₦airaland Forum

Mr Gbenga Komolafe, Managing Director of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), said new equipment has been acquired by the commission to monitor every litre of oil taken from Nigeria.

According to Komolafe, the new initiative will create a paradigm shift in oil-related revenue generation in the country.

Komolafe disclosed this on Tuesday at an event organised by HEDA Resource Centre and Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch (CFTI).

The two-day programme two-day National Anti-Corruption Conference held in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital with the theme ‘Nigeria and the Fight against Corruption: Reviewing the Buhari Regime and Setting Agenda for the Tinubu Administration’ ends today (Wednesday).

It was attended by no fewer than 80 participants drawn from across the country, foreign countries along with representatives of institutional bodies.

The summit comes on the 20th anniversary of the African Union, AU Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption declaration which took place in July 2003.

Earlier at the event, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Femi Falana, said billions of dollars were being lost by Nigeria to oil theft and the refusal of oil companies to pay the total expected taxes amounting to billions of naira over the years.

Falana said such behaviours had failed to attract any sanctions.

He said Nigeria also failed to put a mechanism in place to determine how many litres of oil are taken from the country’s onshore and offshore.

Falana, while delivering his lead presentation on the theme: Effective recovery of illicit assets and blocking opportunities for Illicit Financial Flow; Role of international frameworks, Bodies, Courts and instruments in a context of new dispensation, described Illicit financial flow as a challenge for the country.

“Illicit financial flow is a challenge to Nigeria and the recent devaluation of Nigeria’s currency. Civil servants cannot live on their salaries which might draw them to corruption,” he said.

HEDA Chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, noted that there had been no reason to believe that there was going to be any serious fight against corruption given the experiences in the past years.

He said Nigeria’s hope is rekindled by the iron-cast will of Nigerians and the irresistible wind of change blowing against corruption across the world, which Nigeria cannot exempt itself from.

Suraju said there was a need to set an agenda for constructive CSO engagement with the new government in Nigeria to develop a framework for good governance.

President Bola Tinubu was tasked with the immediate need to decisively fight corruption to halt the country’s possible drift into a major economic crisis amidst reports that Nigeria loses about $60 billion every year to corruption.

HEDA observed that Nigeria with a debt portfolio of N77 trillion, inflation rate of 23 per cent, and GDP of 2.35 per cent coupled with unrelenting zeal for graft by public officials, the new government needs to take a bold step to block waste, stop corruption and recreate new public confidence to save the country from social crisis.

Some of the agenda set for the new government include fast-tracking the whistleblower law, paying backlog of royalties by oil companies, getting anti-corruption courts to speed up prosecution of corruption cases, and implementing the public procurement law.

The National Assembly was also charged to affirm Nigeria’s readiness to join the international Special Task Force on Corruption (SATF) to enable the efficient recovery of illicit funds.

Participants also listed the retrieval of billions of naira paid as oil subsidies in the past years, oil theft, public funds stolen by political actors and a significant cut in the cost of governance as some of the critical steps that Tinubu should take to save the country.

Represented at the event were Vice President Kashim Shettima, Inspector General of Police, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, National Security Adviser, Mr Nuhu Ribadu, the National Assembly, the Judiciary, Ministry of Interior and international partners, the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, the United States and Dutch Embassies, MacArthur Foundation, World Bank, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, labour, media and the civil society.

Ribadu expressed the commitment of the Tinubu-led administration to build the capacity of investigators, as part of efforts to enhance the war against corruption in the civil service and Nigeria as a whole.

Ribadu, who was represented by the Special Adviser, Legal Department, NSA, Anthony Oluborode, maintained that a cap would be placed on fiscal expenditures for the construction of government buildings and salaries related compensation, packages of elected officials, adding that such expenditure will have a low priority in the Tinubu-led administration and transparent.

A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the disclosure of the spending details of about USD$5 billion Abacha loot recovered by the governments of former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari.

The court ordered the government of President Bola Tinubu to “disclose the exact amount of money stolen by General Sani Abacha from Nigeria, and the total amount of Abacha loot recovered and all agreements signed on same by the governments of former presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari.”

The judgment was delivered last week by Justice James Kolawole Omotosho following a Freedom of Information suit number: FHC/ABJ/CS/407/2020, brought by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).

In his judgment, Justice Omotosho held that, “In the final analysis, the application by SERAP is meritorious and the Federal Government through the Ministry of Finance is hereby ordered to furnish SERAP with the full spending details of about $5bn Abacha loot within 7 days of this judgment.”

Plans by some critical stakeholders in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to draft former Senate President, Bukola Saraki to become the party’s national chairman and rebuild the party may have hit a brick wall.

The party has been experiencing internal crisis before, during and after the general elections. The party’s National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu was replaced with the deputy national chairman, (North), Umar Damagum in acting capacity after it lost the presidential election to the incumbent, President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Troubled by the state of affairs in the party, some of the critical stakeholders gathered last week in Abuja to brainstorm on how to bring the party back to relevance.

According to a reliable source, the stakeholders planned to bring Saraki as the chairman of the party, considering his clout, influence and reach in and outside the country.

“Though the critical stakeholders have not informed Saraki or the party of their intentions, some associates of the former Kwara State governor, who were privy to the plan, met on Tuesday in Abuja and moved against the plan.

“They contended that Saraki had brought the party back to life after persuading many former members who had defected to the APC to return to the opposition party. But they regretted that the immediate past leadership of the party had, because of their personal wars and vested interests, destroyed the party completely. They said Saraki should not be brought in to start laboring all over again,” the source said.

Saturday Sun also gathered that the party had not decided on what to do with the G-5 governors that contributed to the party’s failure in the presidential election, even though various organs of the party had been meeting to take a decision on the fate of the then governors.

Another source told the newspaper: “The party is meeting; the National Working Committee (NWC) has met, the Board of Trustees (BoT) has met. A special committee called the Select committee met penultimate week. It is expected that as these segmented organs have met, the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting would be called where decision on the G-5 governors and other problems bedeviling the party will be taken. But I don’t know when,” the source emphasised.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Debo Ologunagba, said the issue of bringing Saraki or not was in the realm of speculations, noting that the party could not make any comments on that. He said the party as an organization was not aware of any such plan.

