when I was considered ‘disloyal’ by some people very close to him! By the warped logic of these political do-gooders, the loyal media aide is one who makes a nuisance of himself by attacking critics of his principal. For not doing that, there were several reports against me by

Another area where President Yar’Adua’s distinction shone through was his abiding faith in the rule of law. For him, the good society is one where impunity is a taboo, and where the rights of the rich and poor are equally protected

those who rubbed it in that it was not an accident that President Olusegun Obasanjo picked three kinsmen of his as spokespersons in succession.

There were also other people in government with their power mongering collaborators outside who hated my guts and put pressure on President Yar’Adua to replace me with their own media men. Some did not stop at mere attempts to replace me; I was also considered expendable.

Such was the desperation. It is not on record that any of my predecessors was ever invited for interrogation by the security agencies for just doing their job. In my own case, I endured that humiliation over the controversial Ekiti State re-run gubernatorial election.

In each of these situations, President Yar’Adua stood solidly by me, the same way he resisted pressure to replace his ADC, Col. Mustapha Dennis Onoyiveta, who got the job purely on merit after a competitive interview conducted by the former Chief-of-Staff, Major General Abdullahi Mohammed (rtd) from a shortlist sent by the Defence Headquarters. That became an issue for those who wanted Mustapha out with the whispering campaign that former President Obasanjo planted him on Yar’Adua. Yet it was clear that Mustapha’s only sin was the fact that he is an Urhobo man from Delta State and not a Northerner!

As a boss, Yar’Adua was easy to work with and approachable. He was also sensitive to the welfare of his staff. Such was his attention that one day he noticed that his personal secretary and speechwriter, Mr. Matt Aikhionbare, was walking with a slight limp and asked what was wrong with him. When Matt complained about pains in his leg for which he was seeking local medical care, the president immediately called his personal doctor and asked that he arrange for Matt to travel abroad. He personally paid all the bills.

Another aspect of the man Yar’Adua which Nigerians did not get to see was his down-toearth, brutally frank disposition to issues. One morning, as we were leaving the residence for his office, the ADC noticed that the President did not have his Nigeria-lapel pin on. As he attempted to place one on his ‘babariga’, the President turned to us (myself, Steve Oronsaye, Matt Aikhionbare, Habu Habib and Yusuf Tilde) and asked cynically: ‘What does this thing really mean? It is not whether we carry the national flag on our head or chest that matters. I wonder why we place too much premium on symbolism in this country when what should inspire us as public officials is that our actions are dictated by public good’. In characteristic style, he challenged us to convince him as to why he must wear the pin and was prepared for a debate. In the end, we managed to convince him to allow the pin to be put in place if only to humour us.

I have fond memories of President Yar’Adua. I interacted so closely with him that even colleagues who initially felt uncomfortable with me could not but notice he enjoyed my company. It got to a point that sometimes when he sat alone, they would send for me to go and keep him company. I am one of the few people who could bring out his earthy, humourous nature which he tried to suppress. With me, he would laugh because I recognised the fact that while he might have been the president, he was first and foremost a human being and I related to him on that score.

While it is true that Nigerians hardly speak ill of the dead, I have received numerous testimonials from people I encountered on the streets in the last few weeks that lead me to conclude that beyond the crocodile tears and political tributes, there must have been a genuine affection for President Yar’Adua by most Nigerians and deep sympathy for his personal travails. If only these people had known him up close and if only illness and death had not conspired to rob Nigeria of the freshness and vigour of his humble, honest and humane leadership!

The late president definitely was not the saint some people are trying to make of him.

He was a mere mortal who had his faults and weaknesses. But he was also far from being the desperate power-monger that the ‘cabals’ on both sides tried to turn him into in his last days. He was essentially a good man who had lofty dreams for his country; a man of ideas who, though hampered by ill-health, gave the thankless job of building a good society his very best; a simple human being who refused to let position and power deprive him and others of their humanity.

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T H I S D AY Ëž Ëœ ÍľËœ 2020

COMMENT

Editor, Editorial Page PETER ISHAKA Email peter.ishaka@thisdaylive.com

WHERE IS THE LOVEYOU PROMISED GLOBAL COMMUNITIES? African family should promote ethics of sharing happiness, writes Okello Oculi

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song is vapour out of a soul on fire and on ice. It is time that Africa’s songs washed the global community. President Julius Kambarage Nyerere marked his country’s independence by directing a soldier to plant a flame on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. The peak is now called ‘’Uhuru’’/’’Freedom’’. ‘’Uhuru’’ joined earlier pledges by Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Nigeria’s Tafawa Balewa to end racist colonial dictatorship in Africa.

The flame would shine the light of freedom from the coast of Tunisia on the Mediterranean Sea to the tip of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Nyerere attended Makerere College and Edinburgh University where he met European political philosophy’s fable of human history getting corrupted; saved by a ‘’Redeemer’’, and returned to freedom in paradise.

Jean Jacques Rousseau cried out that ‘’Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains’’, but a ‘’General Will’’ would bring back freedom.

Karl Marx praised capitalism’s dynamism in creating wealth; its implosion by forcing industrial workers to rebel against mass starvation, thereby, ‘’liberating’’ economic history by replacing capitalism with the love in ‘’Communism’’.

Nyerere rejected this song by asserting that Man in Africa was always born into a Familyhood/Ujama rooted in Love, Labour, Responsibility and Sharing fruits of work. Moreover, Marx ‘’gives revolutionary violence a philosophical dignity it does not deserve ’’. In Africa’s song society started with Love and not with corrupted people.

The flame on top of Kilimanjaro, however, showed a panorama of brutal, greedy, selfish and racist capitalism across southern Africa.

Nyerere was obliged to support a Violent War of Liberation in Mozambique: asking Professor Eduardo Mondlane to link ‘familyhood with his oppressed peoples through violent armed struggle.

Racism contradicted familyhood. In Africa, the love promised by Marx’s European revolution would come through armed struggle by ‘’anti-racist racism’’, and not the internal explosion of capitalist wealth.

The end of liberation wars in Africa offers post-COVID-19 Uhuru Peak on Mt Kilimanjaro a new mandate to shine the light of familyhood’s love inside each African country. Accordingly, citizens must ask officials if they Love the people they administer. Citizens must ask if they love each other in familyhood.

In Abuja and Nairobi, for example, those who drive through red light, those who shout insults at a driver who has stopped to obey a red light, must ask this question. In South Africa, those who burnt down and vandalized schools during COVID-19; and those who

WHEN A TEACHER IN A GOVERNMENT OR PRIVATE SCHOOL WORKS DILIGENTLY FOR ELEVEN YEARS WITHOUT BEING PROMOTED BECAUSE SHE/HE BELONGS TO A CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUP OR RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION, IT RAISES THE NEED FOR NATION-BUILDING TO IMBIBE LOVE ETHICS OF ‘FAMILYHOOD’

slaughter village communities in Zamfara State and northern Burkina Faso raise injunction of Love stipulated by familyhood.

When a teacher in a government or private school works diligently for eleven years without being promoted because she/he belongs to a certain ethnic group or religious denomination, it raises the need for nation-building to imbibe Love ethics of ‘familyhood’.

At the global arena, when fear of losing wealth and power urges brilliant policymakers to spread disease epidemics for exterminating people in high populations pools in Africa, India, China and Brazil, the ethic of familyhood must be used to fumigate global culture.

In the war against the Coronavirus, a code of behavior minimizes contact between individuals by isolating from family members those showing signs of infection, including suspecting even the healthy as potential villains. In contrast, Liberation Movements once anchored the growth of a revolution on educating collective awareness to oppose police violence, starvation, unjust taxes and forced labour and unemployment.

Following the dissolution of Communist States, Euro-America’s leaders began to withdraw ‘’socialist’’ incomes enjoyed by their citizens’; provoking popular protests across Europe’s borders. Opportunistic politicians sought to co-opt and blunt people’s anger - over declining standards of living - by sponsoring xenophobia, internal terrorism through random violence on streets and crowd-based cultural events including: football games, political rallies, and weddings.

African familyhood should erode atomistic and morally empty accumulation of wealth by promoting ethics of sharing happiness, incomes, volunteering for community service, anti-exploitation, and violence against women and children.

Africa must push for the notion of “I am because you are’’ – the moral elevation of individuals by serving ‘’other people first’’. There is a lesson in highly paid and socially respected American medical doctors experiencing high rates of suicide due to moral emptiness because millions of fellow citizens cannot afford their skills and sophisticated technology.

The principle of ‘’Obuntu’’ offers Responsibility for the wellbeing of others; shared Love and Fraternity; and Work as part of ‘’all of us being in it together’’.

Marketers of guns and gun-violence are vigorously telling babies that their only claim to security is during the nine months in wombs of mothers. Ubuntu must offer the global community messages of Love for humanity to combat Money Dictators manipulating global humanity with fear.

COVID-19: THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL

Olorunda Rotimi writes that saliva from infected persons is as effective as swabbing the nose/throat

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igeria is still at a relatively early stage of the pandemic Covid-19 disease caused by a newly discovered Coronavirus called SARS-Cov-2 and therefore has the advantage to learn from other countries that have been ravaged by the disease and should spend this time to prepare carefully in containing the disease, suppressing transmission and getting ready to scale up hospital capacity. To do this effectively, the leaders of the country need to think globally but act locally in their actions with respect to this highly contagious disease. Also, the healthcare workers and the general populace need to realise they have a significant role to play in this and hence work with the government to achieve the above goals. Whilst this is a new disease with a lot to unravel but what we know now informs the need to take it very seriously – it is a highly infectious disease, there are no known preventive measures, no proven treatment/cure, no available vaccine and infected people not showing symptoms can transmit the virus.

The diagnosis of Covid-19 needs confirmation by a complex test in the lab which looks for the presence of genetic material from the virus in samples from the patients. This testing is crucial to understand the presence and spread of the disease in the society. Nigeria needs to decentralise testing in order to improve the turnaround of the result and start to trace contacts quickly. A centralised testing system which the country is using at the moment is bedevilled with several challenges including logistics, batching of samples at the collection points and batching at the central testing centres; all of these will result in longer turnaround time of the result. At present, it takes three – five days to report the cases especially for those coming from outside the testing centres. A timely turnaround of result is ideally within 24 hours but certainly under 48hours. The prolonged centralisation of testing was a mistake made by many European and North American countries at the beginning of their own epidemic and many have struggled to suppress the transmission because of that. Whereas countries such as South Korea, Singapore and Germany that tested widely were able to suppress transmission

and they have recorded the least number of deaths.

Nigeria is definitely in a position to do this as every state in the country has a molecular lab (used for HIV diagnosis) that can be used for the diagnosis of Covid-19. I will also suggest that NCDC should look into diversifying the platforms used as that will allow them to get reagents from different suppliers rather than struggling with a single supplier.

There is also a need to look for an easier way of collecting samples. The current collection method of sticking a swab stick to the back of the throat and nostrils is not easy and can lead to false negative results if not properly done. However, recently, saliva from infected persons has been reported to be as effective as swabbing the nose/throat and this is far much easier to collect. Nigeria can work on such a method and pilot using saliva alongside nasal/throat swabs at this early stage. Moreover, the country should seek to learn from other African countries such as Senegal which has developed their own quicker diagnostic technique using saliva and blood samples which are easier to collect and transport.

The common symptoms of Covid-19 are fever, cough and body aches with shortness of breath in the more serious cases. The common diseases in Nigeria that can mimic Covid-19 are malaria with the fever and body aches and tuberculosis (TB) with the cough. These two diseases are much easier to diagnose now. So, acting locally, it should be mandated that every new case of fever presenting to any healthcare facility should have a blood test for malaria as well as the swab for Covid. A positive malaria test should be treated and patient observed.

A negative malaria test should immediately trigger contact tracing and isolation of the patient. Also, new patients should be given a new facemask to wear on arrival at a healthcare facility. Equally, all healthcare practices should heighten their index of suspicion and approach any new patient with as much caution as possible including at least wearing a facemask and eye protection.

The lockdown of the society enables social distancing and this is crucial to slowing down the community transmission of the disease. However, achieving a near successful lockdown and social

distancing will be a challenge in a society like Nigeria with a strong communal living system and reliance on daily market activities for sustenance especially given poor infrastructure for storage.

Hence for this to be effective at all, there is a need for original thinking and strong collaborative working with the community directly. Such existing community groups as religious organisations of churches and mosques as well as civil liberty groups should be engaged in this. The religious networks of churches and mosques should be used as people are more likely to listen to their pastors and imams than government officials. These religious leaders and their organisations should be engaged in the public health awareness about this disease.

Lockdowns and social distancing affect people’s livelihoods, so to be effective relief measures must be put in place. Innovative ways need to be sought to achieve this. For example all available local halls - church, school, event centres and town halls could be repossessed and be used to distribute relief materials in a controlled way; turn some into emergency shopping outlets with ability to control crowd and maintain distancing for marketers and customers. Larger spaces such as school (including higher institutions) playgrounds, stadiums and army barracks could be turned into temporary markets where people can be counted in and monitored. In addition, relief materials can be directly delivered to people especially in smaller community groups.

The military and civil society groups should be actively engaged in logistics, distribution and security with respect to relief materials in particular.

The leaders need to publicly demonstrate more social distancing actions than just wearing face mask. Whilst wearing of face mask may play a role in an infected person spreading the disease to those around them, it needs to be accompanied with the more important social distancing actions such as no handshakes, no embracing, regular handwashing and keeping a 2-metre distance from others.

The value of effective lockdown and contact tracing can even be seen in Nigeria now with some states such as Ondo keeping the spread down from their index case for several weeks whereas in Kano

with ineffective lockdown, their confirmed cases have increased astronomically within two weeks.

Also, as it appears the disease is largely urban based at the moment, part of the strategy should be to strongly discourage city dwellers visiting their villages and vice-versa as it will be difficult to monitor the situation in those largely out of reach villages.

The more vulnerable members of the society (the elderly and those with underlying diseases like obesity, diabetes, hypertension and lung diseases like asthma, in whom the diseases may have serious consequences) should be strongly encouraged to shield themselves from others to minimise their risk.

The main cause of death in the disease is when people developed serious breathing disorder which requires hospital admission and treatment often in intensive care unit (ICU) where machines are used to assist the breathing and delivery of oxygen to the patient’s lungs. A widespread transmission of the disease increases the chances of this happening and a resultant overwhelming of the critical care capacity of the hospitals. This contributed significantly to the high death rate from the disease in the western countries especially when they have not prepared well for this surge. Therefore, a thorough assessment of the ICU capacity in government and private hospitals is required and then plan to increase capacity by using operating rooms. Plansshould also be made for surge in bed occupancy for non-ICU cases including preparing and designating some hospitals as Covidhot and maximise their capacity. Some of the re-possessed public spaces can also be converted to emergency hospitals for milder cases and train health care workers to manage them. More medics and nurses should be trained in intensive care work and refresher courses run for medical workers who have had less clinical work to increase capacity. It is important to work collaboratively with private healthcare providers as they represent more than 60% care facilities in the country and largely act as the de-facto primary health care system.

Dr Rotimi is currently the clinical director for pathology in a large teaching hospital in the UK and oversees a laboratory involved in the diagnosis of Covid-19

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T H I S D AY ˾ THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2020

EDITORIAL ON THE NDDC (MIS) MANAGEMENT The NDDC needs a substantive board to entrench culture of transparency

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or the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) it has been a tale of scandals, following the inability of President Muhammadu Buhari to constitute a substantive governing board to run its affairs. While there is no clear information about the forensic audit that was supposed to have been conducted on the activities of the previous management, an interim board without any clear mandate or authority, as we keep warning on this page, is a recipe for unwholesome practices as available reports now indicate.

On Tuesday, the National Assembly passed a resolution to investigate an allegation of N40 billion fraud against the Interim Management Committee (IMC).

“While President Buhari’s action of setting up an IMC and the forensic audit may have been conceived to forestall the financial recklessness of the commission and reposition it for fast-tracking of the development of the region”, said the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy, Senator Thompson Sekibo, the IMC “has been more bedeviled with the same financial misuse, misapplication, THE ACT ESTABLISHING misappropriation THE COMMISSION or outright fraud in LEAVES NO ROOM FOR the management of the funds of the A SITUATION THAT commission.” He EMPOWERS A FEW added: “Within the PEOPLE WHO REPORT last three months, TO THE NIGER DELTA the commission has MINISTER TO RUN IT AS spent over N40 billion SOLE ADMINISTRATORS without recourse to established processes of fund disbursements, which has opened up further suspicion among stakeholders of the Niger Delta Region.”

Given recent developments, we are not surprised by this scandal and we hope the National Assembly will get to the root of it and identify culprits who should be brought to justice. Meanwhile, the story of the NDDC has been rather unfortunate. A month after the Senate confirmed the 15 nominees he sent for confirmation as

NDDC board members last year, the president deferred to the minister of Niger Delta, Mr Godswill Akpabio, who had named the IMC in a curious move. The chairperson of that committee has since been removed and replaced, following another scandal.

