₦airaland Forum

ursullalinda:
Can't believe we are still celebrating street light in 2019 almost 2020.....who do us this thing?.....Why are we so backward?

What should we celebrate?

silentEXPLOSION:
Akwa-Ibom Ayaya.

Their men are very friendly and their ladies are very neat.

You can learn other Nigerian languages. But you see Akwa-Ibom, Calabar, if them no born you inside the language, just fogerrit

Yes it is

Topmaike007:
you talk am come laugh

'Cause it's funny

Topmaike007:
How many plane did Uyo have

I don't know how many they had.��

Visit ibom air for the extended Christmas schedule

silentEXPLOSION:
Akwa-Ibom Ayaya.

Their men are very friendly and their ladies are very neat.

You can learn other Nigerian languages. But you see Akwa-Ibom, Calabar, if them no born you inside the language, just fogerrit

What do you mean? Ibibio is the easiest language to Learn in Nigeria lol

Explore Akwa ibom!
Ibeno beach will be lit this Christmas. Will you be there?

Come and enjoy horseback riding by the beach

Beach volleyball

Building sand houses with your kids

Great family time and more.

Announcing extra capacity for the December 2019 holiday season!

As Uyo has become increasingly popular over the last few months, we are increasing our flights to cater for the many visitors and Akwa Ibomites coming home for the Christmas season. View our Yuletide Schedule below:
December 19th, 21st and 22nd
We will have 3 flights each between Uyo and Lagos & Uyo and Abuja. The weekend flights will operate according to the weekday schedules.

December 20th and 23rd
We will have 4 flights each between Uyo and Lagos & Uyo and Abuja. Three flights will operate at our normal flight schedule. The additional 4th flight will be a 7.45pm departure out of Uyo and 9.30pm departures out of both Lagos and Abuja.

December 24th (Christmas Eve)
As on the 20th & 23rd, we will have the same 4 flights out of Abuja to Uyo but we will throw in an additional special 7.45pm flight from Lagos to Uyo (making 5 flights from Lagos to Uyo but only 4 from Uyo to Lagos).

December 25th (Christmas Day)
On Christmas Day, we will have no flight between Abuja and Lagos. We will have one flight each between Uyo and Lagos & Uyo and Abuja.

December 26th (Boxing Day)
On the 26th, we will have one flight each between all three stations.

December 27th – 31st
We will revert to our normal operational schedule.

January 1st (New Year’s Day)
On New Year’s Day, we will operate one return flight on each of our routes:

Uyo-Abuja-Uyo
Uyo-Lagos-Uyo
Lagos-Abuja-Lagos

From the 2nd of January, we will revert to our normal operational schedule.

Seats are selling out fast, book your trip now!

https://www.ibomair.com/ibom-air-announces-more-flights-for-the-christmas-season/

You mean that helped ojukwu to flee the war front?
To cut and run! As the American would say.

Ykc2:
With generator after Christmas they will go back to their normal darkness ,street light is what European cites has been using since 1900 till date,come to think of it that akwa ibom suppose to be the wealthiest state in Nigeria they amount of money they receive every month is enough for the state to look like Rwandan capital Kigali, but they are busy building more stadium in eket ,the level of poverty in akwa ibom is another thing forget uyo, come to ph are they way akwa ibom people are living I asked my self why?I never hear of any business controlled by akwa ibom people

Name your state let's compare.

slimfit1:
This is news really

Yes it is.

Uyo Christmas village at night.

Streets of Uyo,Nigeria

Lovely

More

Uyo,Nigeria

Uyo the capital city of Akwa ibom state is blessed with good road network and has been a bright spot in the otherwise doomed city's across the oil rich Niger delta, plague with bad roads and underdevelopment.

Uyo street lights had fallen into disrepair due to vandalism and lack of maintenance.
But state government decided to change all that by making Christmas 2019 memorable, it has lined up lots of activities to celebrate Christmas some of which includes the Guinness book of world record winning 9,999 Christmas Carol a gathering of the largest Carol singer's on earth, that's a yearly attraction in uyo,
The Christmas village and many shows and events to spice up the season.

The one that gives resident of the state much joy is the restoration of the street lights in the city, these has brought verve to the economic condition in the state as business are able to extend their operational hours into the night there by enhancing income,
The city is much safer with lighting and the spirit of cheerfulness is palpable in Uyo,Nigeria.