How I manipulated my score —Chinedu

Chinedu Ifesinachi John, a 2021 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination candidate, who had planned to study medicine at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, also confessed that the fear that he might not be offered the programme of his choice with the score he had, propelled him to alter his UTME result. On further interrogation, he stated that he used the telephone number of his sister, Chinecheremi John Ifemkpa, and saved her number as ‘55019’ a sort code used by JAMB for official communications with candidates to create profiles, check UTME results among others. He added that he simply used the number to send the edited result from his sister’s phone to his own for it to appear as if it was sent by JAMB to substantiate his allegation of multiple results.

The journey of his confession was very interesting and dramatic. The first stage started with Chinedu alleging that in 2019, his JAMB score was tampered with as well as his 2020 UTME.

Chinedu, a son of a contractor, had through his lawyer, Barrister Akaiwe Ikeazor, petitioned JAMB alleging that the Board had tampered with his 2021 UTME result while praying that he should be allowed to take the UTME again. He claimed that the Board had issued him two results: the first reading 380, while the second one was alleged to have been 265.

The Board ignored his letter knowing that he was parading a manipulated result as the Board had already identified and flagged eleven candidates including Chinedu, who had manipulated their 2021 UTME results and forwarded same to the Vice-Chancellors of their chosen institutions. However, when his lawyer wrote a second letter and threatened to press for N1billion damages, the Board then felt that it was necessary for it to do the needful.

The Board therefore invited the candidate to come forward with his lawyer and substantiate his claims. Poised to make its investigation open and transparent to all stakeholders, the Board invited the Educational Correspondents Association of Nigeria, Public Complaints Commission, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the Nigeria Human Rights Commission, SERVICOM, representatives of security agencies, among others, to witness the proceedings to ensure that fairness and equity were done to all parties.

The Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, after listening to Chinedu’s lawyer and father, who had accompanied him to the Board’s Headquarters, gave the duo five minutes to meet privately with Chinedu to ask him to confess his manipulation of the result and if he does not and the truth is placed before him it will be too late as he would be handed over to the police.

The second stage of the drama unfolded after the recommended meeting with Chinedu and he had remained adamant. JAMB then asked him to present his evidence as he claimed that a text message was sent to him. When he showed the message on his phone, the technical team knew the message was faked as one of the security features was absent, a signature sign, featured by other messages that emanated from the Board’s 55019.

JAMB went further by calling for the history of its communications with Chinedu from the Telco number being used by Chinedu. The details of all messages sent to him were displayed from the creation of profile for registration up to the request for the result and what was sent to him. It was at this stage that his lawyer got a rude awakening to the futility of the case. Furthermore, it was in the course of the proceedings that it came to light that Chinedu must be one of those candidates thrown up by tutorial centres and when confronted with this fact, he confessed that he belonged to a tutorial group. The modus operandi of the group was to promise candidates all kinds of scores.

It was, therefore, owing to the refusal of the candidate to own up to his crime, that the Board, through its security instruments, had proceeded to establish, in the presence of all that the message sent to Chinedu came from a phone number saved as ‘55019’ which, as he later confessed, belonged to his sister who was also a UTME candidate.

A pensive and remorseful Chinedu pleaded guilty to the crime after he was confronted with the facts of what he had done as he pleaded for clemency. Chinedu had then turned towards his father, who had vowed that his son could not do anything untoward, “I’m so sorry for putting you through this embarrassing situation.

I was afraid I’ll not get the programme I wanted and had to do this, I’ve learnt my lesson.” He said, “In 2021, I decided to leave medicine and surgery for them. So I picked petroleum engineering. When the result came it was not what I expected. To ensure that I succeeded in getting the Board to reschedule me for another examination, I used my sister’s telephone number which I had saved as 55019, type the results that bore 380 and sent it to myself.” Chinedu, who had sat the 2019, 2020 and 2021 UTME, had disclosed that he had wanted to study medicine and surgery at the University of Ibadan in 2019 and 2020.

Baffled by the confession of his client, the lawyer said, “I am shocked and very embarrassed by this boy’s attitude. I had asked him several times but he kept telling me lies. This circumstance has further enhanced my belief in the credibility of JAMB as an institution and Prof. Oloyede as an epitome of integrity. However, I plead for mercy for my client.”

By Omeiza Ajayi & Joseph Erunke


Globally, success or failure in the examination is the criterion for future prospects. Too much emphasis is placed on paper qualifications without any thought of the ability of the individual to put into practice the knowledge he claimed to have acquired

In this respect, certificates are seen as means to an end. Thus, all means whether straight or crooked are employed to acquire them.

It has been revealed that the desperation by candidates for the high scores to enable them to study their dream courses at the university and pressure from their parents push them into falsifying their Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results. The culprits who were nabbed by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and confessed to falsifying their JAMB results also disclosed how examination syndicates which specialised in fake upgrade of results of candidates operated.

In the recent case, Miss Mmesoma Ejikeme, a student of Anglican Girls Secondary School, Nnewi, Anambra, sat for the 2023 UTME and claimed to have scored 362. On July 2 this year however, JAMB, in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs and Protocol, Dr Fabian Benjamin accused the girl of manipulating her UTME score from 249 to 362. Miss Mmesoma and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) have therefore engaged in accusations and counter-accusations over the authenticity of the candidate’s claim of scoring 362 in the 2023 UTME.

With the acclaimed 362 score, Mmesoma said she was the highest scorer in the examination as against the 360 reportedly scored by another candidate, Umeh Ukechinyere. JAMB said that based on its record, Miss Ukechinyere scored the highest mark in the 2023 UTME and not Miss Mmesoma.

In a video which has since gone viral on social media, Miss Mmesoma displayed a notification of a result slip containing the 362 score, which she claimed was generated from the JAMB portal. But the examination body has since disclaimed the document, saying it stopped using such format for result slips in 2021. Meanwhile, JAMB has announced the withdrawal of the candidate’s 249 score, and suspended her from taking the examinations for the next three years.