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T H I S DAY EDITOR BOLAJI ADEBIYI DEPUTY EDITOR YEMI AJAYI, DAVIDSON IRIEKPEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR ENIOLA BELLO DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KAYODE KOMOLAFE CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD OLUSEGUN ADENIYI EDITOR NATION’S CAPITAL IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN MANAGING EDITOR JOSEPH USHIGIALE

T H I S DAY N E W S PA P E R S L I M I T E D EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/CHAIRMAN NDUKA OBAIGBENA GROUP EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ENIOLA BELLO, KAYODE KOMOLAFE, ISRAEL IWEGBU, IJEOMA NWOGWUGWU, EMMANUEL EFENI DIVISIONAL DIRECTORS BOLAJI ADEBIYI, PETER IWEGBU, ANTHONY OGEDENGBE DEPUTY DIVISIONAL DIRECTOR OJOGUN VICTOR DANBOYI SNR. ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR ERIC OJEH ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS PATRICK EIMIUHI, SAHEED ADEYEMO CONTROLLERS ABIMBOLA TAIWO, UCHENNA DIBIAGWU, NDUKA MOSERI DIRECTOR, PRINTING PRODUCTION CHUKS ONWUDINJO HEAD, COMPUTER DEPARTMENT PATRICIA UBAKA-ADEKOYA

stablished in 2000 by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, the NDDC was charged with facilitating the rapid, even and sustainable development of the Niger Delta into a region “that is economically prosperous, socially stable, ecologically regenerative and politically peaceful.”

The commission’s mandate area is comprised of the nine oil producing states of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, and Rivers. Sadly, while the NDDC has a comprehensive master plan and hundreds of billions of naira have been spent over the past 19 years, there is little on ground to justify the investment.

The dismal state of development in the Niger Delta was acknowledged by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo sometime ago when he said “The Niger Delta we see today is an area of poor infrastructure; a few schools and hospitals.” He merely echoed what other stakeholders have been saying for years. Indeed, the report of the presidential committee on project execution covering the period between 2005 and 2011 revealed the extent of rot in NDDC. The report monitored a total of 609 projects spread across three states – Cross River, Edo and Rivers.

However, the current problem is foisted on NDDC by the president. The act establishing the commission leaves no room for a situation that empowers a few people who report to the Niger Delta Minister to practically run it as sole administrators. If we must entrench a culture of transparency and accountability in the affairs of the commission, it is important to have a substantive board in place rather than leave it to the whims of a minister. Besides, operating outside the law to impose an interim board with elastic mandate cannot be a way of instilling accountability in NDDC. The president must rectify this situation without any further delay.

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Letters to the Editor

The ‘Sinkhole’ Called NDDC

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r. President, when you ordered the forensic audit on Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) you were yielding to the cries of majority of the people of the region as the commission was beginning to operate like a cult. Our fear is that from one extreme, it appears as if the commission has gone into another extreme with the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs appearing to become a sole administrator of the commission.

It is now being said that those who oppose Godwin Akpabio’s overbearing influence over the present management are being said to be opposed to the forensic audit. Certainly not, Mr. President.

We wholeheartedly welcome the forensic audit, in fact some of us have been calling for the probe of the NDDC long before you took office in 2015. There was a deluge of petitions to the EFCC in the past and even now with no attendant reciprocity.

However, our fear is that the level of corruption in the commission which we campaigned against regrettably has not lessened, even under the present dispensation.

Mr. President, never have we seen a stench coming out of the NDDC so repugnant. You may feel like taking a shower to clean off the stench from the profanity and misconduct on display at the moment.

Of particular reference Mr President, we wish to draw your attention to the award of contracts on emergency basis and the so called De- silting contracts and contracts for the supply

of maternal delivery Kits, Lassa fever and Covid-19 PPE and medical equipment.

We are aware that award letters are not issued as contracts are awarded just with a memo and payment to front companies owned by cronies of the top shots in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs in Abuja.

We believe the mandate of the IMC is to undertake and see through the forensic audit. But that is not the case now as the IMC is engaged in the award and payment for questionable contracts.

To corroborate our position of the allegations against the commission the Executive Director Project, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh claimed on National Television on Sunday, 20th April, 2020 that the IMC has not awarded any contract nor have they made payment to any company for contract.

However, his claim flies in the face of documents in our possession. The question we ask is: Why is it that all contracts in the NDDC are now referred to as “emergency?”

This is the new normal in the NDDC, deliberately employed to circumvent the procurement process...and the patrons in Abuja have upped the ante in this regard paying for many emergency contracts that have not even been verified.

We have it on good authority that all payments made in the last three weeks are for emergency contracts.

This is despite the advice of the Executive Director (Finance and Administration) against paying for emergency jobs but the

gist is that the top shots in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs overruled him.

The NDDC just issued mandatory leave letters to some directors deemed to be uncompromising with instructions that clearly goes against professional ethics. The forced leave is pure victimization, unfair and unjust by the IMC at the direction of the ministry.

Instilling fear and intimidation and discriminatory implementation of presidential directive is the system that has been employed to ensure that the ministry has its way on all issues.

The staff that have been sent on compulsory leave were alleged to have leaked sensitive documents to the public and media. If we may ask, why hide transactions of a public institution if processes are transparently executed? Why afraid of leaks when tendering process in all MDAs are conducted in public and contracts award and payment for contracts are executed in the open?

Finally, Mr. President, it’s on record that the Ondo State Government rejected the Lassa fever kits sent by NDDC because the kits were found to have expired.

Within the verification exercise period about N4bn was paid out to suppliers of Lassa fever kits. The verification exercise was announced 20 January 2020 while selected companies and contracts for Lassa fever were hurriedly paid before the verification commenced on 22 January, 2020.

Joseph Tamara, Global Forum For Accountability and Transparency, Nigeria

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THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 • T H I S D AY

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FEATURES

Group Features Editor: Chiemelie Ezeobi Email chiemelie.ezeobi@thisdaylive.com, Tel: 07010510430

Olusegun Adekunle Hits 60, Serving God and Country Tajudeen Kareem

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n this auspicious occasion, we expected drums and merriment.

But for Olusegun Adeyemi Adekunle, 60 years old on May 1, it was a day to roll up his sleeves and serve his country, diligently as he has done in the last 36 years!

So, family prayers over, off to the daily meeting of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19, where his boss, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, superintends.

Adekunle, as permanent secretary, general services office, co-ordinates the activities of the task force, providing critical linkages with the federal bureaucracy, the presidency, sub-national governments and entities.

Olusegun Adeyemi Adekunle who clocked 60 on Friday, May 1, 2020, has come a long way. Born to the famous family of the Adekunle of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, he is a nephew of Nigeria’s civil war hero,the late Brig-Gen Benjamin Adekunle.

Raised on a diet of discipline and purposefulness, he had his early education in Ilorin; did his Higher School Certificate at the Federal Government College, Ogbomoso and graduated at the University of Ilorin in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.

Thus began his trajectory of career growth when he started as an Administrative Officer in 1984 in the Federal Civil Service. He was deployed to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, where he served until 1999 in several capacities. He was saddled with diverse responsibilities which he discharged with diligence. As an administrative officer he was to oversee such crucial implementation of activities and responsibilities as well as monitoring the implementation of Federal Executive Council and the then Supreme Military Council conclusions during the military regime of the time. He discharged his responsibilities and was also at various times Administrative Officer in charge of the Department of Forestry Resources, Department of Agricultural Land Resources and Department of Fisheries.

These were tentative steps that were then perhaps serving as the touchstone of bigger responsibilities that lay ahead for Olusegun in the Federal Civil Service. After Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999 he was deployed to the Federal Ministry of Aviation through 2000 as Principal Administrative Officer,Planning. For this he was solely responsible for coordination and implementation of annual work plans for the Aviation Sector; monitoring the implementation of approved Aviation Sector Programmes and Projects in conjunction with National Planning Commission. These were no mean tasks.

Between 2000 and 2001, he became Principal Administrative Officer/Principal Assistant to the Permanent Secretary. In this position, he was charged with the onerous responsibilities of coordinating the preparation, implementation and monitoring of annual budgets; coordination of the implementation of all Federal Executive Council decisions; coordination of Interim Management Committees supervising the National Insurance Corporation, Security Printing and Minting Corporation, Securities and Exchange Commission; as well as the coordination of overall organizational management role of the Permanent Secretary. He also served as Personal Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Gambo Jimeta. To reach the peak, Adekunle ‘rolled’ and gatheredexperience at several ministries, department and agencies cutting across Aviation, Finance, Commerce, Petroleum Resources, Water Resources, Industry, Trade and Investment as well as World Bank projects.

As the Yoruba say, “A child that knows how to wash his hands would dine with elders�.

Olusegun Adekunle falls squarely into this frame. He has discharged his duties well from all responsibilities that have been assigned to

Adekunle

him, in the office and at other fora. He rose from being an administrative officer in the service to the top of his profession when he became Permanent Secretary, General Service Office, at the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in August, 2017.

In this position he functions as the coordinator of bureaucracy at the OSGF, the engine room of the Federal Government. It was as if his experience and discipline was foreseen to be needed because Adekunle retired formally in September 2019 after clocking 35 years in service.

However, President Muhammadu Buhari gave him a year extension on account of his wealth of experience and strategic position. That decision was fortuitous, as Adekunle has brought his rich experience to bear on the assignment of the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19.

Some of those who have related with him praise his dedication and commitment. Damilola Oni aka Omo Baba eee, waxed poetic in a tribute on the occasion of Adekunle’s birthday. “Your selflessness is a sun within the galaxy of stars; humility in the midst of great affluence; integrity personified even when others have thrown it into the deep blue sea. The strength that covers the weakness of others, you have touched lives, wiped tears and put smiles on the faces of countless people. Simple and arms open wide to all; priceless loyalty to hierarchy; inestimable price of the public servic and the rainbow of mentorship. Your memory is on marble hearts.

Happy birthday to my father and mentor,� said Damilola.

Adekunle did not only distinguish himself at work, he is also a man who finds time, despite his busy schedules, to serve God. Venerable Ernest Onuoha ofAll Saints Anglican Church, Wuse Zone 5 Abuja, says of Adekunle: “Indeed, you are worth celebrating not only as a member of the Parish Church Councilor a Synod delegate or a member of the Church Renovation committee but as a humble man of God who lives sacrificially and touches lives quietly. No one can adequately reward you for the milk of human kindness which you have expressed severally in every department of the church. Therefore, we pray God to bless you and your family in Jesus name.�

The women organization of the church under the leadership of Mummy Chioma also sent him a happy 60th birthday wish just as Ademola Dare-Williams, President, Ogbomoso First Group said, in his message: “Words are insufficient and inadequate for me to describe my great "aburo" on the attainment of the auspicious and glorious occasion of clocking 60 years and becoming a member of the 'Diamond' club. We all know the worth of diamond - valuable, radiant, and indeed precious. My dear Segun possesses all these sterling qualities. He has used his God-given talents of intelligence, humility, kindness and generosity to add value to the lives of all the people privileged to have come across his path.�

The University of Ilorin Alumni Association, Abuja Chapter, in a tribute, said: “We pray that you enjoy many more years of service to mankind and continue to be a blessing unto us and several

others. May God continue to enrich you with knowledge, wisdom and understanding as you continue to lead the team.�

There is no doubt that Olusegun Adekunle has done his hometown Ogbomoso and his Adekunle heritage a world of good, both in education and character.Segun’s mate at Saint Barnabas’ Primary School, Ilorin, Folusho Omodele, a consultant surgeon, decribes him as one from “a strong Christian home who showed leadership qualities since his youthful days in Ilorin. I am not surprised at all when he was appointed a federal permanent secretary, shortly after that he was knighted in the Church. All these traits were inherited from his parents and we expect nothing less from this faithful, amiable unassuming gentleman.�

Toyin Onayingbo is Adekunle’s driver. He has worked since 1988 with a man he describes as “open and very accommodating� to all irrespective of tribe or religion “His selflessness is unquantifiable and he is always willing to offer the hand of support to all manner of people,� said Toyin who offered profuse prayers for his boss and mentor. At 60, Adekunle, who holds a Law degree from the University of Abuja and Nigeria Law School, Abuja as well as a Master in Public Administration from University of Ilorin, certainly has more to offer his country. As he steps into his diamond year, this is wishing him good health and more meritorious service to his father land. t,BSFFN JT B QVCMJD BGGBJST BOBMZTU

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T H I S D AY ˾ MAY 7, 2020

BUSINESSWORLD R A T E S

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REPO 2.25 % 2.75 %

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Group Business Editor Obinna Chima Email obinna.chima@thisdaylive.com 08152447875

3 0 , 2 0 2 0 S&P 502.76 % 1.03 %

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EXCHANGE RATE 7.96 % 4.49 %

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Quick Takes Food Dominates Google Search

ThetoptrendingsearchtermonGoogleNigeriaoverthepast30daysis ‘howtomakebread?’,followedby‘whoisAbbaKyari?’.Thetop20trending questionsonGoogleSearchNigeriaoverthelast30daysaredominated byfoodandcurrentaffairsquestions,accordingtostatisticsfromGoogle Nigeria.

Nigeria,likemanyothernations,hasimplementedlockdowninresponse tothecoronavirusepidemic.Forcedtostayathome,andoftenunableto performtheirusualwork,manypeopleacrosstheglobe,includingNigerians, have turned to cooking and baking as ways to pass the time - and keep themselvesfedintheabsenceofrestaurantsandothervendors.Nigerians arealsoaskingaboutinformationrelatedtothelockdownandcoronavirus, aswellasmoregeneralcurrentaffairstopics,accordingtothestatistics releasedbyGoogle.

Google said the searches, which were centred around food and current affairs,raisedquestionslike:Howtomakebread,pancakes,chinchin,fish roll,eggroll,pizzavegetablesoup,cookies,akara,andegusisoup.Others were Who is Abba Kyari? Where is Buhari? When is school resuming in Nigeria? Howtomakehandsanitiser?amongothers.

SearchtrendsinformationisgleanedfromdatacollatedbyGooglebased on what Nigerians have been searching for and asking Google. Google processesmorethan40,000searchquerieseverysecond.Thistranslates to more than a billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year, worldwide.

CSR IN ACTION

L-R: Executive Secretary, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Ajibola Olude; President, Mr. Olusola Teniola, and Commissioner for Transportation, Lagos State, Dr. Frederic Abimbola Oladeinde, during the presentation of medical equipment to the state, by ATCON in Lagos...recently

‘Technology Will Accelerate Business Recovery’ Stories by Emma Okonji The Chief Executive Officer of IBM, Mr. Arvind Krishna, has said organisations must leverage critical technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cloud, in order to accelerate business recovery and digital transformation in the wake of COVID-19.

According to him, the challenges facing today’s Chief Information Officers (CIOs) could be more complicated and critical than ever before, as these leaders look to help their businesses recover and restart in the wake of a global pandemic.

Krishna, who spoke recently, during a virtual ‘Think Digital’ conference organised by IBM, announced a broad range of new AI-powered capabilities and services that are designed

TELECOM to help CIOs automate their Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to be more resilient to future disruptions and to help reduce costs.

Market intelligence firm IDC, had predicted that, by 2024, enterprises that are powered

by AI will be able to respond to customers, competitors, regulators, and partners, 50 per cent faster than those that are not using AI. Based on the prediction, coupled with global business disruptions occasioned by COVID-19, IBM unveiled several technology solutions that will help speed up business recovery and stability, among which is the IBM Watson AIOps, a new offering that uses AI to automate how enterprises self-detect,

diagnose and respond to IT anomalies in real time.

According to Krishna, unforeseen IT incidents and outages could cost businesses in both revenue and reputation, and a market research firm, Aberdeen pegs an outage at about $260,000/hour.

He said Watson AIOps would enable organisations to introduce automation at the infrastructure level and is designed to help CIOs better predict and shape future outcomes, focus resources on higher-value work and build more responsive and intelligent networks that can stay up and running longer.

“The new solution was built on the latest release of Red Hat OpenShift to run across hybrid cloud environments and works in concert with technologies at the center of today’s distributed work environment, such as Slack

and Box. It also works with providers of traditional IT monitoring solutions, such as Mattermost and ServiceNow. “As part of the rollout, IBM is also announcing the Accelerator for Application Modernisation with AI, within the IBM’s Cloud Modernisation service. This new capability is designed to help clients reduce the overall effort and costs associated with application modernisation.

“It provides a series of tools designed to optimise the endto-end modernisation journey, accelerating the analysis and recommendations for various architectural and microservices options.

“The accelerator leverages continuous learning and interpretable AI models to adapt to Continued on page 20

Report: Liquidity, Staff Safety Top Nigerian Businesses’ Focus A recent report about Nigerian businesses in the face COVID-19, conducted by Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC Nigeria), has identified liquidity and the safety of their staff among the most pressing business needs they are concerned about as they grapple with the impact of the pandemic.

The survey findings were revealed during a recent webinar hosted by the firm, on the economic implications and policy responses to COVID-19. The survey had about 3,000 respondents ranging from managers to CEOs and business owners.