More images of the sculpture.
All images courtesy of the artist https://www.instagram.com/victorekpuk/

On November 24, Victor Ekpuk’s The Face, a 17-feet high painted stainless steel sculpture, was unveiled at the The Arab Bank Corporation world corporate headquarters in the Diplomatic Area of Manama, Bahrain. The work which was commissioned by the bank is currently the largest outdoor sculpture in Bahrain, a country known for its cosmopolitanism and ethnically diverse culture.

According to the artist, the sculpture was “inspired by portraits of Bahrainis in traditional attire, wrapping themselves with their identity and pride”. Ekpuk, renowned for his large-scale, glyph-like paintings and installations that explore memory and identity, re-imagines graphic symbols from diverse cultures to form a personal style of mark making that results in the interplay of art and writing. As he has done over the years with the exploration of nsibidi and uli graphics indigenous to south-eastern Nigeria, he taps into the unabashed display of Bahrahani culture to create a large-scale representation.


The sculpture was unveiled as part of a ceremony to launch The Arab Bank Corporation’s digital mobile-only bank, and is the first time Ekpuk’s work is shown in the Gulf region.

No stranger to large-scale sculptures, the internationally recognised Nigerian-American artist has been awarded several commissions across the United States, including “Hope and Dream under Glory”, a 20-feet metal sculpture commissioned by Washington DC city government. He has works in collections of Smithsonian National museum of African Art, Smithsonian National museum of African American Culture & History, Brooks Museum, The World Bank, Newark Museum, Hood Museum, Krannert Art Museum, United States Art in Embassies Art Collection.
https://thesoleadventurer.com/victor-ekpuk-creates-largest-outdoor-sculpture-in-bahrain/

This is commendable, wike has tried for PH.
I did my NYSC in ph good times! Love Port Harcourt.

The roads used to be terrible, good to see the improvement.

MetaPhysical:
Where did you read that Ugboma was first commissioned officer? Please share the source.

Don't mind the purveyor of fake history.

Revisionist historian! Stop lying and tell us the fake ugboma military Number?
Everyone knows that the first commissioned officer in Nigeria and British west Africa was Lt Wellington Bassey NA1, WA1.
You can fool some people with your fake historical opinion but the fact about Nigeria army is well documented.

Ugboma is not known to Nigerian history of commissioned officers.

When a project is jinxed it starts changing hands.

Exxon Mobil was supposed to build this plant since late 1990s they kept dragging foot until agip plant that started at the same time was completed Mobil was still at front end engineering design stage.

Lately they sold it to Qua ibo power plant limited QIPPL a consortium owned by black rhino and Dangote group. With Emir of kano Sanusi as chairman of QIPPL.

This laudable project is doomed another way Mobil Exxon doesn't care about its operating base of Akwa ibom. They only take but never give back! SAD.

Nigerian energy sector's crippling debts delay next power plant

Alexis Akwagyiram, Paul Carsten
LAGOS (Reuters) -

Plans to build another privately-financed power station in Nigeria to help end decades of chronic blackouts have been delayed because of concerns about persistent shortfalls in payments for electricity across the sector.

The $1.1 billion Qua Iboe Power Plant being developed by energy infrastructure company Black Rhino and the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation won’t get a green light by the end of 2018 as planned and it was unclear when the deal might close, NNPC told Reuters.

The delay is a setback for Africa’s biggest oil producer where 80 million people don’t have access to grid power supplies and it exposes the difficulties in attracting private investment to a sector that successive governments have tried to reform.

The uncertainty surrounding the 540-megawatt Qua Iboe plant stems from the difficulties Nigeria’s first privately-financed independent power project - the 460-megawatt Azura-Edo plant - has encountered since it came online this year.

Azura was meant to be a model for a string of independent power plants financed by international investors. To give them confidence to invest in the first major plant since the power sector was privatised in 2013, the World Bank provided a safeguard known as a partial risk guarantee - meaning the lender would step in if Nigeria defaulted on payments.

Under the current system, the government-owned Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading company (NBET) buys power from generators and passes it on to distributors who then collect money from customers and reimburse NBET.

But because NBET is not paid in full for the power it buys, generators such as Azura have been partly reimbursed from an emergency central bank loan fund created to keep the sector afloat.

NNPC told Reuters one of the reasons the Qua Iboe plant (QIPP), which is due to be built in the southern state of Akwa Ibom, had been delayed was because NBET appeared reluctant to commit to new projects to avoid increasing its liabilities.