It’s unfair, it wasn’t my fault – Mmesoma

Explaining her role in the matter, Mmesoma said it was not her fault and that the three-year ban placed on her by JAMB was unfair. She said; “After our exams, I went to JAMB portal to get my result but it directed me to another server and that was where I printed that slip from. I did not go to any computer centre. The only SMS I sent to them was through the JAMB support system and there was no reply. After all said and done, I now saw that I got 249. Then I sent them a text message through the JAMB support system to know what really happened”.

On the three-year ban placed on her by JAMB and the withdrawal of her result, Mmesoma said; “I am sad about it because it was not my fault that I printed my result like that and they said that I forged it. It is not my fault. So, it is not fair for JAMB to ban me”.

Sources at the JAMB however said the operators of the portal from where she printed the fake result are already on the run and the security operatives are on their trail.


Why Mmesoma’s case was trending ——JAMB

Earlier, JAMB spokesman, Dr Fabian Benjamin said the examination body has nothing against Mmesoma as it has been dealing with such issues before now. He said the only reason the current incident has been trending was because Mmesoma consistently insisted that the fake result she paraded was real, despite being confronted with superior evidence of her original result.

“It is a very simple issue that if anyone looks at the document that was being paraded, you could see that there was a problem. We have a process, from registration, conduct of exam and result management. The result she paraded was last used in 2021. Even the address of the JAMB CBT centre on her slip was not complete. We send out complete addresses. Otherwise, how is a candidate supposed to locate his or her centre? We don’t have anything against this girl. The highest score is from the same Anambra and also Igbo. If you go to the internet, you will see very funny softwares on how to fake JAMB results for fun. They tag it for fun, meaning that it does not reflect in the database of JAMB. The software is JAMB fake results for fun”, Benjamin added.


I knew result Mmesoma was parading was fake——Chidoka, owner of the CBT Centre

But in what seems to be in defence of JAMB, Mr Osita Chidoka, Nigeria’s former Aviation Minister whose foundation owns the Computer Based Test (CBT) Centre where the embattled Ejikeme Mmesoma sat her Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), has spoken up on what he knows about the controversies surrounding the result obtained by the candidate. Mr Chidoka raised some questions that suggest that the candidate’s paraded score is fake.

In an opinion piece he wrote, Mr Chidoka said: “Miss Nmesoma Ejikeme took her 2023 JAMB at my foundation’s Computer-Based Testing (CBT) Centre at Obosi. I got some calls from worried friends about Nmesoma’s result, which had Thomas Chidoka Center as her examination centre. I allayed their worries that the result issue had nothing to do with the examination centre.

“I observed two significant red flags when I saw her result online. First, our centre is no longer addressed as Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development on the JAMB portal since 2021. The correct name on the JAMB portal and Main Examination Slip is Nkemefuna Foundation (Thomas Chidoka Centre for Human Development). Due to the difference in our CAC registration details, JAMB insisted we change to Nkemefuna Foundation with Thomas Chidoka in a bracket as an identifier. We implemented the name change in 2021. Her result showing Thomas Chidoka without the Nkemefuna Foundation, which was on her Main Examination slip, raised my suspicion about the genuineness of the result. The second red flag was the result template. A cursory review of some of those who took the last examination at our centre showed a different result slip template with the candidate’s passport picture, JAMB watermarks, and no mention of the name of the examination centre. I gave the young Nmesoma the benefit of the doubt and waited to see if she would explain how she got the result, which is obviously not the result template that Jamb used in 2023. I knew it was fake”.


We’re considering prosecuting Mmesoma, others —JAMB

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB has said it was considering prosecuting all those who forged its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, to serve as deterrent to people with intention of faking its results in future.

JAMB particularly said the issue of Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme, the Anambra schoolgirl, who scored 249 but manipulated it to 360 and one Atung Gerald from Kaduna, who never participated in the 2023 UTME but forged the result and scored himself 380, will not be swept under the carpet.

Although the board said it has concluded its investigation on Mmesoma, it said it would only act when investigations being handled by independent investigative agency it involved in the matter was released.

Spokesperson of JAMB, Fabian Benjamin who said this on Friday, ruled out sole involvement of Mmesoma in the unwholesome act, noting that she may have been assisted by some dubious elements to perpetuate the act.

“Mmesoma is actually a teenager, that is our challenge now but the security agency involved in her case is profiling her. We suspect she might not be the original initiator of the act. Whoever is behind it will be exposed and prosecuted appropriately with others found involved in similar act. We found a case of one person in Kaduna State who did not obtain UTME document at all and did not write our examination but he went somewhere, forged result and scored himself 380 and he was being celebrated before we exposed him, this character will also be prosecuted, “he said.


Culprits’ confession

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) smashed a syndicate which specialized in fake upgrade of results of candidates that took the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). The syndicate had opened a WhatsApp account to trick gullible candidates who wanted to increase their score in order to have undeserved advantage. Parading a kingpin and agent of the syndicate in Abuja, the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, said the culprit was arrested during a courtesy call by a delegation of Public Complaints Commission (PCC).

The JAMB Registrar said the suspect named Adah Eche sat the 2019 UTME and scored 153 but decided to engage an examination syndicate to increase his scores. The suspect who doubled as a middleman for the candidates seeking higher scores collected huge sums of money from these candidates for onward transmission to the syndicate. The Board got overwhelming evidence of payments and banking transactions in connection with result upgrades during his interrogation as well as other documents.

According to Prof Oloyede, “following the complaint by the candidate and the visit to PCC, we decided to pick his letter of complaint and two others to address their issues and he happened to be the first person we picked and he actually wrote a letter of complaint to us knowing full well that he faked his result.

What we did was to invite him to come and pick his admission letter and he came. What such people do not know is that we have a bar code for every result which helps us verify its authenticity but this fake one has the barcode of a supermarket and was reading invalid barcode on our own platform.

“We have checked our own platform and seen that he has checked his result three consecutive times via 55019 and was replied same number of times with his original result which is 153, yet he insisted that he did not know the one with 290 was fake.”

Prof. Oloyede said the suspect owned up to the crime when confronted with overwhelming evidence of his criminal acts and printout of faked 200 score for himself, before the purported upgrade to 290 which he claimed to have originated from JAMB result checker code “55019”.