According to the report, 22.5 per cent pointed at liquidity, that

TELECOM is the availability of immediate cash to pay bills especially following disruption to business activities that has been experienced. This was followed by safety of staff at 15.4 per cent, which is an impressive indication that Nigerian businesses have a people focus and were not only concerned about their profitability.

The third significant business concern identified was infrastructure for remote working, which ranked 14.6 per cent, further buttressing the need for access to electricity and internet connectivity.

Analysing the survey results,

Fiscal Policy Partner and West Africa Tax Leader at PwC, Taiwo Oyedele, noted that most businesses, about 78.4 per cent, do not plan to lay off staff as a result of the crisis. According to Oyedele, “This presents a very positive picture. However, decisions on staff retention are often top management decisions and it could mean that a good percentage of respondents may not be privy to such plans by their organisations. The other 21.6 per cent admitted that they would lay off various percentages of staff as a consequence of the pandemic.

“Of this group however, 55.3 per cent do not think government intervention will

influence their decision on laying off staff with the rest indicating they would retain their employees if government’s intervention were able to take care of varying percentages of their staff wage bill.”

As part of its societal impact, PwC has indicated that it would provide free business continuity support services to small businesses employing between 5 to 50 employees who undertake to retain all their staff during this period.

According to the report, it would appear that the much needed investments to stimulate growth and move the needle Continued on page 20

ATCON Donates Medical Equipment

TheAssociationofTelecomsCompaniesofNigeria(ATCON)hasdonated medicalequipmenttotheLagosStateGovernmentinsupportofthefight againstCOVID-19inthestate.

SpeakingatthepresentationoftheitemsinLagosonTuesday,thePresident of ATCON, Mr. OlusolaTeniola, commended the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for his efforts at curbing the spread of virus in LagosthroughtheLagosMinistryofHealth.

Accordingtohim,“Asidefromourphysicalappearancetoday,ourmembers havesupportedandstillprovidingqualitysupporttoallIsolationCentres inthestatebytheprovisionoffreeinternetserviceatallthecentresand subscribersweregiventheopportunityofsendingmessagestotheirloved oneswithoutpayingforthem.

“Inanattempttofurtherexpressoursolidarityandsupportforthegoodwork thestateandyourministryhavebeendoingtostopthefurtherspreadof COVID-19inLagos,ourmembershaveputtogethersomemedicalsupplies likelocallymadefacemaskof2000pieceswhichistosupporttheinitiative ofMaskLagosbyMr.BabajideSanwo-Olu,ExecutiveGovernorofLagos Stateand18dozensof500mlalcoholhandsanitisers.”

Olusola, who was accompanied by the Executive Secretary of ATCON, Mr. Ajibola Olude, further pledged the support of ATCON members to the Lagos State government in the fight against COVID-19 in Lagos and intheentirenation.

Jumia Supplies 100,000 Face Masks

Jumia,ane-Commercecompany,hasdonated100,000CEcertifiedface masks to the Federal Ministry of Health to support the government in fightingtheCOVID-19pandemic.

ThedonationswerereceivedbytheDirector,HospitalServices,Federal MinistryofHealth,Dr.AdebimpeAdebiyionbehalfoftheMinisterofHealth, Dr.OsagieEhanire,inAbuja.

Jumiahasalsoofferedthesupportofitsintegratedlogisticsnetworkto support the distribution of essential products, medical equipment and PersonalProtectiveEquipment.

Chairwoman,JumiaNigeriaandGroupHead,InstitutionalAffairsatJumia Africa,JulietAnammah,said:“Weareproudtomakethiscontributionpartner withtheNigeriangovernmentinfightingagainstCOVID-19andsupporting ourcommunities.E-commerceplatformslikeours,withe-paymentand lastmiledeliverycapabilities,areuniquelypositionedtobepartofNigeria’s responsestrategytothispandemicandweareswiftlytakingactions.”

In a letter of acknowledgement and appreciation to Jumia Nigeria, the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, Alhaji Mashi Abdullahi-onbehalfoftheMinisterofHealthwrote:“TheFederalMinistry of Health heartily appreciates your kind gesture in the fight against the pandemic.Thesupportwhichincludethedonationof100,000piecesofCE ratedmasks,provisionofdeliveryandlogisticsnetworkandothersupport servicestowardstheresponsewillindeedgoalongwaytocomplimentthe ongoingeffortsofcontainmentandcontrolofthespreadofthepandemic.”

“Telecoms operators are still providing quality support to all Isolation Centres in Lagos State by the provision of free internet service at all the centres and subscribers were given the opportunity of sending messages to their loved ones without paying for them” President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON),

Mr. OlusolaTeniola

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BUSINESSWORLD

NEWS

‘TECHNOLOGY WILL ACCELERATE BUSINESS RECOVERY’

HP, African Union Partner on Distance Learning

the client’s preferred software engineering practices and stays up-to-date with the evolution of technology and platforms,�

Krishna said.

Addressing organisational challenges in the face of COVID-19, Slack CEO and Cofounder, Stewart Butterfield, said: “The greatest challenge for organisations is one of alignment. Slack is most valuable when it integrates tightly with the other tools customers use every day, bringing critical business information into channels where it can be collaborated on by teams. “By using Slack with Watson AIOps, IT operators can effectively collaborate on incident solutions, allowing them to spend critical time solving problems rather than identifying them.�

The Senior Vice President, Cloud and Data Platform, IBM, Rob Thomas, said: “What we have learned from companies all over the world is that there are three major factors that will determine the success of AI in business – language, automation and trust. “The COVID-19 crisis and increased demand for remote work capabilities are driving the need for AI automation at an unprecedented rate and pace. With automation, we are empowering next generation CIOs and their teams to prioritise the crucial work of today’s digital enterprises— managing and mining data to apply predictive insights that help lead to more impactful business results and lower cost.�

Stories by Emma Okonji

REPORT: LIQUIDITY, STAFF SAFETY TOP NIGERIAN BUSINESSES’ FOCUS on poverty will be greatly impacted as a result of the COVID-19 crisis as 56.7 per cent of respondents indicated that they will delay investment decisions while 19.4 per cent stated that they would invest less.

The report further explained that majority of the survey respondents think that governments interventions have either been grossly inadequate at about 23.8 per cent or inadequate at about 43.9 per cent, with 17.5 per cent expressing indifference to what government has done up to the date of the survey.

Group Business Editor

Obinna Chima

Capital Market Editor

Goddy Egene

Comms/e-Business Editor

Emma Okonji

Senior Correspondent

Raheem Akingbolu (Advertising) Correspondents

Chinedu Eze (Aviation) Eromosele Abiodun (Maritime) James Emejo (Finance) Ebere Nwoji (Insurance) Chineme Okafo (Energy) Reporters

Nume Ekeghe (Money Market) Nosa Alekhuogie (ICT)

At the Extra-Ordinary Session of the Specialised Technical Committee on Education, Science and Technology held recently, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and the African Union Commission (AUC), agreed to join efforts to expand digital learning opportunities for all youth in 55 AU member-states.

Both entities have agreed to collaborate on various initiatives including exchange of information and expertise, as well as promotion of online platforms to support digital learning.

Africa has the youngest population in the world with more than 400 million young people aged between 15 to 35 years. Almost all countries across the continent have introduced some form of nation-wide school and university closures to contain the Covid-19 virus.

This means that there are a very large number of children and young people that are not receiving any form of schooling.

At the meeting, the Managing Director and Vice President of HP Africa, Elisabeth Moreno, presented HP’s Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurship (HP LIFE) and BeOnline programmes, two unique online learning platforms that could be utilised by ministers to support schools and educators in their distance learning endeavours.

The two online learning platforms would contribute towards the ‘1 Million By 2021 Initiative’ of the Chairperson of the AU, Moussa Faki Mahammat.

The initiative seeks to provide opportunities to young Africans from the 55 member states in the areas of education, employment,

engagement and entrepreneurship. It is against this backdrop that the AU and HP are prioritising digital learning opportunities for African youth.

According to Moreno, “Education is a fundamental human right that should be available regardless of a person’s age, class, race, gender or location. “To that end, HP has pledged to enable better learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025, as well as adding 1 million users to HP LIFE between 2016-25 – a commitment that aligns with the AU’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA), which aims to change Africa’s education and training systems to meet the knowledge, competencies, skills, innovation and creativity required to nurture core values and promote

sustainable development on a continental level.�

Today, technology can support new styles of learning. PCs and tools designed for education can offer students flexibility of time, place, and pace of learning, whether in or out of the classroom, or in a blend of environments.

HP and AU joint efforts have the potential to uplift access of education and opportunities for career work and economic growth.

The collaboration aims to promote innovations that hold the best potential to make lifelong learning a reality, Moreno said.

The Commissioner of the AUC Department of Human Resources, Science and Technology, Prof. Sarah Anyang Agbor said: “The partnership with HP will accelerate our education

response to Covid-19 especially and have longterm benefits. I implore AU Member States to make the most of these opportunities as this partnership means young people can access educational opportunities at no cost for the rest of this academic year. This partnership speaks directly to H.E Moussa Faki Mahamat’s 1 Million by 2021 initiative by providing educational opportunities which will assist in positioning our youth to venture into the entrepreneurial sector.�

BeOnline is a programme that was developed by HP in partnership with Classera, the leader in Learning Management Systems and Mirai, a learning innovations group focusing on learning strategy and digital pedagogy, to assist the endeavours of the education community.

In line with the most recent regional governments’ directives for distance learning, the programme aims to support schools and universities in establishing a fully-fledged virtual learning environment, by providing expertise and tools at no cost.

The HP Foundation has created its global programme HP LIFE to provide business and Information Technology (IT) skills training free of charge to people all over the world. The online community and more than 30 self-paced courses are designed to help users develop business and IT skills in their own time and at their own pace. The courses are modular, interactive, and full of information and practical exercises that enable users to grow their business skills, Moreno said.

UNITED AGAINST COVID-19

First Lady of Kebbi State/ Founder of Medicaid Cancer Foundation (MCF), Dr. Zainab ShinkaďŹ Bagudu (left) and Power Oil City Head, Kebbi State, Lukman Yahayah, during the presentation of 200 cartons of products to Medicaid Cancer Foundation to ďŹ ght hunger and malnutrition in Kebbi State....recently

CWG Highlights Role in FG’s Digital Economy Quest Pan-African information and communications technology company, CWG Plc, has highlighted the role it is playing to support the federal government’s digital economy quest.

Business Manager at CWG Plc, Sandra Chukwu, while addressing the media recently, said the fundamental part of any institution, be it the government or private sector, was

a reliable information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure.

Chukwu added: “CWG through its public sector engagements, in line with the current administration’s quest to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, has positioned and offered several platforms and automated business processes and procedures for government institutions.�

She stated that, CWG as an indigenous IT company, with vast expertise and partnerships with global OEMs, would continue to help large data institutions like the government with both Cloud and On-prem Applications/Infrastructure that enable growth.

Chukwu also highlighted that the company offers brilliant IT solutions to various institutions of government by

first seeking to understand the problems and pain areas of each institution, while proffering tailor made IT solutions, roadmap and strategy that bring about change. “The pandemic has made known an unexpected change in the world and by extension governments, and this has presented the need for public institutions to adopt new ways of engagement

and operations, through the development of a robust and sustainable IT roadmap. “The implementation of e-governance through sustainable partnerships with reputable companies like CWG Plc who have track records in working with government institutions and have delivered turnkey projects will in turn, contribute to a more efficient system,� Chukwu said.

Konga Records Improved Online Sales Konga said it successfully hosted the first ever live online auction in Africa, which held concurrently across its social media channels and the website, attracting over 25,000 shoppers who participated in the auction.

The auction was tagged: ‘Konga Last Price.’ The first edition which, was used by Konga to gauge the appetite of customers and also take stock of areas of improvement, recorded encouraging levels of par-

ticipation. The auction was hosted live across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Intense bids were recorded for household appliances such as refrigerators, TV sets, generators and FMCG products among others, as well as devices such as laptops and smartphones, among others.

The next edition of the auction is set to hold on June 1, 2020.

Co-CEO, Konga Group,

Nnamdi Ekeh, said the success of the debut edition was a sign of better things to come, even as he urged Nigerians to look forward to a better experience with richer product assortment and special pricing during the next edition. ‘‘I want to seize this opportunity to say a big thank you to all who participated in our revolutionary live online auction. I also wish to say congratulations to all who emerged successful with their

bids, while also wishing all who lost out better luck next time round. ‘‘This first edition was a success and we are delighted to have made history in hosting the first ever live online auction in Africa. The huge response and participation we witnessed is testimony to the fact that Nigerians are in tune with the exciting innovations we are rolling out to further excite the market.

For this, we are grateful. On our own part, we promise to

continually up the tempo in order to make Konga Last Price a truly unforgettable experience,’’ Ekeh said.

Konga Marketing Lead, Ajibola Olayiwola, said: ‘‘For now, we will retain the Konga Last Price as a monthly event. However, Konga is an organization which takes the satisfaction of its customers very seriously. So, we will be discussing this internally with a view to making it a more regular affair for our customers to benefit from.’’

T H I S D AY ˾ MAY 7, 2020

21

BUSINESSWORLD

ANALYSIS

All Eyes on InfraCos to Boost Broadband Infrastructure

With the current projection that businesses could be resuscitated faster with the deployment of ubiquitous broadband infrastructure post COVID-19, government is expected to speed up the approval process for the release of the N65 billion counterpart funding for the six InfraCos that have been licensed to provide broadband infrastructure across the country, writes Emma Okonji

M

any countries have continued to seek new ways to resuscitate their economies and they are tilting towards broadband infrastructure and internet connectivity, which they said, would help economies to survive in the new normal that would spring up in the post COVID-19 era. They are of the view that economies will largely depend on broadband connectivity to support different sectors of the economy like education, sports, oil and gas, telecommunications, health, among others in the post COVID-19 era. Currently all economies are working towards boosting their broadband infrastructure to meet the demands of post COVID-19.

In Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had long explained that the best way to roll out broadband infrastructure across the country, was through licensing of Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to be mandated to deploy broadband infrastructure in different regions across the county. To achieve this initiative, NCC began a phase licensing of InfraCos, and in 2015, it licensed MainOne Cable Company Limited to provide broadband services in Lagos, and IHS to provide broadband services in North Central geopolitical zone including Abuja. The InfraCos licences were based on the NCC’s Open Access Model (OAM) in line with the National Broadband Plan (NBP). HIS, however, pulled out of the race for reasons suspected to be connected to inadequate funding of licensed InfraCos that will enable them to provide broadband infrastructure in rural and underserved areas of the country, and NCC has almost concluded plans to license another InfraCo that will replace IHS. From 2015 to 2019, the NCC licensed a total of six InfraCos to cover the six geopolitical zones of the country. They included MainOne for Lagos; Zinox Technology Limited for Southeast; Brinks Integrated Solutions Limited for North-east; O’dua InfraCo Resources Limited for South-west; Fleek Networks Limited for North-west and Reana Consortium Limited for South-south zone. The plan was for NCC to support all licensed InfraCos with a subsidy of N65 billion counterpart funding that will be provided by the federal government and accessed by the InfraCos on merit, depending on their physical broadband rollout plan. The federal government is expected to finalise the counterpart funding for the final take-off of InfraCos by third quarter, 2020.

But due to the effect of COVID-19 on global economies, stakeholders are of the view that government should speed up the approval process for the immediate release of the fund, to enable InfraCos roll out broadband infrastructure across the country, and pave way for seamless connectivity.

N65bn broadband stimulus The coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged global economies, has given room for government to boost broadband access that will enhance internet connectivity. Stakeholders have called on the federal government to expedite action in the process of approval and release of the counterpart funding for InfraCos to enable them roll out the necessary broadband infrastructure that organisations, schools, healthcare and telecommunications will rely on for the provision of digital services in post COVID-19 era. President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers of Nigeria, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, has advised the federal government not to wait until the third quarter of the year, to make the fund available to InfraCos. According to him the effect of COVID-19 and expected new normal in the post COVID-19 era has forced global economies to re-strategise on new ways to boost broadband access.

“The federal government must find ways

Buhari

Danbatta

to release the counterpart funding without delay, to enable faster rollout of broadband services, since most sectors of the economy will be relying on affordable broadband access to organise distant learning, virtual meetings through video conferencing, virtual work space, among others,” Ogunbanjo said, adding that aside organisations, government agency will also need broadband access for e-governance and to enable people have access to all government activities online.

The Director of Public Affairs at NCC, Dr. Henry Nkemadu, had said that InfraCos would have access to the N65 billion subsidies over the next four years.

According to him, “The InfraCo project will be financed yearly, and this is subject to the operators meeting the required milestones.

We are not going to pay them to do the job, but we are going to give them money for jobs well done. We shall soon conclude the signing of the subsidy agreement and the process is currently ongoing. The period to get Nigeria connected through the InfraCos is four years; so to access the N65 billon subsidy, we divided the milestones into one year each.”

Some of the milestones that InfraCos are expected to meet include the commencement of the project such as digging of metro fibre ways, pilling, cable installation, among others and they must have brought in equipment and got all necessary approvals in their regions of interest.