“The continued delay relates to the current cashflow challenges at NBET, as highlighted by the Azura project,” a spokesman for NNPC said in an emailed statement. “This concern is justified by the fact that NBET is yet to see an improvement in collections from DISCOs (distribution companies).”

NBET did not immediately respond to a request for comment on NNPC’s statement about QIPP.

NBET chief executive Marilyn Amobi told Reuters in November that it was hard for the company to work because of poor infrastructure and shortfalls in cash from distributors needed to reimburse generators.

“You don’t have the infrastructure, you don’t have the financial position to do it, you don’t actually have the products, and you don’t have the grid,” she said.

ADVERTISEMENT


WORLD BANK CONDITIONS
NNPC said another problem for QIPP was that the World Bank had made a partial risk guarantee, similar to the one that helped Azura attract investors, contingent on the government’s implementation of an agreed power sector recovery plan.

“In theory it is okay, but the risk is there are delays in the approvals which may impact QIPP,” NNPC said.

Power ministry officials and the World Bank have been in talks about long-term structural changes needed to trigger the release of a $1 billion loan to help pay for reforms.

A World Bank spokeswoman said the loan had yet to be submitted to its board for approval and that the Washington-based lender considered the recovery plan to be “critical for de-risking the sector for private investments”.

Problems that need to be tackled include decaying infrastructure, mounting debts, low tariffs for electricity and a dilapidated government-owned grid that would collapse if all the country’s power generators operated at full tilt.

Even though NBET has an agreement to buy 13 gigawatts (GW) from power generators, the system can only cope with distributors sending out an average of 4 GW, according to the ministry of power.

The World Bank spokeswoman confirmed any future guarantees for independent power plants (IPPs) would be linked to the plan’s implementation - because the economic and financial viability of generation capacity expansion was at risk.

A spokeswoman for Black Rhino, which is one of private equity firm Blackstone’s portfolio companies, declined to comment on NNPC’s announcement of a delay to QIPP.

When the project was unveiled, Nigerian cement giant Dangote Group was named as a joint venture partner - along with Black Rhino and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

But a Dangote executive told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the company, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, had pulled out.

“The huge debt level, and, the fact the IPPs are not making profits, is another reason for prospective investors to be deterred,” he said. “Further, collecting revenue from the distribution companies is also becoming a mirage.”

A Dangote Group spokesman declined to comment on the delay to QIPP, or whether the company had pulled out.

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‘ILLIQUID AND INSOLVENT’
The payment problems in the Nigerian power sector were thrust into the spotlight in March when four generating companies filed a lawsuit against the government and Azura.

To ensure the generating companies were paid in full throughout 2017 and 2018, the government created a 701 billion naira ($2.3 billion) loan fund at the central bank to guarantee payments. When the fund was established in 2017, Azura wasn’t part of the calculations.

But when Azura started producing electricity, the fund was also used to pay the new plant to ensure the terms of loan deals guaranteed by the World Bank were not breached. As a result, the other companies were told they would only receive 80 percent of the sums owed, according to the lawsuit filed in March.

The four energy companies want the fund to reimburse them in full, rather than allocating part of the money to the new plant.

Azura declined to comment on payments for power generated.

“If the central bank wasn’t paying, the system would collapse,” an official at a multilateral lender said on condition of anonymity. “Qua Iboe IPP would enter a system that is illiquid and insolvent. The liquidity is being provided by the central bank.”

The official said QIPP would need the same partial risk guarantee Azura received to get off the ground, but the handling of payments to Azura by the Nigerian authorities so far meant there was little appetite to offer the same support.

Fola Fagbule, senior vice president and head of advisory at Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) - one of the multilateral lenders that invested in Azura - agreed that the Qua Iboe project would struggle without payment guarantees.

“What you have is an insolvent system,” he said. “It is really difficult to make a case for a project on that scale.”

A person with direct knowledge of QIPP who declined to be named said Azura’s experience was damaging international investors’ view of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.

“There has to be some understanding of how the sector is going to be able to afford new electrons coming into the grid,” the person said. “(Those involved) do not want QIPP to build a project that could just end up in a default


‘KNOTTY ISSUES’
Nigeria’s privatised power sector typically does not use meters to provide invoices, bill collections are low and energy tariffs have remained fixed for three years, meaning customers receive unsustainably cheap electricity.