Detailed investigation revealed that Mr. Adah Eche was not alone but had been patronised for possible illicit upgrade and faking of result by some candidates whose names, registration numbers were made available to us by Mr. Eche. The Board therefore withdraws and invalidates the results of the four candidates found to have been involved in the illicit attempt to fake JAMB result.

Also, on July 4 2019 JAMB apprehended one Cletus Kokowa for ‘upgrading’ his Unified Tertiary Matriculation Board (UTME) score from 162 to 206 with the aid of a fraudster. Kokowa with candidate registration number 95329290ED became the second candidate to be apprehended with the aid of an intelligence gathering mechanism deployed by the Board after Adah Eche was apprehended for a similar offence the previous month.

Kokowa confessed before the Management of the Board that he paid ten thousand naira (N10, 000) to an examination syndicate to upgrade his score after contacting them through a WhatsApp group a few weeks earlier. The syndicate had informed him that his score could be upgraded from 162 to 206. He added that the fraudsters later sent a fake result screenshot depicting the new score of 206 to him.

During investigation, he said, “those guys sent a mail to me that they could help me upgrade my score. I then sent them my registration number and email. When the results were out, they sent a screenshot of 206 which they claimed was my score. Then, one of them called me asking me to pay them their money. I later went to JAMB website to check and found my score was still 162. I was confused. I had heard that upgrading scores is impossible, an attempt to do it is an offence but I didn’t really believe it. I didn’t tell my daddy and my uncle about my dealings with the syndicate.”

However, when Kokowa’s result remained unchanged, in the JAMB portal, his father wrote a letter of complaint to the Registrar, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, stating, inter alia, that, “I am craving your indulgence to quickly rectify the score to place my child on good stead to secure admission in his second choice of institution because your inability to swiftly address the issue at hand has led to forfeiture of my son’s Nigerian Defence Academy admission opportunity”. The Board subsequently invited Kokowa who came with his uncle, an army officer. After investigations, he confessed to the crime and was handed over to law enforcement agents.

The Registrar said, “One of the popular claims candidates usually make is that JAMB issued two different UTME results to them. It is not true because their results were processed using cutting-edge information and communication technology tools. When this boy came with his complaint, we applied to appropriate quarters to furnish us with his records and it was discovered that he had contacted fraudsters who gave him a fake result. In fact, what we discovered was that the result given to him was a superimposition of another candidate’s result on his own”.


Son of Professor of Medicine nabbed

Another candidate, Kingsley Unekwe, son of a Professor of Medicine in one of the leading Nigerian universities was nabbed by the Board for tampering with his UTME result. Unekwe has petitioned JAMB that he had been issued two different results and was subsequently invited to come and substantiate his claim. The Board, through its instruments and findings, was able to establish, in the presence of his mother, that Unekwe had tampered with his UTME result.

The young man thereafter confessed that he had contracted a ‘result upgrade’ syndicate to falsify his result. As a result, his original score of 201 was jerked up to 269. This he did to enable him pursue his dream of studying medicine at the university.

When asked as to why he engaged in the nefarious act, he claimed it was the pressure from his parents that he should study medicine that forced him to seek ways of falsifying his score as the original score from JAMB would not get him into medicine. Unekwe pleaded guilty, feigning ignorance of the seriousness of his crime and asked the Board to forgive him for his action.

Unekwe was the fifth candidate to be apprehended by the Board for result falsification.

Ayodele Oluwafemi


Adamu Bulkachuwa, a former senator, has filed a suit at the federal high court in Abuja, seeking to stop the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) from investigating him.

On June 10, the former senator, while speaking at the 9th senate valedictory session, said Zainab Bulkachuwa, his wife, used her position as a judge to favour his colleagues in the red chamber.

Zainab, a former president of the court of appeal, was the first female to hold the position.

Bulkachuwa’s comments sparked outrage, with many Nigerians calling for investigations into his claim.

However, the former appeal court president had denied Bulkachuwa’s claim, saying she never compromised her office on partisan grounds.

Owing to the development, TheCable understands that the ICPC has commenced an investigation and invited Bulkachuwa for questioning.

Bulkachuwa was scheduled to appear at the ICPC office on July 6 but he filed a suit to stop the invitation before the scheduled date.

It was learnt that the counsel of the former senator had given the commission a commitment that his client would honour the July 6 date.

In a suit filed on Monday, Bulkachuwa asked for the court’s declaration that the commission’s invitation is “ultra vires, illegal, arbitrary, oppressive, unconstitutional and a gross violation and a likelihood of continuous infraction of the applicant’s fundamental human right as guaranteed by sections 34, 35, 36, 37, 41 and 46 of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)”.

He also asked the court to interpret section 1 of the legislative houses (Powers and Privileges) Act 2017, which confers immunity on him from any civil or criminal litigation in respect of any utterance he makes on the floor of the upper chamber.

“A declaration that the applicant is entitled to freedom of speech/expression by Section 39(1) of the 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria (as amended) and as exercise by his other senators’ colleagues and having not been so afforded by the leadership of the ninth (9th) senate, cannot be held liable for the unintended inference of an inchoate speech/statement/expression,” the suit reads.

“An order of perpetual injunction restraining the respondents jointly and severally, particularly the 4th respondent (ICPC), acting directly or indirectly through their agents, officers, privies, assigns and any other persons by whomsoever or however constituted from inviting, harassing, intimidating and/or compelling the applicant to appear before the respondents pending the hearing and determination of suit no: FHC/ABJ/CS/895/2023 at the Federal High Court, Abuja.”

Those joined as respondents in the suit are: attorney-general of the federation, the clerk of the national assembly, Department of State Services (DSS), the ICPC, and Nigeria Police Force.

Police operatives from the Gender Section of the Lagos State Command have arrested four 17-year old boys, who allegedly conspired and gang raped a 16-year old girl, recorded their various sex actions and uploaded same on the social media.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that the boys, Taofik Jimoh, Oduyebo Samson, Adegoke Oluwatimileh and Adesanya Aduragbemi, have been charged before the Court over their alleged conduct.