But the Chairman of the Association Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, said aside releasing the subsidy, which is key to national broadband development in post COVID-19 era, government must also consider special loans for the telecoms sector that will assist small players like software application developers and web designers to grow their telecoms business.

“Access to funds will enhance innovation and increase capacity to change the Nigerian economy to attain the status of developed economies,” Adebayo said.

in the country that will support high-speed internet connectivity, new technologies, mobile applications and innovation services across all sectors of the economy.

Licensing of InfraCos The initiative to licence InfraCos by the NCC, was meant to bridge the country’s broadband infrastructure deficit. For instance, the federal government is targeting about 120,000km of fibre across the country, and this could be largely achieved if the InfraCo initiative is fully backed with the counterpart funding, where additional 28,902km of fibre deployment is projected in the next four years, which will help drive home more Point of Access (PoA) of broadband networks in the 774 LGAs in Nigeria.

NCC therefore needs the support of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to deepen broadband infrastructure

Broadband penetration In order to boost broadband penetration in the country, the federal government, in 2013, inaugurated the first National Broadband Plan (NBP) from 2013 to 2018, with a target to achieve 30 per cent broadband penetration by the end of 2018. To further boost broadband penetration, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, on assumption of duty in 2015, came up with his 8 Point Agenda with broadband paramount among the agenda.

From a lowly state of less than nine per cent penetration in 2015, NCC was able to increase broadband penetration to 37.8 per cent as at December 2019.

Through the commitment of industry players, NCC was able to achieve 30 per cent broadband penetration in December 2018.

NCC did not only attain the 30 per cent broadband penetration in December 2018, but surpassed it. Today, the country has achieved close to 40 per cent broadband penetration. Few months after attaining the 30 per cent broadband target for the country, NCC further up the game by attaining 33.31 per cent broadband penetration in June 2019, and by December 2019, Nigeria has already attained 37.8 per cent broadband penetration and as of today broadband penetrant is close to 40 per cent.

Having successfully achieved and surpassed the 30 per cent broadband penetration in 2018, the Federal Government, last year, set up another broadband committee, with a five-year mandate (2020-2025) to achieve 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, in December last year, inaugurated the National Broadbased Plan Committee to develop the 2020-2025 broadband plan with a mandate to achieve 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025.

President of the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Olusola Teniola, said: “The general Nigerian economy is currently struggling between 1-2 per cent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but by the time we attain the proposed 70 per cent broadband penetration level, Nigerian GDP will reach 9.6 per cent, which is high in global ranking.”

FG’s resolve President Muhammadu Buhari, during his Democracy Day address on June 12, 2019, promised to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years by ensuring that Nigerians have access to broadband internet connectiv-

ity and he followed it up by expanding the mandate of the Ministry of Communications in October 2019, to among other things, address the development of the Nigerian digital economy in line with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) with a focus on accelerating growth and social inclusion.

Digital technology offers Nigeria the opportunity to grow and diversify its economy from the over dependence on oil and gas export proceeds.

Buhari said with a teeming population estimated at 203 million according to the United Nations (UN), where over half of the population is under 25 years of age, the country is faced with the tremendous challenge to put this largely unemployed and underemployed population to work.

In view of the above, the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy was developed in line with the mandate of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Pantami.

This was unveiled by President Buhari in November 2019. Based on this strategy, the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025 was developed and approved for implementation. The new Broadband Plan is designed to deliver data download speeds across Nigeria of a minimum 25Mbps in urban areas, and 10Mbps in rural areas, with effective coverage of 70 per cent broadband penetration available to at least 90 per cent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per 1GB of data, which is about 2 per cent of median income or 1 per cent of minimum wage.

According to Pantami, the implementation of the 2020-2025 National Broadband Plan would lead to creation of jobs, improved socio-economic development and sustained economic growth, among others. He therefore called for synergy between government and the private sector, in order to achieve successful implementation of the current National Broadband Plan.

NCC’s support NCC has been at the forefront of building resilient infrastructure to promote sustainable broadband development that will support industrial growth. At a plenary session organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) in Kano last year, Danbatta, in his speech, said: “It is staggering that more than four billion people in the world still do not have access to the internet, and 90 per cent are from the developing world. Bridging this digital divide is therefore crucial to ensure equal access to information and knowledge, and as a consequence, foster innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth.

“The proposed target of 120,000km of optical fibre cable network deployment in the country, is of key interest to the Commission.

As you are aware, optical fibre cable network is vital to the advancement of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and the fourth industrial revolution is rested upon information and communication technologies.

Therefore, the role of NCC in building resilient infrastructure for the ICT sector is now more critical, especially with the Federal Governments’ renaming of our supervising Ministry, from Ministry of Communications to Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, thereby adding more responsibilities to the Ministry.

In this regard, the commission as the sole regulator of commercial telecommunications activities in the country, through its strategic vision plan and the 8-point Agenda, has taken laudable strides towards achieving government’s vision and policies by initiating and undertaking actions geared towards achieving same.”

Danbatta listed some of the policy implementations to include: Deployment of Optical Fibre Infratsructure; Right of Ways (RoW) across states; Wireless Infrastructure Policy Direction; Education Infrastructure; Telecoms Infratsructure; among others.

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Case against High Interest Rates in Time of Contagion Bola Tinubu

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he economic fallout from the coronavirus may present the best, most pressing case for revising the CBN’s high interest rate policy.

The undue rates penalise domestic investment and consumer borrowing. This reduces both aggregate domestic supply and, to a lesser degree, aggregate domestic demand. The chronic gap between domestic supply and demand has been filled by bloated levels of imports and encouraged an overvalued exchange rate that the high interests have helped produce. In normal times, the high interest rates also attract significant foreign financial speculation, the ever-ominous hot money. While in the short-term, the foreign speculation boosts financial inflows. Over time, as compound interest payments become due on these foreign investments, the nation will lose an ever-increasing amount of money to satisfy foreign debt obligations. In the short run, high rates seem to attract foreign capital and spur the economy while giving it discipline against inflation. In the longer-term, all of this is untrue. High rates give us the worst of both worlds. They stifle domestic investment and incomes while pushing up inflation and exposing an ever-increasing share of our financial system to foreign manipulation and dependence. Put another way, if you take a single picture early in the process, the high interest rate policy looks good at that moment in time. However, if you view the entire movie, you will see an ending that is both painful and unnecessary.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has demonstrated its financial agility by establishing a growing number of special financing programs for various industries and sectors of the economy. While these programs look good at first glance, they also expose important contradictions in the CBN’s position. The special schemes are an implicit admission that normal rates stifle investment borrowing and thus suppress the economy. The extraordinary schemes would not be required if the general interest rate was at a proper level. By establishing the special programs, the CBN attempts the impossible. On one hand it defends the general rate as prudent. On the other, it proliferates special exceptions in order to spur investment borrowing that the general rate has heretofore stifled.

This complex CBN rear-guard action does not serve the greater purpose. It merely prolongs the inevitable: We must retreat from high interest rates if we want investment borrowing to attain levels that actually increase private-sector growth and job creation.

This point bears repetition. If the financial sector functioned properly, servicing the needs of the economy in general, there would be no need to constantly resort to specialised sectoral plans (one for this industry, another for that industry and so on) for concessionary lending below regularly available rates of interest. Each such scheme is evidence that the overall financial system is fragmented in a manner that artificially reduces investment and the positive consequences increased investment has on growth, production and employment. The schemes are akin to a homeowner who, confronted with severe structural damage, commissions a fresh coat of paint to obscure the obvious structural flaws. Just as the homeowner should focus on fixing the core problem to prevent the house from crumbling, the Bank should do the one great thing it can do to free the economy from an unpayable burden. It should reduce interest rates.

The modern global economy is built on credit. Prosperous nations have built success based on the sustained ability to use credit to generate high levels of domestic investment as well as allow for significant consumer financing. Unlike two centuries ago, most business investment is not derived from the self-generated funds of the businessman or investor. Investment comes mainly from bank loans. However, the current rate of interest in Nigeria prohibits most normal business investment. Thus, the

Tinubu

productive sector stagnates as innovation and creative endeavour are discouraged.

Employment and aggregate demand are dragged down. The economy becomes a slave to a negative, impoverishing dynamic.

The Story Thus Far The current form of our financial system is antithetical to growth. Our financial system was originally structured to serve the colonialists who wanted a highly centralised system that provided little chance of prosperity for indigenous business beyond that which the colonial master would allow.

Though the years have passed since the end of the colonial era, the basic structure of that old financial system remains intact. The system has not kept pace with the needs and challenges of our evolving nation.

After national independence, the system was but slightly modified to fit the requirements of highly centralised military rule.

Broad and diffused growth was not the goal. Such growth contravened the underlying tenet of military rule – tight, centralised control of political power and economic resources.

Only those allied to the power core were enabled to access credit and favoured to prosper in business. A high interest rate regime was integral to this centralised and closed system. High interest rates prevented the growth of independent business. One had to seek the alliance and friendship of the government of the day to overcome the strong impediments that high rates caused.

This rendered business an appendage of government, dependent on government favour to survive. There were no nodes of power truly independent from the centre.

Nor did this situation foster creative and innovative economic thinking leading to sufficient business start-ups that might have grown and diversified the economy.

All things were thus reliant on the goodwill of those at the core of national power. There were few successful businesses that did not have a patron seated in the high ranks of government. In many nations, prosperous businessmen can rightfully claim they know no one in government. In Nigeria, such claims were nigh impossible.

Genius was declared upon those who could get close to the men in uniform and did not always depend on whether a person could efficiently organise an enterprise or invent a useful device.

Thus, the banking system became one intended to bar most businesses and people from access to sufficient commercial and consumer credit, a system constructed to suppress large-scale independent economic activity unless expressly sanctioned and approved by arbitrary power. Thus, it suppresses wealth and job creation. It keeps the economy on crutches so it cannot run too fast as to get beyond the grasp of whosoever wields that arbitrary power. As such, we are in a situation where the banking system is not sufficiently governed by the rational

dynamics of economic maximisation. As a result, the system sputters and fails to reach full throttle. Without optimal financial sector support, the productive economy has failed to grow as it should. We all suffer, especially the poor man who would have been employed and earning enough money to take care of a family and contribute to national wealth if only sufficient levels of investment had been attained.

In decades past, this model could survive because our economic situation was more benign than it now is. Oil prices were such that the nation gained enough revenue given its then existing population. The nation could stay afloat and even record modest growth rates when oil prices climbed to their highest levels. Yet, this economic model was never meant to last as it risked all based on the price of one commodity.

This model led to an overvalued currency, which has caused Nigeria long-term harm.

It undermined the global competitiveness of local producers. It also made imports cheaper. We became an import-reliant nation with a dwindling productive capacity.

Over the long haul, such a position is high risk. Underlying economic fundamentals have become more adverse over time. Oil revenues, in real terms, have not and cannot keep apace population growth.

As oil revenues lose their potency to carry the economy, this financial model becomes an increasingly heavier albatross impeding economic growth. We remain too import reliant even though our supply of funds to buy imports dwindle. We seek to maintain a strong currency because of this import reliance and because of national pride.

However, this reliance drains funds to support the exchange rate that could be better invested in strengthening our productive capacity. Moreover, pride is fleeting for who can maintain pride in a weakening economy with a stubbornly high incidence of abject poverty.

At this moment, we need business and industry to take up the slack generated by the weakening of the oil sector. However, the productive economy is barred from this needed increase in activity because the high interest rates, along with an unreliable power supply, combine to form a steep obstacle to sufficient real-sector investment, growth and productivity.

The high interest rate financial model runs contrary to the ideals of a progressive democracy to which Nigeria aspires. A nation cannot become a genuine democracy while access to credit remains under a semblance of authoritarian lock-and-key. Lending schemes under which a central bank has sole authority to prescribe lower interest rates may appear to open the system. In truth, they do no such thing. Instead, they merely move the discretionary power to give financial concessions from where it formerly resided (the military in times past) to the central bank.

Long Term Positive Relationship Between High Rates and Ination Over time, high rates cause more inflation than they prevent. In the initial phase, high rates might lower inflation. However, an economy is dynamic not static. Feedback loops created by the initial high rates will eventually encourage inflation. First, the suppressed levels of private sector activity will result in higher levels of government borrowing than otherwise would be the case had private sector incomes and productivity been unhindered by the high rates. This means that government must spend an increasing sum merely on interest charges.

This places more naira in circulation without a corresponding increase in goods and services. This is inflationary.

Second, to the extent domestic firms can borrow, they must charge high prices in order to achieve profit levels sufficient to repay their high interest loans. This too is inflationary.

Third, we attract initial dollar inflows as private loans or investments in government bonds because of the high rates. Yet, the interest payments on the underlying bond, being computed as compound interest, compels us to pay an increasing percentage of our dollar intake through oil sales just to service the interest charge on the foreign debt. Consequently, we must engage in all manner of tricks to cover the widening gap between ever increasing foreign debt calculated at compound rates and foreign currency revenues which tend to remain flat and linear, if not decline during times of economic weakness. Debt servicing as a percentage of overall public and private sector spending will increase, causing more naira to be misdirected; exchanged into dollars instead of being used for productive economic discourse that would create wealth and jobs on these shores. This not only is an unproductive way to use the extra naira, such practices are historic drivers of inflation in any nation that measures inflation. Such practices are avoided by the best central bankers because their abuse courts ruin.

This is why the best managed developing economies shy from heavy borrowing of foreign currency.

However, we have become too reliant on foreign borrowing. In our case, we have created a highly imbalanced and imperfect economy. On one hand, high rates are used to scare domestic investment borrowing thus undermining income, production and consumption. On the other hand, high interest rates are used to attract foreign creditors who must be repaid with an increasing percentage of our intake of dollars. This indifference to domestic investment yet open encouragement of foreign financial speculation is a rather odd mis-arrangement that makes little sense if the true objective is to grow the overall economy.

Given the inescapable dynamics of compound interest, a dollar borrowed today will have to be repaid with 2 dollars some point in the future. This drains our reserves to the benefit of foreign creditors. If we must borrow dollars better to first borrow from our own people, then the DFIs (World Bank, etc.) at concessional rates. We should only borrow from the foreign private sector as a very last resort.

Exchange Rate and the Economy If we went to a freely floating exchange rate, the naira would devalue. This means our currency is overvalued in terms of our trade with the outside world.

This overvalued exchange rate is buoyed by high interest rates. Yet to maintain both interest rate and exchange rate levels simultaneously over time requires that money be siphoned from use in the productive economy in order to prop up both rates.

High rates drain liquidity from the system.

However, here the multiplier effect works terribly against us. For every naira drained from the system, we lose more than one naira of productive wealth, activity and income.

NOTE: Interested readers should continue in the online edition on www.thisdaylive.com

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Transforming Last Mile Delivery in Africa Rodney Anyanwu

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s the impact of the COVID-19 reverberates around the world, crippling businesses and economies, and leaving governments scrambling to respond, a handful of industries are seeing increasing opportunities to do more, not less.

E-commerce businesses and the delivery companies that connect them to customers belong to this class. And nowhere are these opportunities emerging more forcefully than in the urban centres of emerging economies like Nigeria, where the room to grow is plentiful and the people quick to adapt to new ways of doing business.

Enter Khalil Halilu, who, all his life, has been finding and seizing business opportunities, and is now positioning his latest venture as the missing piece of the puzzle for Nigeria’s challenging delivery logistics landscape. “Nobody anticipated that such a disruptive event like this pandemic would come to define 2020,� he says. “Now that it’s here, and we are all forced to adapt to a new normal, there is no doubt in my mind that delivery companies are seeing a massive opportunity to make themselves more impactful in the marketplace.�

Khalil’s ShapShap – a pidgin English word that translates as ‘Urgently’ – is an app-based start-up that connects online retailers, potential customers, and a network of riders.

It has been designed as a one-stop-shop for everyone making or fulfilling an online order. “African economies are majorly driven by SMEs, and logistics remains a major issue for them, so what we’ve done is build a technology to make transactions seamless between customers and vendors,� Halilu says.

On offer is an array of mobility platforms, not just motorbikes: roller-skates, bicycles, tricycles, cars and vans are also available; accompanied by a variety of instant payment options.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting.

ShapShap is backed up by unprecedented market research; a cache of data and insights that Halilu says gives it unassailable competitive advantage.

Lagos, Nigeria, where ShapShap has rolled out, is the most populous city in Africa, and one of the fastest growing in the world. By 2050 it is estimated that it will be the fifth or sixth largest megacity on the planet.

It is also one of the few cities in the world of its size without a city-wide railway system, compelling everyone to travel by road. It is therefore not unusual for many people to spend three to four hours sitting in traffic every day, on their daily commute.

It’s a real problem for anyone needing to move around, or to have goods delivered.

But that’s only one side of the story. The other side is the opportunity that this problem represents – an opportunity that has now been deepened by the outbreak of the pandemic.

In recent years Nigeria has seen an explosion of e-Commerce ventures, seeking to take advantage of Africa’s largest population base and most productive economy. Ordering online – everything from fast food to groceries to plane tickets, mobile phones and a wide range of services – has become the norm for many Nigerians, especially in the country’s urban centers.