The effect, say industry experts, is that electricity distribution companies recover so little revenue from customers that they pay less than a third of what they owe to generating companies - and that’s why debts have ballooned.

Sunday Oduntan, spokesman for the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, said debt levels in the sector were caused by the artificial suppression of tariffs. He said there was a 1.3 trillion naira ($4.2 billion) market shortfall that meant distributors were unable to invest in improvements.

“You cannot be selling a product below cost price and expect high remittance. The shortfall in the sector is because of the lack of a cost-reflective tariff,” said Oduntan, who speaks on behalf of Nigeria’s 11 electricity distribution companies.

Debts across the sector partly stem from a currency crisis that took hold in 2016, just months after Azura secured its financing. The bulk of power company costs are in U.S. dollars but customers pay for power in naira.

The naira lost about 30 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in June 2016 but the devaluation was not factored into a government tariff structure that has remained unchanged.

Louis Edozien, permanent secretary in the ministry of power, told Reuters there was evidence tariffs must rise, but it was also the responsibility of distributors to improve their collections, partly through better metering and infrastructure.

As for the future of QIPP, the state oil company said it would take six to eight months from whenever NBET executes an agreement to purchase power from the plant before a final investment decision could be taken.

The NNPC spokesman said there were a number of other “knotty issues”, including the completion of a transmission line from the project site. He said QIPP had now agreed in a major concession to pay $20 million for it to be finished.

He also said there was a disagreement between QIPP and the central bank about the exchange rate at which power producers could buy U.S. dollars with naira. He said this had been escalated to the minister of finance.

With the $1 billion World Bank power sector loan on hold for now, the government is considering putting another 600 billion naira into the central bank fund to pay generators when the initial amount runs out early next year, sources said.

It was not clear how the central bank loans to the sector would be repaid.

Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele told Reuters that payments from the fund could be made up to February and that the bank was holding


“The loan negotiations are still in progress with no terminal date yet fixed,” the power ministry’s Edozien said.

($1 = 306.6000 naira


https://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFKCN1OK1JL-OZABS

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xH3gvAuep/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Here's a link for the video for the events at Christmas village via iniedo Instagram.

effty:
You talk as if Akwa-Ibom belongs to only charlatans like you. I am from Akwa-Ibom and I am also living here in Uyo. Talking about resources, how have we fared with the hefty allocations from the federation purse? Meanwhile, tell me those things that have been done to better the lives of the citizenry in the state with the massive unemployment ravaging the state.

Is that what you are, a charlatan?

Fairview1:
But wait ooo, People...

How will this help boost Akwa Ibom economy? Isn't this money spent on decorating the city not a waste? Why didn't they channel it into building a capital project?


Just my thought though.

?

GidiWoodsMan:
Oya chop 21-storey light na

Muumuu

Why so much hate?

[quote author=spirul77 post=84717928][/quote]Does Akwa Ibom have limitless resources?

poweredcom:
So sad nobody de that city to Rock there

Very dry ace notin de happen there

you were there to observe, yet there was nobody there! SAD

uuzba:
Is that so?
Are there jobs there? Not the one somebody will pack there now and end up broke, sleeping in that Christmas village on the floor.

Are they jobs in Nigeria?

At least in Akwa ibom in the past 4 years we can point to where jobs are created.
1)Kings flour mill onnaAKS 500tonnes of wheat processing .
2)jubilee syringe manufacturers. Largest producer of medical syringes in Africa with capacity for 400millon syringe per year.
3) electricity meter manufacturer onna Nigeria
4) lion plywood industries onna Nigeria
5) ibom airlines over 350 direct jobs and many more indirect jobs.
6) ibom integrated farms, a Songai farm initiative in onna
7) Ibom prime hatchery and poultry Uruan Nigeria
Itam industrial park with several SME factories including tooth picks, pencils, bulletproof doors, plastic mouldings, bamboo etc.
9) st Gabriel coconut and palm kennel refinery in eastern obolo.
10) All the general hospitals has been renovated and reactivated and digitalized with several new medical personnel employed.
This is just to mention a few not to talk of those employed for the construction companies that are working in different parts of the state.

How many jobs has Nigeria created in the last four years?
I have listed some of the jobs that the Akwa ibom state government has facilitated/created.

The vice president yomi Osinbajo has been in the state twice and personally opened 4 or 5 of this factories.