The incident happened on 3rd June, 2023, at Oshikomaya Street, Ikosi Ketu area of Lagos State.

They were alleged to have lured the girl into the apartment, forcefully removed her clothes and had sex with her one after the other.

While they engaged her in the sex romp, they recorded their various actions with their mobile phones and uploaded same on WhatsApp platforms and tiktok social media.

Having satisfied themselves, they allowed her to go but warned her not to tell anyone about it and threatened to deal with her if she reveals it to anyone.

However, the girl was unable to bear the trauma and she revealed what happened to her parents. The matter was reported to the Police and they were arrested. They were later transferred to the Gender Section of the Command for interrogation over their alleged conduct.

After thorough interrogation, the Police found them culpable and subsequently charged them before the Ogba Magistrate Court for defilement, which attracts several years of imprisonment or life imprisonment.

The Court did not take their plea when they were arraigned after the prosecutor, Supol Akeem Raji, asked the Court to refer the matter to the DPP for legal advice and directed the prosecutor to duplicate the file and send it to DPP.

The matter was adjourned for mention for the report of the DPP’s advice to be available, which will determine if the matter will be transferred to the High Court or not over jurisdiction.

P.M.EXPRESS gathered that the matter may likely be transferred to the High Court for defilement if the DPP’s report finds them culpable and recommends their trial despite their age in line with the Criminal Laws of the State.

By Ademola Olonilua


Doctors were shocked after discovering that a Singapore man’s throat discomfort was caused by an eight-legged mollusk that had become stuck in his gullet.

The unnamed patient had reportedly first realized something was awry after he started vomiting following a meal that included the cephalopod.

The diner also had trouble swallowing, prompting him to pay a visit to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital, nypost.com reports. Doctors conducted a CT scan, which revealed a super-dense mass in the man’s esophagus.

A subsequent esophagogastroduodenoscopy — a gastrointestinal examination involving a small, flexible tube — showed a tentacled octopus lodged two inches from the esophagus-stomach border like something out of Ridley Scott’s “Alien.”

After initial attempts to push or extract the interloper were unsuccessful, medics navigated the endoscope past the octopus into the stomach and retroflexed it.

They then used forceps to grasp the critter’s head and remove it from the patient. Thankfully, the patient recovered well following surgery and was discharged after two days.

Apparently, food obstructions are among the most common problems encountered at the hospital, per the facility’s physicians, who say items will pass spontaneously in 80% to 90% of cases.

Meanwhile, endoscopic intervention is necessary in 10% to 20% of cases, while 1% of them require surgery.

“The ‘push technique’ is the primary method recommended with high success rates, however applying excessive force can cause esophageal perforation,” said the medical team.

Unfortunately, this is far from the first time a cephalopod has gone down the wrong pipe.

In 2016, a 2-year-old boy in Wichita, Kansas, had to be hospitalized after getting an octopus lodged in his throat during an apparent sushi session gone awry.

Meanwhile, approximately six people die a year from eating sannakji, the live octopus dish that’s a delicacy in South Korea.

Fatalities are generally caused when the suckers adhere to the sides of the diner’s throat, causing the victim to asphyxiate. This risk is heightened when the tentacles are cut longer or the critter is eaten whole, generally as part of a soju-inspired stunt.

A consultancy deal orchestrated by Zainab Ahmed, former minister of finance, budget and national planning, is raising eyebrows in the power sector, with several insiders telling TheCable it is “illegal” and “a waste of public funds”.

To execute a Make-up Gas Reprocessing (MUGR) deal, the ministry appointed a “transaction adviser” in an arrangement that some fear might land the federal government in legal challenges.

Make-up gas (MUG) is the gas a power generation company (GenCo) has already paid for but has, for one reason or another, not utilised during the year.

A gas supply agreement (GSA), a bilateral transaction executed by a GenCo and a gas supplier, spells out terms for a review of the clauses.

Ahmed had proposed that Nigeria could covert the MUG to liquified natural gas (LNG) and export to earn revenue for the federation.

She sought and got the approval of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

However, there are now questions as to the involvement of Ahmed Zakari & Co, an accounting firm, as transaction advisers in what is purely a bilateral agreement between Calabar Generation Company Limited (Calabar GenCo) and Accugas Ltd.

Calabar GenCo is owned by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), which belongs to the three tiers of government, while Accugas is a private company.

“Accugas and NDPHC were already discussing the extension of the sunset date for the utilisation of the MUG without the involvement of any consultant or adviser. Both parties subsequently executed an addendum to the GSA that provides for the MUG to be utilised within seven years,” an official of the ministry of finance told TheCable.

“The implication is that at the time Zainab Ahmed executed the transaction agreement with Ahmed Zakari & Co in September 2022, they all knew that there was really nothing for the firm to do, beside being paid for doing nothing.”

TheCable could not confirm the exact fees Zakari & Co is being paid but sources said it is dollars.

According to an industry insider who spoke with TheCable, “The standard practice with respect to the utilisation of MUG is for the buyer to contact the seller and for both contracting parties to negotiate alternative durations for the utilisation of the MUG. This is necessary because it is gas that the buyer has already paid for. There is usually no requirement for a third party to get involved. Indeed, because the GSA is a bilateral agreement, it will cease to be so if third and fourth parties get involved.

“What would usually happen is for the two parties to concede doing one of the following or both: one, renegotiate the take-or-pay quantity upon which the GSA was executed or, two, extend the sunset date for the utilisation of the MUG.”


CURIOUS CONTRACT

Moyi Dahiru, then special assistant on power to Ahmed, had led the discussions with the power sector stakeholders to discuss the MUGR proposal early 2022.

In attendance were officials of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) Plc, NDPHC Ltd, Accugas and Azura.

An official of the ministry of finance told TheCable: “Azura made it clear to Mr Dahiru that they do not have any business with the MUGR, particularly because the government is not a party to the GSA.”

However, NDPHC — which manages the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), including 10 GenCos — did not raise any objections, reportedly because it did not want to upset ministry officials who process the payment of the gas invoices every month.