Digital media platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram have enabled small businesses to more efficiently engage with their customers and cultivate new ones. Micro and Small Businesses currently account for roughly half

of Nigeria’s annual gross domestic product of roughly $400 billion, and are a big driver of growth.

Customers habitually place orders – food, drinks, clothes, shoes, make-up, household items – through WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and typically expect to receive their orders as soon as possible. This is where the logistics companies come in – considering the traffic in urban hubs like Lagos, motorbikes are the most sensible option for beating unending traffic.

According to the Hootsuite 2019 Digital Nigeria Report, Nigeria has close to 100 million Internet users, with roughly a quarter of these (24 million) active on one or more social media platforms. 95 percent of these social media users access social media on their mobile phones; WhatsApp and Facebook being the most widely used digital media platforms in Nigeria, with more than 75 per cent of total Internet users active on each.

The future looks very bright, for the African “delivery� business. Africa is often described as the last frontier for global growth, and the future labour market for the world.

In 2018 the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) was signed, as the prelude to the take-off, in July 2020, of the largest free trade area in the world, encompassing more than a billion people, the bulk of them young people, below the age of 20.

It is estimated that the AfCFTA will result in a sixteen percent increase in intra-continental trade.

It is perhaps not coincidental that Halilu grew up in Kano, Nigeria – the thousandyear-old commercial hub of Northern Nigeria, and the southern terminus of a bustling trade route that at the height of its glory stretched as far as the Middle East.

Over the last decade he has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration combined with technology, and a Master’s degree in International Business, both from Hertfordshire University in the UK. He’s been trying his hands at making money since he turned twenty: selling blocks of ice to neighbours, deejaying, organising parties, acquiring software development skills.

But the jewel on his resume is the substantial experience he has garnered in the thirty-year-old family business, a sprawling conglomerate based in Kano, which manufactures a range of aerosol, beverages and other fast moving consumer goods.

At the age of 23 he took over as COO of the beverage subsidiary, and ran it for 3 years.

The next big task was reviving a dormant family company and transforming it into a thriving technology hub. It’s that work in technology that’s laid the foundation for this latest foray into last-mile urban logistics.

In the last few years his technology company has built OyaOya, Africa’s first commodity-on-demand marketplace, and Zabe, an election transparency portal that allows individual observers to collect, sort, analyse and securely transmit relevant data from polling units, real-time. It was first deployed for the governorship election in Osun State, in 2018 and during the Nigeria’s presidential elections recording great success in 2019.

Arguably his biggest venture so far, is a sprawling technology hub in the leafy Maitama District of Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital. The CANs, as it is known, describes itself as West Africa’s first eco-friendly technology hub. It is multiple things rolled up in one: co-working space, innovation consulting agency, and a ‘matchmaker’ – connecting start-up ideas with willing investors.

Armed with this impressive track record, he is convinced that in ShapShap, he’s found the perfect tool to disrupt Nigeria’s – and ultimately Africa’s – urban delivery landscape.

There’s fortuitous timing on his side as well. At the beginning of February 2020, the Lagos State Government announced restrictions on the movement of motorcycles along major roads and highways in the State.

Tens of thousands of bikes, many owned by bike-hailing apps, were affected.

Fortunately, the bike restrictions do not affect delivery services. What this means is that the bikes can only carry goods, not passengers – triggering a spike in online orders and the third-party fulfilment offered by bike riders. Instead of hailing a bike for a quick lunch getaway, Lagosians are now more likely to order the food to their offices.

The leading bike-hailing start-ups across the city were contemplating a new life in logistics, when the Coronavirus disruption hit Lagos. For all of April the City was in a Government-ordered lockdown.

As though he knew that the Lagos State Government would ultimately take the decision to restrict motorbikes and motor-tricycles, and as though he knew that 2020 would turn out the way 2020 has – Halilu in 2018

commissioned a detailed study focused on the delivery logistics market in Lagos.

The idea was to understand why delivery logistics start-ups have a high failure rate, and then to use that data to build a proof-ofconcept for a successful business. “There is no doubt,� Halilu says, “that African problems are best addressed by home-grown solutions.�

This trial resulted in 1,500 users making 11,000 delivery requests, across four Nigerian cities. More than 50 drivers signed up, covering 190,000 kilometers during the market research period, using various transportation platforms. 88 percent user retention, and more than 1,500 downloads of the application.

The research provided valuable data on order patterns, preferred timings, payment preferences and others.

Now Halilu says he’s ready for a full roll-out. “Data captured during our two-year test-run is the driving force behind our business model, and the basis of our deep understanding of the African delivery market.�

That’s where the timing of the Lagos bans proved fortuitous. It is clear to him that this is the perfect opportunity to bring possible redemption to all of the bike and tricycle owners who were impacted by the restrictions; all of this against the unfolding backdrop of the Coronavirus’ Stay-At-Home measures.

A number of big players in the Nigerian logistics industry have already signed up; ShapShap now counts among its customers Red Star Express, GIG, GMC Logistics and Jaiz Bank. And it has found an enthusiastic partner in Sterling Bank, which is keen to play more actively in the Nigerian transport industry.

The strength of ShapShap, he says, partly lies in the talent pool he’s assembled to develop it, drawing on a wide network from across Nigeria and beyond. Another plus is the local context: it will work even in situations where a user has slow internet bandwidth.

Halilu has already raised seed financing led

by Unicorn Capital early this year to scale up deployment of the app, and is now negotiating Series A investment from a line-up of local and foreign investors.

He’s keeping the details under wraps, for now. “We’ve raised resources to strengthen our market position, attract the best of talents and most importantly expand operations rapidly,� he says. The take-off of the AfCFTA a few months from now will no doubt be a catalyst to the growth ambitions of ShapShap.

He’s confident that the App is “the next big thing� for the logistics market in Africa – a sector that serious investors are themselves increasingly paying attention to; going by how much money they are sending that way.

Kobo360, a Nigerian logistics start-up closed a $30 million funding round late in 2019 (comprising US$20 million in Series A funding led by Goldman Sachs and US$10 million in debt from Nigerian commercial banks), to round up a year that saw ride-hailing apps Gokada and Max.ng raise $5.3 million and $7 million respectively in Series A funding.

Elsewhere in the world, the Coronavirus is keeping e-Commerce and delivery businesses under pressure. Amazon is hiring an extra 100,000 warehouse workers in the US to cope with the increased demand for its services.

ShapShap has just launched what it calls ‘Contactless deliveries’ – a system which allows it to operate in a way that is fully compliant with the new demands of the Covid-19 era: combining online payments with physical distancing.

FirstBank Assures Customers of Safety FirstBank has expressed its appreciation to its customers for their continued patronage of its services during the COVID 19 lockdown, whilst assuring the public that stringent measures have been implemented to ensure its branches and locations across the country operate in line with the health and safety guidelines issued by the Nigeria Centre for Disease

Control to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.

Expressing the bank’s delight while welcoming customers to its branches and locations, the bank’s CEO, Dr. Adesola Adeduntan, said the safety measures include ensuring personal protection, as wearing face masks is now mandatory; maintaining social distancing by reducing physical contact

by at least one meter from the next person and queue guides and markings are in place to guide customers; as well as enhancing the practice of personal hygiene as hand washing stations and hand sanitisers have been provided.

Speaking on the impact made by the bank across its subSaharan business, Adeduntan was quoted in a statement to

have said: “We are glad that our investment in technology over the years has really borne fruit as many of our staff were able to work remotely during the lock down with effective IT support to hand. “We were therefore able to actively support our customers, their families and businesses through these challenging times.

“We ensured business continuity across eight countries – Nigeria, Ghana; Democratic Republic of Congo; SierraLeone; the Gambia, Guinea; Senegal and United Kingdom. “We recognise that this has truly been a trying period and are poised to continue to provide as much support as we can to our customers and communities we operate in�.

Coming back home, the bank chief explained that during the period it proactively reviewed products and services to support customers better and expressed his appreciation to Nigerians for the whole hearted adoption and patronage of its electronic services, as these indeed demonstrated the trust which the public repose in the bank.

24

IMAGES

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, and other state oďŹƒcials inspecting facilities, drugs and medical equipment at the Central Medical Store, in Benin City....recently

T H I S D AY Ëž Ëœ ÍľËœ Í°ÍŽÍ°ÍŽ

Photo Editor ĂŒĂ“Ă™ĂŽĂ&#x;Ă˜ ÔËÖË Email Ă‹ĂŒĂ“Ă™ĂŽĂ&#x;Ă˜Ë›Ă‹Ă”Ă‹Ă–Ă‹ĚśĂžĂ’Ă“Ă?ĂŽĂ‹ĂŁĂ–Ă“Ă Ă?Ë›Ă?Ù×

L-R: Deputy Director, General Services, Mr Musa Makoji; Regional Manager, Jumia Services, Mr. Fredrick Kolo; Director, General Service, Mrs. Juwaretu Olumoko; Director, Hospital Services, Dr. Adebimpe Adebiyi , and Technical Adviser to the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Ahmad Baba during the donation of 100,000 CE certiďŹ ed face masks by Jumia Nigeria to the Federal Ministry of Health to support the government in ďŹ ghting the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Abuja...recently

Representatives from Reckitt Benckiser; the makers of Dettol presenting 12,000 units of hygiene products; Antiseptic liquid and Antibacterial soap to Mr. Taiwo Fesomu, Director Admin & HR, Lagos State Safety Commission at Alausa Secretariat, Lagos recently, in support of the fight against COVID-19.

L-R: - Special Assistant to the Ogun State Governor on Social Investment Mr. ‘Dimeji Belo, IHS CSR Manager, Mrs. Funmi Awelewa and Ogun State Commissioner for Special Duty and Inter-Governmental Aairs, Mr.. Femi Ogunbanwo, during the presentation of 9,000 bags of foodstus to the Ogun State Government, as part of relief packages to the vulnerable persons, in Abeokuta....recently

Chairman, Delta State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Kingsley Esiso (left), presenting an oath of oďŹƒce form to the newly elected Warri South West LGA PDP Chairman, Chief Favour Izoukumor, during the inauguration of the state PDP Local Government Chairmen at the party secretariat in Asaba...recently

L-R: Jibril Ahmad; Fatima Yahaya; Zahraddeen Umar; and team leader (P4CS) comrade Ali Wali member Partners for community safety members (P4CS), after a press brief calling on federal government and NCDC to support Kano state government with medical equipment and testing kits to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Kano...recently

L-R) Representatives of Lagos State Governor’s OďŹƒce Correspondents, Mr Tochukwu Ilodigwe of AIT and Mrs Adeola Akindele of TraďŹƒc Radio, receiving donations from Jenifer Obayuwana, Executive Director of Polo Group, when the Group donated COVID-19 Relief Packs to journalists at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, the Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja....recently

Customers await their turn at Zenith Bank, Wuse Branch as Banks open to customers after the lockdown in Abuja....recently julius atoi

THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 • T H I S D AY

25

26

T H I S D AY Ëž Ëœ ÍľËœ 2020

BUSINESS/MONEYGUIDE

Obiora Now NEXIM Bank Chairman Nume Ekeghe The Deputy Governor, Economic Policy Directorate, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Dr. Kingsley Obiora has taken over as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM).

This was disclosed in a statement yesterday, that was signed by the Head, Strategy & Corporate Communications, NEXIM Bank, Mr. Tayo Omidiji.

Obiora replaces Dr. Joseph Nnanna, who retired from the Bank’s board in February, 2020.

With this appointment, the new chairman is expected to provide leadership to a multidisciplinary

team of professionals that constitute the Board of NEXIM, towards ensuring that the Bank achieves its mandate of promoting economic diversification and development of the Nigerian non-oil export sector. “Obiora will bring to bear his wealth of experience as a seasoned economist and technocrat, having joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) through the globally-competitive “Economist Program� in 2007 and worked in both the European Department as well as the Strategy, Policy and Review Department of the Fund. “Dr. Obiora served as Special Assistant to President Jonathan’s Chief Economic Adviser from

October, 2011 to May, 2014 and was also the Special Adviser on Economic Matters to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) from June, 2014 to July, 2018. “A graduate of Economics from the University of Benin, Nigeria, Obiora also holds Masters and Doctorate degrees in Economics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria,� the statement added.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive of NEXIM Bank, Abba Bello, welcomed the new chairman on behalf of the Board and the entire Management of the Bank and wished him a successful tenure in office.

Notore Posts N2.7bn Income in First Half 2020 Notore Chemical Industries Plc, Nigeria’s leading agribusiness company, has posted N13.12 billion revenue and N2.7 billion operating income for the half year ended March 31, 2020, on the back of its strategic Turn Around Maintenance (TAM).

This was contained in the company’s unaudited results for the half year ended March 31, 2020. The gross revenue of N13.12 billion represented a three per cent increase compared to the N12.86 billion recorded in the first half of 2019.

In the statement signed by its Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Onajite Okoloko, the company said, “The modest growth in revenue is attributable to some improvements in plant reliability

derived from the on-going TAM programme, which has begun to impact positively on Plant operations and resulting in some marginal increases in production volume during the period. “Operating expenses increased by 29 per cent to N10.43 billion during the period from N8.05 billion for the corresponding period of 2019 first half, due mainly to a combination of increases in production activities, plant repair and maintenance expenses and the impact of naira devaluation. “Operating income for the period was N2.67 billion, a decrease of 42 percent as compared to N4.63 billion in 2019 first half.�

The company said whilst the COVID-19 pandemic and the attendant measures/restrictions put in place by various

governments aimed at halting the further spread of the virus has had a negative impact on businesses globally, the impact of the pandemic on the fertilizer market and Notore in particular, remains minimal, as it operates in the “essential goods� industry.

It added, “the Nigerian fertilizer demand is quite robust and is expected to continue to grow considering the Federal Government’s strong and decisive policy focus on agriculture as one of the keys to unlock the diversification of the Nigerian economy. The domestic fertilizer market is yet to reach its full potential as the consumption of fertilizer per hectare of arable land in Nigeria is still far below the 200kg per hectare recommended by Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO).

UBA Rewards Customers in Promo The United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has once more rewarded 100 loyal customers with N100,000 each in its UBA Bumper account draw.

The draw, which took place in Lagos on Tuesday, was held via the Facebook platform in strict compliance with social distancing rules as directed by the federal and Lagos State government.

When contacted, the customers who emerged winners of the draw agreed that the total reward was timely and would be very useful in assisting them especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic currently ravaging the world with attendant effect on incomes of individuals.

UBA’s Group Head, Consumer and Retail Banking, Jude Anele, spoke about the bank’s excitement to be able to put smiles on the faces of as much as 100 customers at this critical time

when livelihoods and lives are being threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic. “These are difficult times indeed with little to cheer about because people are going through trying times. However, for us in UBA, we want our customers to know that we are in these together, that is why we have taken it upon ourselves to reward those that have kept our business going with their loyalty. With this reward, we want to encourage them to stay happy and safe even as they continue to aim for their dream regardless of the present challenges,� Anele said Anele noted that, the bumper draw is also in line with the bank’s mission of creating superior value for its stakeholders while encouraging saving cultures among Nigerians, adding that, “We have in recent times deepened our focus on the

most important aspect of our business – the customers we serve. Hence, our huge investment in technology to make banking easier and seamless across all our product channels and that is why we most recently introduced new offerings such as this Bumper Account, with our customer in mind as it is expected to deliver improved value to them.

Explaining the modalities for the draw, Anele said that all new and existing customers need do to qualify for the draw is to ensure that they have a minimum deposit of N5,000 in their UBA Bumper Account. “Current UBA customers are to dial *919*20*1# to migrate to the UBA Bumper Account whilst potential customers should dial *919*20# if interested in opening a UBA Bumper Account,� he added.

Promasidor Joins COVID-19 Fight with N280m Donation Promasidor Nigeria Limited has joined forces with other stakeholders in the fight to contain further spread of the deadly virus with the contribution of over N280 million.

Specifically, Promasidor made cash contribution as well as donation of its food products in the fight against COVID-19. While the food company donated N200 million cash for the exclusive purchase of equipment and the setting up of isolation centers required in the nationwide fight against COVID-19 through the Nigeria Private Sector Coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID), it also donated some of its products

worth over N80 million to Lagos and Ekiti State governments respectively. The Managing Director of Promasidor Nigeria Limited, Anders Einarsson, was quoted in a statement to have said the palliative was a combination of various initiatives that the company was doing in the form of transformations and food support with the quality food for nutrition that the organisation produces. “Promasidor’s intervention in the support of the COVID-19 crisis that we are facing in Nigeria is a threefold intervention strategy: it comes in form of cash contribution to the tune of N200 million that we are

contributing to the CACOVID initiative for a nationwide reach. “We are also intervening in the form of food support to the people in dire need of food, and that is being distributed across three key initiatives. We are giving food support to Lagos and Ekiti States, as well as food support to the Isolo community in Lagos,� he said. Explaining further, the company boss noted: “Isolo community is very close to our heart. It’s the community, in which we have been operating in the last couple of years, and we are seeing and witnessing every day the struggles that her citizens are facing.