In February 2022, Ahmed secured an approval from Buhari to retain the accounting firm of Ahmad Zakari & Co as the transaction adviser.

This became effective from September 5, 2022 when the firm signed the agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), represented by the ministry of finance.

“Ahmad Zakari & Co’s agreement is of no effect, but money is being paid to the firm for doing nothing,” an official of the ministry of finance, who declined to be named for fear of victimisation, told TheCable.

“The truth is that top government officials usually connived with some of the principal members of staff in the Presidential Villa to mislead Buhari into signing all kinds of things, including appointments for the most unqualified persons and dubious payments.”


‘PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL’

On May 24, 2023, Aliyu Ahmed, the permanent secretary in the ministry of finance, wrote a letter to Total Energies with the title ‘Make-Up gas re-purpose transaction, conveyance of extracts of presidential approval of global framework transaction’, conveying the directive of the government on the treatment of the MUG by GenCos.

The make-up gas belonging to Calabar GenCo is under the MUGR.

“If I were to advise President Bola Tinubu, he should direct the ministry of finance to stop all payments to Ahmed Zakari & Co and ask the ministry to submit a report of the payments that have been made to the firm so far and for what purposes,” an official said.

“President Tinubu should ask for all the agreements under this MUGR and demand a copy of the addendum which the Accugas executed with the NDPHC that extended the sunset date for the utilisation of the MUG to seven years.”

TheCable has contacted the media office of the former finance minister for comments.

TheCable understands that Dahiru has been putting pressure on Calabar GenCo to execute the deal since he left office with the former finance minister.

The economy is in a bind, inevitably spurring the call by the Tinubu administration for sacrifice on the part of the citizenry to pull the nation out.

On his inauguration day, President Bola Tinubu removed subsidy on petrol that had cost the nation trillions of Naira as part of the sacrifice.

He has since followed up with the merging of the multiple foreign exchange rates, a situation that has led to the depreciation of the Naira at the official window.

The implication is not lost on the citizenry who now have to cope with the attendant inflation.

And arising from the foreign exchange rates merger was the announcement last week that electricity tariff would go up as power distribution companies said the concession they were getting from the official window was gone and this would raise their cost of production.

The announcement has since been reversed but the hike is only a matter of time as the reversal came about because due process was not followed and the tariff had not been approved by the authorities

Also last week, indications emerged that vehicle owners will have to pay yearly for proof of ownership contrary to the outgoing era that makes the payment one-off in the life of a vehicle.

Other belt-tightening measures to free funds for government to meet its obligations may soon follow.

But amid the call on the citizenry for sacrifice to pull Nigeria out of the woods, many people are worried about jumbo cost of governance occasioned by what some call questionable budgetary allocations by government at different levels.

For instance, the Buhari administration made provisions of N11.92 billion for feeding and foreign trips of the President and Vice President in the 2023 Budget of the Federal Government which Tinubu and VP Shettima have now inherited.

A breakdown shows that N331.79 million would be spent on the President’s feeding while that of his deputy is N176.92m.

When put together, the nation would be spending N508.71 on food and refreshments for their President and VP at the end of the fiscal year.

Local and foreign trips for the President and his vice would cost over N3 billion.

N2.49 billion was earmarked for the office of the President while his deputy gets N846.61 million.

Also included are N1.58bn earmarked for aircraft maintenance and N1.60bn allocated for overhauling of Gulfstream GV and CL605 aircraft engines.


10 aircraft

Sunday Vanguard recalls that in the heat of the criticism generated by the huge budgetary allocation for aircraft maintenance during the Buhari administration, then spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, said there were 10 planes in the presidential fleet.

They include two AgustaWestland AW 139 helicopters, two AugustaWestland 101 helicopters, two Falcons 7X, one Hawker Sidley 4000, Boeing Business Jet, Boeing 737-800 or NAF 001, one Gulfstream 550, one Gulfstream V and one Gulfstream 500.

It could not be established if any aircraft was added to the fleet between when the former presidential spokesperson made the disclosure and now.

Economists argue that even rich countries like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) don’t feed their President and Prime Minister respectively, saying it is an anomaly for a poor nation like Nigeria to vote humongous funds to feed its leaders.

They also contend that very few countries across the world maintain as many as 10 planes in their presidential fleet as Nigeria does.

For instance, according to them, when the leaders of some of these countries use planes in the presidential fleet for personal purposes, they pay.

Nigeria’s bureaucracy is also seen as bloated, thus consuming a large chunk of government revenues.

For example, the National Assembly, NASS, in the 2003 Appropriation Act, was allocated N328.1 billion, the highest in 23 years.

A breakdown shows that the funds were tied to several purposes, with some still generating ripples.

One such is N16, 520, 653, 763 budgeted for Senators and members of the House of Representatives’ aides.

There is also N8.5billion for National Assembly liabilities, the details of which weren’t spelled out.

Also, N100 billion was approved for Zonal Intervention Programmes, ZIPs, otherwise known as Constituency Projects.

The money, which is for the 469 federal legislators, has been an issue of controversy as lawmakers are often accused of mismanagement of funds meant for such projects.

Only last week, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abass, appointed 33 aides, bringing the number of his appointees to 35.

Abass argued that the appointments would ensure effective delivery of his agenda for the House. The last occupant of the office had no fewer than 33 aides.

In 2016, a NAN report pegged the number of legislative aides at 2,570.

According to the National Assembly Act, each lawmaker is entitled to five aides.

The Act says the Senate President is entitled to 45 aides, his deputy 30 and 20 each for principal officers.

For the Speaker of the House, the Act provides 35 assistants for him, Deputy Speaker, 15, and 10 each for the six principal officers.

Consequently, there are fears that by the time Senate President Godswill Akpabio and other principal officers of the National Assembly finish appointing their aides, Nigeria’s leaders at the NASS level may end up having over 1, 000 aides.

Now add this to the cost of running the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at the federal level.

State level

Across the states, the situation is not entirely different as new governors have so far retained the bloated bureaucracy of their predecessors.

All these are happening in a nation facing a N77 trillion debt crisis.

Only recently, the Debt Management Office, DMO, warned the Federal Government against additional borrowing, saying 73.5 percent of revenue generated this year would be used to service debt.