Obiora

MARKET INDICATORS MONEY AND CREDIT STATISTICS

(MILLION NAIRA)

SEPTEMBER 2019 Money Supply (M3)

35,029,779.72

-- CBN Bills Held by Money Holding Sectors

7,374,356.91

Money Supply (M2)

27,655,422.82

-- Quasi Money

116,533,891.21

-- Narrow Money (M1)

11,121,531.60

---- Currency Outside Banks

1,625,047.69

---- Demand Deposits

9,496,483.91

Net Foreign Assets (NFA)

13,911,335.83

Net Domestic Assets(NDA)

21,118,443.89

-- Net Domestic Credit (NDC)

35,918,179.45

---- Credit to Government (Net)

10,452,199.38

---- Memo: Credit to Govt. (Net) less FMA

11,007,422.79

---- Memo: Fed. and Mirror Accounts (FMA)

25,465,980.07

---- Credit to Private Sector (CPS)

-14,799,735.56

--Other Assets Net

7,000,253.07

Reserve Money (Base Money

2,005,600.83

--Currency in Circulation

4,677,530.81

--Banks Reserves

317,121.43

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Money Market Indicators (in Percentage) Month

March 2018

Inter-Bank Call Rate

15.16

Minimum Rediscount Rate (MRR) Monetary Policy Rate (MPR)

14.00

Treasury Bill Rate

11.84

Savings Deposit Rate

4.07

1 Month Deposit Rate

8.82

3 Months Deposit Rate

9.72

6 Months Deposit Rate

10.93

12 Months Deposit Rate

10.21

Prime Lending rate

17.35

Maximum Lending Rate

31.55

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OPEC DAILY BASKET PRICE Ëœ Íł Í°ÍŽÍ°ÍŽ

The price of OPEC basket of thirteen crudes stood at $21.44 a barrel on Tuesday, compared with $18.36 the previous day, according to OPEC Secretariat calculation.

The OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of the following: Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Djeno (Congo), ZaďŹ ro (Equatorial Guinea), Rabi Light (Gabon), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela).

SOURCE: OPEC headquarters, Vienna

27

T H I S D AY Ëž Ëœ ÍľËœ 2020

MARKET NEWS

No Dividend as UACN Property Development Company Posts Loss of N16bn Loss Goddy Egene UACN Property Development Company Plc yesterday reported a loss of N15.883 billion for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared with a loss of N15.057 billion in 2018. Details of the audited results made available, showed it recorded revenue of N2.157 billion in 2019, down from N2.303 billion in 2018.

Net financing cost stood at N2.61 billion as against N4.76 billion in 2018, while the com-

pany ended with a loss after tax of N15.883 billion, compared with N15.057 billion in 2018.

UPDC, which is subsidiary of UAC of Nigeria Plc has been having a rough patch and remains a drain on the fortunes of the conglomerates.

As part of efforts to resuscitate its operations, the company recently raised about N15.962 billion through a rights issue.

A total of 15.962 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each were issued to shareholders at

P R I C E S MAIN BOARD

F O R DEALS

N1.00 per share. Before the right issue, UAC of Nigeria had last year announced a strategic initiative the involving a recapitalisation and restructuring of UPDC. UACN had explained that it was in the process of a strategic review, evaluating its performance and its subsidiaries. The objective is to achieve sustainable positive financial performance from its existing operations and enable management focus on businesses that

S E C U R I T I E S MARKET PRICE

QUANTITY TRADED

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align with its strategy. “In reviewing UPDC, the board weighed the long-term opportunities in the Nigerian real estate sector against the fundamental differences between the cashflow profile and capital needs of UPDC versus other entities in UAC’s portfolio. Following its review, the board concluded that it would be in the best interest of respective stakeholders of UACN and UPDC if UACN’s equity interest in UPDC is

T R A D E D MAIN BOARD

A S

‘unbundled’ such that UACN no longer holds any shares in UPDC and UPDC operates as a standalone legal entity, free to source appropriately structured capital,� the company said.

On the other hand, the board and management at UPDC have focused on developing strategies to stabilize UPDC’s capital structure and unlock value for shareholders. Hence, two significant strategic initiatives, recapitalisation and a concurrent restructuring, are being

O F

proposed.

The company said: “Pursuant to the UAC Unbundling, the ordinary shares that UACN holds in UPDC post-rights issue will be transferred pro-rata to all UACN shareholders, who will hold such UPDC shares in addition to their existing equity interests in UACN. “UACN will cease to be a shareholder in UPDC, and UPDC will cease to be consolidated UACN’s financial statements.�

3 0 / 0 4 / 2 0 2 0 DEALS

MARKET PRICE

QUANTITY TRADED

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28

THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2020 ˾ T H I S D AY

MARKET NEWS

Shareholders of FCMB Group Approve N2.8 Billion Dividend Goddy Egene Shareholders of FCMB Group Plc have approved the N2.77 billion dividend recommended by the board of directors for the year ended December 31,

2019. The dividend, which translates to 14 kobo per share, was approved last week at the 7thannual general meeting (AGM) held in Lagos.

The AGM was held by proxy, following the outbreak of the

A Mutual fund (Unit Trust) is an investment vehicle managed by a SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) registered Fund Manager.

Investors with similar objectives buy units of the Fund so that the Fund Manager can buy securities that willl generate their desired return.

An ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is a type of fund which owns the assets (shares of stock, bonds, oil futures, gold bars, foreign currency, etc.) and divides ownership of those assets into shares. Investors can buy these ‘shares’ on the

COVID-19, which necessitated social distancing protocol to avoid the spread of the pandemic.

In his address, the Chairman of FCMB Group, Mr. Oladipupo Jadesimi, stated that all the

floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

A REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) is an investment vehicle that allows both small and large investors to part-own real estate ventures (eg.

Offices, Houses, Hospitals) in proportion to their investments. The assets are divided into shares that are traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

GUIDE TO DATA: Date: All fund prices are quoted in Naira as at 05May-2020, unless otherwise stated.

three business groups within FCMB Group Plc, reported improved performances, in terms of higher earnings and profits, compared to what was achieved in 2018.

He expressed gratitude

to shareholders for joining the meeting as well as their unflinching support, which has made FCMB to wax stronger.

“The board of directors has adopted a policy that seeks to provide investors with a stable

and sustainable form of capital distribution, with consideration given to the growth and capital requirements of the business, thereby maximising long-term share value for shareholders,” he said.

Offer price: The price at which units of a trust or ETF are bought by investors.

Bid Price: The price at which Investors redeem (sell) units of a trust or ETF. Yield/Total Return: Denotes the total return an investor would have earned on his investment. Money Market Funds report Yield while others report Year- to-date Total Return.

NAV: Is value per share of the real estate assets held by a REIT on a specific date.

DAILY PRICE LIST FOR MUTUAL FUNDS, REITS and ETFS MUTUAL FUNDS / UNIT TRUSTS AFRINVEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD aaml@afrinvest.com Web: www.afrinvest.com; Tel: +234 818 885 6757 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Afrinvest Equity Fund N/A N/A N/A Afrinvest Plutus Fund N/A N/A N/A Nigeria International Debt Fund N/A N/A N/A ALTERNATIVE CAPITAL PARTNERS LTD info@acapng.com Web: www.acapng.com, Tel: +234 1 291 2406, +234 1 291 2868 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ACAP Canary Growth Fund 0.91 0.92 1.26% ACAP Income Funds 0.79 0.79 10.44% AIICO CAPITAL LTD ammf@aiicocapital.com Web: www.aiicocapital.com, Tel: +234-1-2792974 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AIICO Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 6.80% AIICO Balanced Fund 2.60 2.66 5.62% info@anchoriaam.com ANCHORIA ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED Web:www.anchoriaam.com, Tel: 08166830267; 08036814510; 08028419180 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Anchoria Money Market N/A N/A N/A Anchoria Equity Fund N/A N/A N/A Anchoria Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A ARM INVESTMENT MANAGERS LTD enquiries@arminvestmentcenter.com Web: www.arm.com.ng; Tel: 0700 CALLARM (0700 225 5276) Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn ARM Aggressive Growth Fund 13.62 14.03 -11.09% ARM Discovery Fund 324.11 333.88 -6.17% ARM Ethical Fund 27.39 28.21 -5.82% ARM Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 5.82% AXA MANSARD INVESTMENTS LIMITED investmentcare@axamansard.com Web: www.axamansard.com; Tel: +2341-4488482 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn AXA Mansard Equity Income Fund N/A N/A N/A AXA Mansard Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A CAPITAL EXPRESS ASSET AND TRUST LIMITED info@capitalexpressassetandtrust.com Web: www.capitalexpressassetandtrust.com ; Tel: +234 803 307 5048 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn CEAT Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A CHAPELHILL DENHAM MANAGEMENT LTD investmentmanagement@chapelhilldenham.com Web: www.chapelhilldenham.com, Tel: +234 461 0691 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Chapelhill Denham Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A Paramount Equity Fund N/A N/A N/A Women's Investment Fund N/A N/A N/A CORDROS ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmgtteam@cordros.com Web: www.cordros.com, Tel: 019036947 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Cordros Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 5.64% Cordros Milestone Fund 2023 96.50 96.86 Cordros Milestone Fund 2028 104.07 104.47 CORONATION ASSEST MANAGEMENT investment@coronationam.com Web:www.coronationam.com , Tel: 012366215 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coronation Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 4.42% Coronation Balanced Fund 0.89 0.94 -4.53% Coronation Fixed Income Fund 1.42 1.42 6.76% EDC FUNDS MANAGEMENT LIMITED mutualfundng@ecobank.com Web: www.ecobank.com Tel: 012265281 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class A N/A N/A N/A EDC Nigeria Money Market Fund Class B N/A N/A N/A EDC Nigeria Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A FBNQUEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD invest@fbnquest.com Web: www.fbnquest.com/asset-management; Tel: +234-81 0082 0082 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn FBN Fixed Income Fund 1,345.16 1,348.09 4.19% FBN Balanced Fund 140.63 141.62 -4.22% FBN Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 5.53% FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Institutional 110.03 111.05 -7.72% FBN Nigeria Eurobond (USD) Fund - Retail 110.56 111.58 -7.74% FBN Nigeria Smart Beta Equity Fund 110.43 111.73 -15.14% FCMB ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED fcmbamhelpdesk@fcmb.com Web: www.fcmbassetmanagement.com; Tel: +234 1 462 2596 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Legacy Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 6.41% Legacy Debt Fund 3.74 3.74 2.44% Legacy Equity Fund 1.02 1.04 -10.10% Legacy USD Bond Fund 1.10 1.10 1.62% FSDH ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD coralfunds@fsdhgroup.com Web: www.fsdhaml.com; Tel: 01-270 4884-5; 01-280 9740-1 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Coral Growth Fund 2,947.21 2,980.37 -1.18% Coral Income Fund 3,156.44 3,156.44 15.14% FSDH Treasury Bills Fund 100.00 100.00 6.20% GREENWICH ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmanagement@gtlgroup.com Web: www.gtlgroup.com ; Tel: +234 1 4619261-2 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Greenwich Plus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 5.42% Nigeria Entertainment Fund 118.00 118.49 9.57%

GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT ASSET MANAGEMENT LIMITED assetmanagement@gdl.com.ng Web: www.gdl.com.ng ; Tel: +234 9055691122 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn GDL Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A INVESTMENT ONE FUNDS MANAGEMENT LTD enquiries@investment-one.com Web: www.investment-one.com; Tel: +234 812 992 1045,+234 1 448 8888 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Abacus Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 4.93% Vantage Balanced Fund 2.17 2.21 -1.02% Vantage Guaranteed Income Fund 1.00 1.00 10.24% Kedari Investment Fund (KIF) 141.85 142.38 -1.10% LOTUS CAPITAL LTD fincon@lotuscapitallimited.com Web: www.lotuscapitallimited.com; Tel: +234 1-291 4626 / +234 1-291 4624 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Lotus Halal Investment Fund N/A N/A N/A Lotus Halal Fixed Income Fund N/A N/A N/A MERISTEM WEALTH MANAGEMENT LTD info@meristemwealth.com Web: http://www.meristemwealth.com/funds/ ; Tel: +234 1-4488260 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Meristem Equity Market Fund N/A N/A N/A Meristem Money Market Fund N/A N/A N/A PAC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD info@pacassetmanagement.com Web: www.pacassetmanagement.com/mutualfunds; Tel: +234 1 271 8632 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn PACAM Balanced Fund 1.42 1.44 15.94% PACAM Fixed Income Fund 11.93 11.98 5.86% PACAM Money Market Fund 10.00 10.00 3.62% PACAM Equity Fund 1.01 1.02 PACAM EuroBond Fund 104.17 106.30 SCM CAPITAL LIMITED info@scmcapitalng.com Web: www.scmcapitalng.com; Tel: +234 1-280 2226,+234 1- 280 2227 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SCM Capital Frontier Fund 109.44 111.27 -16.48% SFS CAPITAL NIGERIA LTD investments@sfsnigeria.com Web: www.sfsnigeria.com, Tel: +234 (01) 2801400 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn SFS Fixed Income Fund 1.01 1.01 3.53% STANBIC IBTC ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD assetmanagement@stanbicibtc.com Web: www.stanbicibtcassetmanagement.com; Tel: +234 1 280 1266; 0700 MUTUALFUNDS Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Stanbic IBTC Balanced Fund 2,521.35 2,532.80 0.10% Stanbic IBTC Bond Fund 210.33 210.33 2.58% Stanbic IBTC Ethical Fund 0.88 0.89 -7.30% Stanbic IBTC Guaranteed Investment Fund 273.87 273.95 2.86% Stanbic IBTC Iman Fund 154.92 156.64 -3.43% Stanbic IBTC Money Market Fund 100.00 100.00 5.36% Stanbic IBTC Nigerian Equity Fund 7,674.15 7,756.30 -6.18% Stanbic IBTC Dollar Fund (USD) 1.16 1.16 1.97% Stanbic IBTC Shariah Fixed Income Fund 118.18 118.18 0.00% UNITED CAPITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT LTD Web: www.unitedcapitalplcgroup.com; Tel: +234 803 306 2887 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn United Capital Balanced Fund 1.08 1.10 -10.04% United Capital Bond Fund 1.79 1.79 3.37% United Capital Equity Fund 0.59 0.61 -15.71% United Capital Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 7.28% United Capital Eurobond Fund 114.34 114.34 2.23% United Capital Wealth for Women Fund 1.04 1.04 -4.83% QUANTUM ZENITH ASSET MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENTS LTD service@quantumzenithasset.com.ng Web: www.quantumzenith.com.ng; Tel: +234 1-2784219 Fund Name Bid Price Offer Price Yield / T-Rtn Zenith Equity Fund 9.88 10.01 -3.79% Zenith Ethical Fund 11.44 11.56 -1.49% Zenith Income Fund 23.40 23.40 5.24% Zenith Money Market Fund 1.00 1.00 3.87%

REITS NAV Per Share

Yield / T-Rtn

3.40 114.36 52.75

-64.85% 2.15% 1.34%

Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

7.78 81.49 64.70

7.88 83.18 65.87

-10.53% -11.90% -12.26%

Fund Name FSDH UPDC Real Estate Investment Fund SFS Skye Shelter Fund Union Homes REIT

EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS Fund Name Lotus Halal Equity Exchange Traded Fund SIAML Pension ETF 40 Stanbic IBTC ETF 30 Fund

VETIVA FUND MANAGERS LTD Web: www.vetiva.com; Tel: +234 1 453 0697 Fund Name Vetiva Banking Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Consumer Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Griffin 30 Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva Industrial Goods Exchange Traded Fund Vetiva S&P Nigeria Sovereign Bond Exchange Traded Fund

funds@vetiva.com Bid Price

Offer Price

Yield / T-Rtn

2.73 3.77 10.95 10.05 180.15

2.77 3.85 11.05 10.25 182.15

-23.03% -36.02% -9.44% -3.25% -4.13%

NAV Per Share

Yield / T-Rtn

108.29

16.90%

INFRASTRUCTURE FUND Fund Name Chapel Hill Denham Nigeria Infrastructure Debt Fund

The value of investments and the income from them may fall as well as rise. Past performance is a guide and not an indication of future returns. Fund prices published in this edition are also available on each fund manager’s website and FMAN’s website at www.fman.com.ng. Fund prices are supplied by the operator of the relevant fund and are published for information purposes only.

THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 ˾ T H I S D AY

29

NEWS

FG Grants Two-month Licence Waiver to Broadcast Stations Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja and Vanessa Obioha in Lagos The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has granted a two-month licence fee waiver for terrestrial broadcast stations as part of efforts to ease the negative effects of the COVID-19 on the broadcast industry in the country.

He announced the concession yesterday when he constituted a 14-man committee of industrial stakeholders to advise on how to cushion the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the

broadcasting industry.

The minister charged the committee to give guidance to government on how to mitigate job and revenue losses in the sector as well as create succour for small businesses within the industry.

He also asked the committee to suggest the type of taxation and financing that is deemed most suitable for the industry in order to encourage growth.

The committee has four weeks to submit its report.