According to the DMO, the projected FGN Debt Service to Revenue ratio of 73.5 percent for 2023 is high and cannot support higher levels of borrowing, and is also a threat to debt sustainability.

Consequently, it advised government to focus on increasing revenue generation.


Slim government

Some concerned Nigerians told Sunday Vanguard it would be wrong for the Tinubu administration to tell Nigerians to make sacrifices and still ignore the urgent need for reduction in the cost of governance.

The authorities, drawn from key sectors including the academia, however, suggested ways government can reduce the size of governance and plug leakages.

In an earlier interview with this paper, the Labour Party, LP, last Thursday, accused the ruling party at the federal level, the All Progressives Congress, APC, of showing early signs of continuing “the wasteful lifestyle” of its predecessor.

Acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, Obiora Ifoh, said it was an irony that the administration would ask Nigerians to “tighten their belts and make sacrifices” while living in opulence.

On his part, Chairman, HEDA Resource Centre, Mr. Olarenwaju Aregbabo, said there is no better time to reduce cost of governance but now.


Budget

Aregbabo said: “It is really a very serious issue that we must actually contend with. It is a concern. Unfortunately, we focus much on the Presidency, beyond what we also have at the state level. We have state governors who have allocations outside the security votes. At the federal level, apart from the budget for food in the President’s house, there is also an allowance given to the President and the Vice President to take care of whatever it is they have to take care of daily.

“In advanced countries, if a President is inviting anybody to lunch or dinner, it is from his or her pocket and not from the government purse. It is not for the President to create a situation where you have money going for everything.

“It is very important that we continue to bring this out in the open. A number of those who are meant to talk about this are not talking because they also benefit from it. So, for the few of us who are really concerned about it, it’s necessary that we keep raising questions.


Oronsaye Panel report

“As it is now, Nigeria cannot afford an increment in the salaries of public office holders, except government knows what most of us don’t know.

“I support to some extent, the implementation of the Oronsaye Panel report on merging of agencies. That is why many public servants can afford to stroll into the office and stroll out when they like. Most of them don’t have any purpose for being in the office. And, when you merge some of these agencies, they become better.

“There is a need for a complete and holistic assessment of the workforce in the country. The multiplicity of Ministries, Departments and Agencies creates room for ghost workers.

“There is a need to know the real cost of services because many parts of our budgets are heavily padded and this makes it possible for them to replicate what is in the budget every year without monitoring what was implemented and what was not implemented.

“If we can block the leakages and ensure that the services we pay for are needed, they will improve.’’


Wasteful spending

Making his position known, Executive Director of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, Auwal Rafsanjani, said: “If the new administration headed by President Bola Tinubu is committed to reducing the cost of governance in Nigeria, he must not repeat the mistake of wasteful spending and flamboyant governance in this country. We have suffered at the hands of some few political elites who have squandered the resources of this country at local, state and national levels. Therefore, if Tinubu is interested in reducing the waste and diversion of taxpayers’ money, he must cut wasteful spending.

“We expect that Tinubu will block those leakages and make governance more efficient by reducing the large number of unproductive political appointees. He must deal with this issue as quickly as possible so that government can deliver good governance to Nigerians. Doing this will make Bola Tinubu one of the best-performing Presidents.

“He has to minimize spending and make government effective as well as transparent. If he continues like the previous administration, it means there is no difference between him and the previous governments who failed to deal with these issues.

“For example, we do not need to have this flamboyant and large number of aides that are unproductive and without clear roles. Some state governments have thousands of aides. What we need is the creation of a viable economy and job opportunities for people to be gainfully employed. We have seen how a former Rivers State governor appointed several aides. Today, they have all lost their jobs. If he had used the resources to put in place infrastructure, create jobs, boost industrialisation and manufacturing, it would have been useful for Rivers State people and government.”


Unnecessary expenditure

On his part, Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law, NBA-SPIDEL, Dr Monday Ubani, said: “If we don’t change the idea of unnecessary expenditure on governance, we won’t have enough money to develop infrastructure. Currently, there is no standard road in Nigeria. One cannot take off from Lagos to the East on a smooth ride or Lagos to Abuja. The railway system is non-functional. There is no internet-connectivity. It is the same for electricity. The moment we don’t have money to make investments that would attract investors, we will remain where we are because the Dollar will always be higher than Naira.

“I thought this government would do something in terms of expenditure but I cannot see prudence. He has removed fuel subsidy, which has made prices of things skyrocket. The World Bank has also said that over 40 per cent of Nigerians will relapse into poverty due to the removal of subsidy. Our government has to be certain of what it does because a lot of people are living in abject poverty. Any position that has no relevance to our economic growth should be done away with.”

Economic analyst and Vice Executive Chairman, High Cap Securities Limited, David Adonri, said: “I am surprised that the cost of governance inherited by this administration has not been reduced and expenditure rationalised. If we intend to heal our economy or initiate a process that would enable it to recover quickly, the cost of administration has to be drastically reduced because policies that were recently introduced like the unification of exchange rate and removal of fuel subsidy are going to drive up inflation.


Financial stability

“The only means through which the Federal Government can manage the situation, especially as it affects its financial stability, is to reduce expenditure drastically. With inflation, government will have to pay more for a lot of goods and services. If expenses are not rationalized, government will go into debt, leading to an increase in economic deficit. The current administration needs to go back to the drawing board to see how it can cut costs in all areas.”

Lending his voice, a senior lecturer at Lagos Business School, Dr Austin Nweze, said: “Whatever thing a leader does is based on his personal value system. John Adams said there are two types of education: the first teaches a person how to make a living and the second teaches one how to live. The second type of education is based on one’s value system. If your value system is a life of opulence, it will show in your character, the same goes for being prudent.

“The government that we have is that of state capture, they are not interested in what happens to the economy and the well-being of the citizens. The cost of governance is high and people who invested in their elections want to recoup their money. To cut down the cost of governance, you have to invest it in health, education and entrepreneurship. Invest in those things that would generate wealth for the people, not what will take away wealth from the people. Currently, there is between 30 and 33 per cent adult unemployment and over 55 per cent youth unemployment. How does such an economy grow? By making sacrifices from the top, domestic production can be increased for the economy to take off. There has to be a deliberate attempt to revive the economy by cutting the cost of governance. The sacrifice has to come from the political class who live an ostentatious life or what I will also call a life of opulence.”