The committee will be chaired by ace comedian, Ali Baba and

include other representatives of film, music and theatre, like Bolanle Austen-Peters, Segun Arinze, Dare Art Alade, Charles Novia, Kene Okwuosa, Chioma Ude, Baba Agba, Ali Jita, Efe Omorogbe, Hajia Sa’a

Ibrahim, Anita Eboigbe, Olumade Adesemowo and Prince Daniel Aboki.

“We are still expecting representatives from the fashion, publishing, photography, hospitality and travel sectors,”

the minister added.

Reacting, Novia who is a media entrepreneur and CEO of Teen TV applauded the federal government for recognising the creative industry at a critical time like this.“In these uncertain times

and with the entertainment sector badly affected as with other reeling sectors of the economy, the committee as set up by the FG, will make the best recommendations for the sectors we represent.”

265 Nigerian Returnees from Dubai Arrive Lagos Woman gives birth on repatriation flight

Chinedu Eze The federal government has recorded its first evacuation of Nigerian citizens abroad with the airlift of 265 of the country’s nationals from the United Arab Emirates yesterday.

The flight, which left Dubai for Lagos at about 10:00 a.m Nigerian time after all the passengers were tested and found to be coronavirus-free, had to return to base 60 minutes into the flight, as a lady gave birth while the flight was airborne.

The flight, Boeing 777-300 with registration mark, EK783, returned to the airport and disembarked the woman and her baby and later resumed the flight.

It finally arrived the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos by 7:28 p.m Nigerian time.

A statement by the Foreign Affairs Ministry said the first batch of evacuees of 265 from Dubai would arrive Nigeria yesterday, while another 300 persons would arrive from London on Friday, May 10 on British Airways.

On Monday, May 11, Ethiopian Airline would airlift those coming from United States of America.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Mission in the US has made changes in the planned evacuation of Nigerians from the US due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE......

L-R: Speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly, Hon. Debo Ogundoyin; Oyo State Governor, Mr. Seyi Makinde; and a beneficiary, Mr. Bello Azeez, during the distribution of palliatives by the governor at Igboora, Ibarapa zone area of Oyo State...yesterday

Ooni Dissociates Self from Illegal Mining in Osun The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi has urged Nigerians to discountenance a video circulated on social media which claimed that the Chinese nationals involved in illegal mining in Osun State paid him before their illegal activities.

Oba Ogunwusi noted that

attempts to embarrass the sacred throne of the Ooni by some acclaimed farmers from Ibadan were laughable.

A statement issued by the Director of Media and Public Affairs at the Ooni’s Palace, Mr. Moses Olafare stated that “it is unfortunate that some

supposed Omoluabis as known of descendants of Oduduwa globally would allow themselves to be used against their own source and heritage; it is equally pathetic to realise the damage being currently done by the malicious video, especially against the person, image and character of the Arole

Oduduwa “A group of people led by someone who claimed to have come from Ibadan to farm on the land was mobilised to report the activities of some Chinese nationals alleged to have been sent by the Ooni, who according to them had been paid a large sum of money.

NNPC Reduces Ex-Depot Buhari Commiserates With Buratai over Mother’s Death Wishes Emir of Daura speedy recovery Price of Petrol Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Peter Uzoho in Lagos The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday announced a reduction in the ex-depot price of petrol from N113.28k per litre to N108 per litre across all its products loading facilities as well as in its throughput operations.

The corporation in a statement yesterday in Abuja by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, quoted the Managing Director of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Mr. Musa Lawan, as saying that the new ex-depot price of petrol reflects the company’s market

strategy to make more sales while complying with the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency’s (PPPRA) price template.

Lawan explained that the new price regime would enable PPMC to boost its sales volumes from the billions of litres of petrol it has in storage while providing affordable price to millions of customers.

He said the new price was arrived at after extensive review of market realities by the PPMC internal price review unit.

The PPMC chief however pointed out that Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), otherwise called diesel, being already deregulated, its prices are determined by market forces.

APC, PDP Bicker over $311m Repatriated Abacha Loot Chuks Okocha and Adedayo Akinwale inAbuja All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday traded accusations over the $311 million Abacha loot repatriated from the United States.

While the PDP said it has uncovered fresh plots by the cabal in the presidency and the APC to use fake subheads and duplicated projects as ploy to re-loot the $311millon, the ruling party argued that the allegation showed that the main opposition party was saddened by a missed opportunity to share the money as it used to.

PDP alleged that the cabal had

perfected the use of fake subheads as nomenclatures to mislead those who repatriated the fund and pave way to corner the money to their private pockets as they had done with earlier repatriated funds.

The main opposition party in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, alleged that part of the strategy of the cabal is to hype hazy subheads and stampede the dissipation of the funds without the statutory approval of the National Assembly, which would enable them to muddle up accountability processes, conceal their fraud and divert the attention of the unsuspecting public from the scam.

President Muhammadu Buhari has commiserated with the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Yusuf Buratai, over the death of his mother, Hajiya Hauwa Yusuf Buratai.

President Buhari also yesterday prayed for the quick recovery of the Emir of Daura, Alhaji Umar Farouk-Umar.

The President was in a telephone conversation with

Buratai, who had been at forefront of the ongoing war against the terror group, Boko Haram, in the Northeast.

Buhari, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, however prayed for the repose of the soul of the Buratai matriarch, whom he said lived a pious and generous life.

“President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday had a telephone conversation with the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Yusuf Buratai, commiserating with him over the passing of his mother, Hajiya Hauwa Yusuf Buratai.

“The President condoled with all members of the family, praying that the almighty God will receive the soul of

the departed matriarch, who lived a pious, prayerful and generous life.

“President Buhari also prayed that the almighty God will comfort Lt. Gen. Buratai, who has been at the epicenter of war against terrorists in North East, urging the family to find solace in Hajiya Hauwa’s good works”, the statement said.

FG Dismisses Bribery Allegation against NCDC The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Mr. Boss Mustapha, yesterday disclosed that the allegation that some officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) were charging N35,000 to collect samples for COVID-19 test is not true.

Fielding questions during the task force’s media briefing in Abuja, Mustapha said

journalists should not take such stories seriously.

According to him, there are not many Nigerians who could afford such a sum for COVID-19 test, stressing that the claim could be depressing for the NCDC workers who continue to risk their lives.

“The truth about it– I know what it does to somebody who is working inside out, going around exposing himself collecting samples. That’s

one of the most dangerous activities in the management of COVID-19,” he said.

“With an established patient, you already know his status, but those you are going to collect samples from, you don’t know their status. So, it calls for absolute diligence, you must be prepared and trained for it and you are just out there in the warfront not knowing what will happen to you. And some people will

take delight in saying that you demand for 35, 000, how many Nigerians can afford N35, 000 to take a sample?

“If it were even N1,000 or N2,000, we understand. So, next time let’s verify these stories because it does a lot of damage to the morale of the people that are out there working to keep us safe to help us navigate this very difficult process in which we have found ourselves.

Efik Group Expresses Relief as Buhari Addresses Concerns in C’River Peter Uzoho The Efik Leadership Foundation (ELF), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has expressed relief with the swift response given to its letter by President Muhammadu Buhari, whom it wrote on Monday to intervene in the “deplorable state of COVID-19 response” in Cross River State.

ELF in a statement yesterday by the Chairman of its Board

of Trustees, Mr. Richard Duke, thanked Buhari for heeding to its requests and directing among other things, that an expert delegation visits the state.

The foundation added that the president’s decision to formally incorporate federal medical institutions across the country into the COVID-19 response was an added boost to the national COVID-19 response.

ELF said: “Today, two days

after we submitted our letter, we are greatly relieved and pleased that Mr. President, through Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, heeded our requests and directed not only that an expert delegation visit the state but also that federal medical institutions across the country will be formally incorporated into the COVID-19 response in the states, including Cross River State.

“This latter decision is a most

welcome added boost to the National COVID-19 response of which ELF can be justifiably proud.

“The ELF wishes to express its deep and most sincere thanks to Mr. President, the Minister of Health, the PTF on COVID-19, the NCDC as well as the many men and women of goodwill in and outside the state who commended and expressed support for our efforts.”

30

THURSDAY MAY 7, 2020 ˾ T H I S D AY

COVID -19 UPDATE...

COVID -19 UPDATE...

Police Foil Escape Attempt of Infected Murder Suspect in Ondo James Sowole in Akure Security had been beefed up at

the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) in Akure, Ondo State, following attempted escape

Oyedepo Kicks against Church Closure The Presiding Bishop of Living Faith Church Worldwide alias Winners’ Chapel International, David Oyedepo, has kicked against the continuous closure of churches over the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging ulterior motives.

Speaking yesterday during the Covenant Hour of Prayer Programme, the revered cleric argued that if markets could be opened for six hours, there was no reason churches should not be opened for two hours.

He alleged a gang-up against the growth of the church in the country.

“There is something wrong; for people to be allowed to be in the market for six hours and can’t be in church for two hours, it is an upside-down way of looking at things.

“Which one is more orderly

- the market or the church?

“I can smell a rat. The Lord spoke to me on it so strong yesterday. I can smell a rat.

Behind all this, how do we stop the church from exploding? The people involved don’t know it.

“The voice of darkness is influencing people at various levels, targeting the church because the growth and expansion of the church is the greatest headache of the devil.

But the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The devil and all his agents shall surely pay for this.

“I don’t know what hospital that records the kind of healings that the church of God records.

And now hospitals, where people die every day, are open, but the church is closed because the oppression of the devil has no medical cure.”

of a murder suspect, Adamu Adamu, who was being treated at the hospital for COVID-19.

Adamu, who was arrested in Edo State, was among the four suspects arrested and standing trial in connection with the murder of Mrs. Olufunke Olakunrin, the daughter of the Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.

The attempt was, however, foiled by security men at the hospital leading to the mobilisation of soldiers to support policemen on guard.

Doctors at the hospital also confirmed that the suspect made several attempts by deploying various tactics to escape from custody.

Police sources stated that it was the timely intervention

of its men that prevented the latest attempt to flee custody.

Adamu was said to have spent long hours in the toilet each time he took permission to use it.

It was gathered that the limited free movement granted the suspect inside the ward where COVID-19 patients are receiving treatment was stopped.

Sources added that he was now being chained to his bed and closely monitored to the toilet.

When contacted on the issue, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Tee-Leo Ikoro, said he would visit the hospital to ascertain the situation of things.

He said security has been beefed up at the hospital.

No Apologies for Revealing CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY… Drugs Administered to Me, Says Bauchi Gov FG to Receive Another Batch of Materials

L-R: Manager, Community Affairs, EROTON Exploration and Production Company Limited, Mr. Emmanuel Toby; Chairman, Ilomatoru Community Trust, Mr. Kenneth Pollyn; Secretary, Senibo Iwowari Bristole; and Chief-elect, Ilomatoru Community, Mr. Bill Pollyn, during the donation of materials to the community by the company in Port Harcourt, Rivers State...yesterday

Segun Awofadeji in Bauchi The Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, has said he has no apology for revealing that Chloroquine, Zithromax, Zinc and Vitamin C are used for the cure of Coronavirus as he was administered with the drugs while receiving treatment in isolation.

He, however, explained that by revealing the drug used while in isolation, he was not encouraging self-medication by people who contracted the coronavirus disease.

The governor, who was speaking while giving update on the situation of the coronavirus disease in the state yesterday,

said the state medical team had used Chloroquine and Zithromax to cure him of the deadly virus.

According to the governor, “I was a COVID-19 patient; I told the world and I have been asked to say how I got cured, and I told them how I got cured. I recommended that that should be done to other patients too. I have no apology for saying that I used Chloroquine, Zithromax, Zinc, Iron and Vitamin C to get cured.

“However, it was God that cured me, and to me, it is better to take something rather than sit down and die. If you have symptoms of fever, you can take Chloroquine to cure it; if you have symptoms of infection, you can take Zithromax to cure it.

Afenifere Wants Senate to Reject Dankaka’s Nomination as FCC Chairman Deji Elumoye in Abuja

The Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has implored the Senate to reject the nomination of Mrs. Farida Dankaka as the chairman of the Federal Character Commission (FCC).

President Muhammadu Buhari had in a letter dated March 18, 2020, addressed to the President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, and read at plenary last week, nominated Dankaka from Kwara State as FCC chairman as well as 37 other board members for confirmation by the upper legislative chamber.

Reacting to her nomination yesterday, Afenifere, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, stressed that it would not allow President Buhari to get away with yet another infraction at the FCC as it did with the appointment of the

legal adviser of Miyetti Allah as the commission’s secretary in 2017.

The group emphasised that the FCC, according to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is meant to be the custodian of the principle of Federal Character and is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that all federal agencies and parastatals in Nigeria respect and adhere to this principle.

Afenifere, therefore, called on the Senate, which had since referred the nomination of Dankaka as well as the 37 board members to its committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs headed by Senator Danjuma La’ah for further legislative action within four weeks, to reject Dankaka’s nomination because the chairman as well as the secretary of the commission cannot both come from the northern part of the country.

from China The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, yesterday disclosed that the federal government was expecting another set of COVID-19 materials from China.

Speaking in Abuja during the media briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, the minister said ventilators are expected to be included in the

materials from China.

Ehanire said efforts were being made to add to the equipment at the isolation centres.

“You all remember that the US president promised Nigeria some ventilators. We also got a letter the other day that the government of China is sending us another load of materials for attending to COVID-19 among

which I believe there will be ventilators. It is a matter of fitting them to our tertiary hospitals and federal medical centres,” Ehanire said at the briefing.

“The ventilators go with specialised manpower. You must have an intensive care specialist.

We are escalating our training and doing crash courses. The number of persons who have

required ventilators so far is very small. The fatalities that we have in Nigeria are largely connected with pre-existing diseases.

“The conditions must be met for private hospitals to handle COVID-19. They must be inspected, purpose-fit and also accredited. If they meet those conditions, yes private hospitals can handle COVID-19.”

Nigerian Armed Forces Kill 343 Terrorists, 153 Bandits Rescue 18 hostages, 15 kidnapped victims Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja The Military High Command said yesterday that the combined operations of the Armed Forces of Nigeria across troubled spots in the country resulted in the killing of 343 terrorists in the North-east and 153 armed bandits in the North-western part of the country in the last two months.

It said troops discovered 61

illegal refineries, recovered over three million litres of stolen crude oil and petrol from illegal oil bunkerers during naval operations in the Niger Delta region while 18 hostages and 17 kidnapped victims were liberated within the period under review.

At a media briefing in Abuja, Coordinator, Directorate of Defence Media Operations, Major General John Enenche, who reviewed the

operations of the armed forces from March 18 to May 5, 2020, said the onslaught against criminal elements in the country within the period was a joint effort of the Army, Navy, Air Force and other security agencies.

He said human and technical intelligence confirmed that 18 Boko Haram and ISWAP leaders were killed following ground and air offensive mounted against their

settlements and hideouts while another one was killed three days ago.

He said villages attacked during the period were rescued by troops as normalcy returned to the affected areas while Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions were conducted , which revealed criminal hideouts and activities of insurgents and bandits.

US: $311m Repatriated Abacha Loot Distinct from Additional $319m Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The United States government has said that the $311 million Abacha loot repatriated to Nigeria last week was distinct and separate from an additional $167 million in stolen assets also forfeited

in the United Kingdom (UK) and France, as well as $152 million still in active litigation in the UK. The US government in a statement issued yesterday by its US Mission in Abuja, said that the transfer of funds was an important first step in the

disciplined implementation of the agreement.

It said that Nigeria’s continued vigilance, transparency, and accountability would ensure continued progress in the implementation.

The United States noted that

it looks forward to continuing to work with Nigeria and its civil society partners to combat corruption and to ensure a successful outcome in the return of these funds, adding that the fight against corruption was an investment in the future of Nigeria.

Flying Doctors Healthcare Launches Testing Vehicle Ugo Aliogo As a way to support the federal government’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Company has launched the ‘COVID mobile’ a sample-taking vehicle that could help ramp up testing.

A statement signed by the company yesterday said its mission was to protect Nigeria’s healthcare workers who are taking samples from potentially infected patients on the field.

The statement also added that experts agree that the group most at risk from contracting COVID-19 from samples is

medical lab scientists.

According to the statement, while speaking at the launch ceremony recently in Lagos State, the state Chairman of the Association of Medical Lab Scientists, Mr. Olumide Fatogbe, said the COVID-19 test vehicle would benefit members of the association

in a number of ways as “the most important being that it reduces the risk of infection.”

He noted that some members in Lagos have already become infected, adding that the association is working to ensure that large number of healthcare workers are not infected in the country.

Ëœ ÍżËœ ͺ͸ͺ͸ Ëž T H I S D AY

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THURSDAYSPORTS

Group Sports Editor Duro Ikhazuagbe Email duro.ikhazuagbe@thisdaylive.com 0811 181 3083 SMS ONLY

Sports Ministry Places Rashidi Yekini’s Mother on Monthly Stipend

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin The mother of late Super Eagles striker, Rashidi Yekini, Mrs Sikirat Yekini has received succor from the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday

Dare, eight years after she lost her illustrious son.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has placed Alhaja Sikiratu, on a monthly stipend of N10,000.

The Minister who was represented by Olaitan

Rashidi Yekini...eight year after his painful death, help has ďŹ nally come to his aged mother

Shittu in Ijagbo, near Offa in Kwara State on Wednesday donated various food stuffs and provisions as well as cash gift of N50,000 on behalf of the minister to the aged mother.

Shittu explained that it was not the first time the Minister was reaching out to Alhaja Sikiratu Yekini as he was also at her residence in September, 2019 to make similar donation.

Responding, Alhaja Yekini who spoke in local dialect (Yoruba), thanked the Minister for his kind gesture. “I have been abandoned for a long time and have not gotten help from anyone. “I was hospitalised for days, some months ago and catered for myself despite

scarce resources, even last month, I received treatment at the hospital. “I need help from Nigerians, but this Minister has done very well, especially remembering me in this holy month of Ramadan. “Since my son died, life has been very tough because I do not get assistance from people.

Rashidi’s siblings are not doing well too, so, I am left to struggle everyday. This is very kind of the Minister. May God bless and reward him� she concluded.

Late Yekini who died eight years ago in Ibadan after retiring from active football, had a career that spanned more than two decades and

was mainly associated with VitĂłria de SetĂşbal in Portugal, but he also played in six other foreign countries.

Yekini scored 37 goals for Nigeria from 58 games and represented the nation in five major tournaments, including two World Cups where he scored the country’s first-ever goal in the competition against Bulgaria in the USA ‘94 World Cup. He was also named the African Footballer of the Year in 1993.

Items donated include, 50kg bag of rice, 10kg bag of wheat, six tins of Milo as well as the cash.

In a related development, the Kwara State Sportswriters

Association of Nigeria (SWAN) has appealed to the state government to assist Yekini’s mother with proper welfare attention . “Alhaja Sikiratu Yekini needs every care or attention any aged person would need at the moment,� observed the body in a statement issued in Ilorin yesterday.

Secretary of Kwara SWAN, Olayinka Owolewa reminded the state’s chief executive that Yekini who shone brightly for the country was a native of Ira, in Oyun Local Government Area of the state.

He also appealed to well to do Nigerians to also extend their magnanimity to the aged mother of Yekini.

Eagles Job: Rohr Admits No Decision Yet on His Contract Renewal Gernot Rohr, coach of the Nigeria men’s national team, has said months-long talks between himself and the Nigeria Football Federation over the renewal of his contract have not been finalised.

The German told BBC Sport Africa yesterday that “we have still not taken a decision�, two weeks after a proposed contract was sent the way of the France-based coach.

Rohr was offered a new contract by the NFF mid-April after a period of uncertainty on the future of the manager, with discussions focused on the location of the manager and the inclusion of local

players in his team selection.

On the claims that the former Burkina Faso coach agreed to take a pay cut in his new contract and be based permanently in Nigeria, Rohr told BBC Sport Africa he would “rather not comment.� “We will find as soon as a deal is finalised,� he added.

However, he has taken a pay cut on the salary left on his current contract as a result of the financial implications left in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Rohr’s contract with the Nigeria Football Federation ends in June 2020.

Borussia Dortmund players before the lockdown occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic

Condolences Pour in for Late Chidi Ofo Okenwa Merkel: Bundesliga to Resume Later this Month Tributes, in torrents, have continued to flow in honour of the Member of NFF Executive Committee and Chairman of the Nigeria National League, Hon. Chidi Ofo Okenwa, who passed away on Tuesday in Enugu aged 50 years.

Nigeria’s football family was crestfallen on Tuesday after news broke of the death of the cerebral football administrator who was also Chairman of the Enugu State Football Association.

His colleagues on the board of the NFF, members of the NFF Congress, league bodies, club administrators, ex-international players, other stakeholders and football fans have eulogized the departed Okenwa, all praising his contributions to the game over the decades.

Barr. Seyi Akinwunmi, 1st Vice President of the NFF, said: “I am still somewhat flustered and lack the words to express the grieve and the deep sorrow that we collectively feel as a board.

Okenwa was an asset to the Nigeria game with his passion and intelligence. I am still in shock at his passing.�

Mallam Shehu Dikko, 2nd Vice President of the NFF/Chairman LMC, said: “Chidi’s death is a terrible blow to all of us. It is another sharp reminder that

this world is a fallacy. We were all giving our views at a board meeting less than two weeks ago, and now he is gone. Devastating.�

Dr. Mohammed Sanusi, NFF General Secretary: “Hon. Chidi was a very close friend long before he joined the board of the NFF. I am stunned by his sudden passing. It came as a shock to me and the members of the NFF Board. He always had quality advice to offer at every point.�

Chief Felix Anyansi-Agwu, Member of the NFF Executive and Chairman of Enyimba FC, said: “I am yet to come to terms with the fact that Ofo is gone. He is someone so highly knowledgeable, with sound contributions in or out of the boardroom. I am greatly saddened. He is my brother because we are the two representing the south east on the NFF board.�

Aisha Falode, Member of the NFF Executive and Chairman of the Nigeria Women Football League: “Chidi was always on ground to give valuable advice for the growth of women’s football in Nigeria. he had special interest in the women’s game and he fought so hard to see that the NWFL got its due. We have lost a gem.�

The German Bundesliga season can resume this month, Chancellor Angela Merkel has confirmed.

It will become the first major league in Europe to return to competition, with a date for resumption to be confirmed by the German Football League (DFL) on Thursday.

All matches will be played behind closed doors.

With nine games remaining, Bayern Munich are top of the table, four points above Borussia Dortmund.

Bayern chairman Karl Heinz Rummenigge said: “I would like to thank the politicians for giving today’s decision [and for] the opportunity to finish

the Bundesliga season. “We are now looking forward to resuming play, ideally from mid-May. This ensures that the sporting decisions are made on the pitch. “I appeal to everyone involved to follow the requirements, which are the basis for resuming games, in an exemplary and extremely disciplined manner.�

Christian Seifert, chief executive of the DFL, added: “Today’s decision is good news for the Bundesliga and the Bundesliga 2. “It is associated with a great responsibility for the clubs and their employees to implement the medical and organisational requirements in a disciplined

manner. “Games without spectators are not an ideal solution for anyone.

In a crisis threatening the very existence of some clubs, however, it is the only way to keep the leagues in their current form..�

The announcement comes a day after clubs in the top two German divisions returned 10 positive results from 1,724 coronavirus tests.

The DFL had warned that many top-division teams would be in an “existence-threatening� financial position if play did not resume by June.

Players returned to training last month, with the DFL initially saying the league would be ready to return on 9 May.

Germany has banned large events with crowds until 24 October, so games will be behind closed doors, but the DFL has developed a health and safety plan that would see only about 300 people or near the pitch during matches, to minimise the risk of infection.

According to official figures, just under 7,000 people have died in Germany from coronavirus, a much lower figure than in other western European countries including the UK, Italy, France and Spain.

It was also announced on Wednesday that the Turkish Super Lig will resume on 12 June with the aim being to complete the season by the end of July.

Fernandes’ Man Utd Switch Under Investigation by FIFA World football governing body FIFA has confirmed it is investigating a claim from Sampdoria against Sporting Lisbon in relation to the “financial obligationsset out in the contract corresponding to the transfer� of Bruno Fernandesto Manchester United.

A FIFA spokesperson confirmed a complaint was lodged by Sampdoria on

April 3 relating to the deal which took Fernandes from Sporting to United in the January transfer window.

According to the spokesperson: “The matter is currently being investigated and consequentlywe cannot provide further comments.�

It has been reported that Sampdoria believe they are entitled to 10 per cent of any profit Sporting made on

Fernandes, who was sold to United for 58m Euros (ÂŁ47m) in January. That would mean Sampdoria, where Fernandes played for one season before joining Sporting Lisbon for ÂŁ7.5m in 2017, would be entitled to a payment of around ÂŁ4m.

Since joining United, Fernandes has been impressive for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.

The 25-year-old has made five Premier League appearances, scored two goals and has three assists.

He was voted Premier League’s Player of the Month for February, which was his third individualprize since his transfer to United in January.

His other two individual awards are United’s fans Player of the Month award and the PFA award.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

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Price: N250

MISSILE George Sekibo to Gbajabiamila “The bill as presented by the House of Representatives should die. The bill was passed for second reading and was about being passed for third reading when no public hearing was done. There is an agenda they are hiding. Nobody can force another person to get compulsory vaccination� – Senator Sekibo, querying the motive behind the ‘Control of Infectious Diseases Bill, 2020’ being sponsored

by House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila and two members.

OLUSEGUNADENIYI THE VERDICT

olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

On Gbajabiamila’s ‘Coronavirus’Bill T he ‘Control of Infectious Diseases Bill, 2020’ sponsored by the Speaker, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila and two other members (Pascal Obi and Tanko Sununu) was last week rushed through first and second readings in the House of Representatives.

Rather curiously, members were not provided copies of the legislation until motives of the sponsors were called into question. When eventually members received copies and observed that it contained several contentious provisions, conspiracy theorists went to town.

Now, we hear of millions of dollars from Mr Bill Gates (who else?) allegedly being dolled out to lawmakers in a bid to foist on our country a compulsory vaccination law that would kill off many Nigerians and reduce our population.

As an aside, even in the United States, especially among right wing Christians, once Mr Bill Gates is linked to any healthrelated issue, you hear tales like this. In March, popular conservative Pastor Rick Wiles warned that ‘There Will Be Blood in the Streets’ (of America) if Bill Gates continues to push for vaccinations in his bid to build ‘Lucifer’s Antichrist System’.

According to Wiles, “Bill Gates wants to get a microchip in your body, he wants a microchip in your baby’s body.� But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The current challenge in our country is the bill by Gbajabiamila which, as he explained in plenary on Tuesday, was meant to “take proactive action to prevent the entry into Nigeria of Infectious diseases and the management of public health emergencies when they occur.�

Whatever may be the merit of the idea, my friend, Dr Laz Ude Eze has described the timing of this bill as akin to an attempt to make new rules of engagement in the middle of a war. At a period when we are dealing with a pandemic and we do not know how it will all end, the pertinent question remains: Is this the right time to enact a bill on infectious diseases? Besides, the bill has many provisions that violate personal liberty and privacy, make nonsense of our federal structure, stigmatise and criminalise infectious diseases and generally confer on the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Director General (or whoever controls him/her) absolute and extra-constitutional powers, “notwithstanding any restriction imposed by any written law, rule of law, rule of professional conduct or contract.�

But before I deal with the substantive issues, let me state that I have read the 47-page bill and agree with its principle: To replace the outdated Quarantine Act of 1926. So, rather than condemn Gbajabiamila, I will commend him and his colleagues for recognising the gap and trying to fill it, although I disagree with their methods.

Against the background that the only infectious diseases currently recognised in the Quarantine Act are typhus, cholera, smallpox, plague and yellow fever, I see nothing wrong in repealing and replacing a colonial law enacted almost a century ago and 34 years before Nigeria became independent. The challenge that I see are

Gbajabiamila in the provisions of this bill and the timing of its proposed enactment.

The Quarantine Act of 1926 makes no allowance for infectious diseases like COVID-19 and was passed at a time before air travel became popular. In fact, the Act makes no provision for the prevention of infectious diseases through air travels nor does it even make mention of airports or aeroplanes. As Gbajabiamila said on Tuesday, there are also contentions about where President Muhammadu Buhari derived the powers he exercised to lock down Lagos and Ogun States for five weeks.

And regarding punishment, the Quarantine Act of 1926 puts a maximum fine of the sum of N200.00 (Two Hundred Naira) for any person found to be in violation of provisions. That cannot deter anybody in Nigeria.

From the foregoing, we can infer that the Bill by Gbajabiamila and co is necessary and important. The contention is now about the provisions. Aside the failure to take into account the current federal structure in Nigeria where powers are devolved between and among three constituent units (federal, state and local governments), the bill gives the NCDC Director General absolute powers, including over and above that of security agencies on matters that deal with law and order and over and above the courts in judicial matters.

Despite denials and attempts to obfuscate, the import of Section 30 of the Bill is that it will allow forceful vaccination against a person’s choice. Subsection 2 specifically states, “Notwithstanding subsection (1)(b), a Port Health Officer may require such person to undergo vaccination or other prophylaxis and may subject him to isolation or surveillance for such period as the Port Health Officer thinks fit�. To now add insult to injury, the immunity provided in Section 70 of the Bill effectively ousts court jurisdiction and places the DG and his health officers above the law.

The power to confiscate and turn property in any state of the federation into an isolation centre is also not only open to abuse, it is

in conflict with powers of state governors and runs afoul of the fundamental rights of citizens. The Bill, as was observed by a lawyer, also authorizes the arrest without warrant on almost every issue based on mere suspicion and the private opinion of the DG of NCDC. Meanwhile, Section 8 of the proposed bill, “clearly takes away the duty of confidentiality owed patients by their personal physician. A citizen can be subjected to inhumane treatment of publishing his/ her medical history without his/her consent and refusal attracts a conviction without trial in the court of law. Section12 empowers the DG on a mere suspicion to prohibit the burial of a deceased by his/her family. This again violates the citizens right to human dignity.�

With several provisions conditioned on ‘the opinion of the Director General’, I have never seen a law that gives such extraordinary discretionary power to an appointee of the executive arm. From extra-judicial powers to that of taking actions on the presumption of ‘good faith’ (by the officer’s own judgement) to omnibus immunity, the NCDC Director General (or whoever pulls the strings for him/her) can “prohibit or restrict, subject to such conditions as he may think fit�.

In a nation where religion is now about crowds, even a church or mosque service can be cancelled whenever and wherever “it appears to the Director General that the holding of any meeting, gathering or any public entertainment is likely to increase the spread of any infectious disease.� And if you sneeze inside a Molue in Lagos, you can be arrested by the police or ‘health officer’ on suspicion that you harbour an infectious disease!

What stands out in the bill is the powers vested in one person. Once the NCDC Director General is convinced that he/she is ‘acting in good faith and with reasonable care’, he/she can trample on the rights of any Nigerian, living or dead since the donated powers include deciding on what to do with corpses. Interestingly, I understand that the NCDC had no input in the proposed legislation that confers on its Director General such extraordinary powers.

On the whole, as important as this bill may appear, Gbajabiamila will be helping us if he makes it part of a broader legislative agenda for the Nigerian health sector in a post-coronavirus world. Other issues include the need for robust and well-funded research for herbal solutions into a number of these diseases, and a total revamp of the health infrastructure.

On Tuesday, a member of the Borno State House of Assembly died in circumstances that can only be described as pathetic. He was initially rejected at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital by health workers who insisted that the available bed space was reserved for childbirth emergency. By the time the usual Nigerian strings were pulled and a space was created for the Borno lawmaker, it was too late.

These are some of the issues that should also concern the Speaker of the House of Representatives if the agenda is about healthcare delivery in Nigeria.

In yielding to public opinion and the

necessity for a public hearing, Gbajabiamila on Tuesday disagreed with those who question the timing of this bill. “The number of those currently infected by the coronavirus continues to rise alongside the number of those who have died. There is no timeline for when this disease will pass, and nobody can predict when the next public health crisis will occur, just as nobody predicted the present predicament.

It bears restating that we do not have in our country, a healthcare system or for that matter, a national economy that is sufficiently robust to withstand the dire consequences of a sustained infectious disease pandemic.

We cannot tie our own hands in the fight against this disease,� he said.

Nobody can fault the diagnosis of the problem as eloquently stated by the speaker. But what he conveniently chose to ignore is that there will be more lessons to learn as this pandemic unfolds not only in Nigeria but across the world—lessons that will enrich such legislation. If, as Gbajabiamila claimed, the idea is to proffer a solution to the challenges brought about

by COVID-19, why is he proposing rules before the development of a vaccine?

With about 108 vaccines in experiment and eight on clinical trial, do we know the extent of the threat? And where is the NCDC autocracy coming from? Why such desperation to enact the legislation at this period? While I do not believe in the conspiracy theories being bandied, I can also see the usual laziness that is common with law-making in Nigeria. Most of the provisions in the bill were dubbed from Singapore’s Infectious Diseases Act (Chapter 136) without any effort to adapt them for our local environment.

Meanwhile, some of the basic features of a good law include that it should be acceptable to the majority, should not confer discretionary powers on anybody and should not trample on the rights of citizens. This bill violates all these ideals and several others most flagrantly. Another canon of a good law is that it must be enforceable.

Given our federal structure, many provisions in this Bill cannot be enforced. We have seen how easy it has been for Governors Ben Ayade and Yahaya Bello to effectively shut out the NCDC from their states so as to maintain ‘zero-death’ records even when we are all aware of residents who have succumbed to COVID-19 and we may witness a catastrophe if common sense does not prevail in both Cross River and Kogi States very quickly.

My advice to the Speaker is to withdraw this contentious bill, consult more widely with critical stakeholders, including Nigeria Governors Forum and health sector professionals, and come up with a draft that will better serve public interest when this pandemic has been dealt with.

If he doesn’t do that, and continues his desperation to foist on Nigerians a bill that appears more like a military decree, questions will continue to be asked regarding whose interest he seeks to promote or protect.

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