Don’t compound woes of Nigerians, CSOs warn

Meanwhile, some Civil Society Organizations, CSOs, who spoke to Sunday Vanguard, advised the current administration not to toe Buhari’s path.

Specifically, Convener, Nigeria Youth Coalition, NYC, and Yoruba Council Worldwide, YCW, Oba Oladotun Hassan, urged Tinubu to, as a matter of urgency, begin to stand by his campaign promises.

His words: “I will serve a strong note of caution that Mr. President shouldn’t go the same way his predecessor operated.

“And the reason we elected him is for him to heal our wounds. So, he should see himself as a healer, rather than adding more salt to our injuries. We need to reduce costs. The removal of subsidy is there and we are still bearing it because of his appeal for patience for us to be on the same page with him.

“He shouldn’t compound our woes. In as much as the out-gone President presented a budget, he should as a matter of urgency, review the budget as regards the cost of governance. ‘’

Also, the Convener, Concerned Nigerians, Deji Adeyanju, questioned why the President and political appointees spend so much money on things that do not improve the livelihood of Nigerians.

He said: “Nigeria is one of the poverty capitals of the world, which is very unfortunate. You saw the President’s convoy upon his return from London. Why should the President of the poverty capital be driving a 120-car convoy? It makes no sense.

“Why should we even be buying vehicles for politicians and civil servants in the country? Nigeria is too broke for our politicians to be living extravagantly. People are no longer going into public service for service. People are going into public service for luxury and leisure.

“Everything should be sacrificial. You should stop paying salaries to politicians. It makes no sense. We should not be buying official cars for public servants. Except maybe the Ministry of Health where they need an ambulance and police where they need patrol cars to chase armed robbers and the Ministry of Works where we should have heavy-duty vehicles to repair our roads”.

On his part, Professor, Williams Ijoma, said: “Nigeria’s present reality requires nothing short of a holistic reform of its governance structure, system and process. Such efforts must, of necessity, begin with drastic reductions in personnel and overhead costs. If we are to survive as a nation, we must turn this moment of profound crisis into an opportunity to make the hard choices we have long deferred but can no longer avoid.

“As part of the cost-cutting measures, federal and state governments should reduce the size of their cabinets through amendment of the constitution and limit the number of advisers and assistants. Bills pending before national and state assemblies seeking to set up new agencies of government should be rejected. The report of the Steve Oronsaye Panel should be revisited and strictly implemented.’’

On Monday, Garba Shehu, ex-spokesperson of former President Muhammadu Buhari, claimed that the last administration removed diesel subsidy.

Speaking on why the Buhari administration failed to remove the petrol subsidy while in office, Shehu said the decision was taken to prevent any form of insurrection that could cost the All Progressives Congress (APC) the 2023 elections.

In addition, he said other subsidies, notably diesel subsidy, were eliminated by the Buhari administration.

“The massive electricity subsidy. The fraudulent fertiliser subsidy. Hajj/Christian pilgrim subsidies. Remember them? The diesel subsidy. The aviation fuel subsidy. LPFO. Kerosene,” Shehu said.

“Cooking gas and the other subsidy policies we found in place, and put them firmly on the ground. Remember them?

“For those with short memories, many of those subsidies were all in place when President Buhari was elected to office in 2015: all those in place were gone by May 2023 — including the annual fertilizer subsidy that weighed 60-100 billion naira (that’s trillion naira (sic) in about 10 years — yes you read that right) heavy on the federal budget each year.”

Did Buhari’s administration remove the diesel subsidy as Shehu claimed? Here is what we found.


VERIFICATION

On June 20, 2003, the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo increased the prices of petroleum products.

Consequently, the price of diesel was raised from N24 per litre to N38 per litre, marking the deregulation of the fuel price.

However, the declaration made by Obasanjo, less than a month into his second term in office, was met with widespread condemnation by Nigerians.

The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) called a nationwide strike which was supported by Trade Union Congress (TUC), and civil rights groups, among others.

Furthermore, a September 2013 report by Chatham House, alluded to the elimination of subsidies for diesel in Nigeria during the Obasanjo regime.

According to the paper, titled ‘Nigeria’s Criminal Crude: International Options to Combat the Export of Stolen Oil,’ illegal refining in the Niger Delta was motivated in 2009, among other things, by the elimination of diesel subsidy during the previous Obasanjo administration.

“By most accounts, the Niger Delta has seen a boom in illegal refining since 2009 or early 2010. Likely reasons for this include a more permissive law-enforcement atmosphere following the federal government’s June 2009 declaration of amnesty for Niger Delta militants, the removal of subsidies on diesel during the Obasanjo presidency, and rising local demand,” the report reads.

Another report, released in May 2023 by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), maintained that the diesel subsidy was removed in 2003.

The report noted that fuel subsidies began in the 1970s and became institutionalised in 1977, following the promulgation of the price control act, which made it illegal for some products (including petrol) to be sold above the regulated price.

“Thirteen years after diesel was deregulated, kerosene subsidy was removed in 2016,” the PwC report said.

Speaking on the issue, Jide Pratt, country manager, Cotevis Energy, clarified that although the kerosene subsidy was removed during the Buhari administration, diesel subsidy had been scrapped since 2003.

“The administration that went to remove that was in 2003. They had been pondering about it since 2000. But what went on was that he kept on adjusting petroleum prices for the three petroleum products (petrol, diesel and kerosene).”

However, he said the increase of the diesel price — as against other petroleum products — was targeted at removing the product’s price ceiling.

“In 2003, the agreement was made that whether we like it or not, people should pay the full price for diesel,” Pratt said.

“In 2000, the policy was held back because a lot of farm produce was imported with diesel trucks. The point was that if you removed it, automatically, the cost of goods and services, inflation, would rise up. In 2003, it was eventually taken off.”


VERDICT

The claim that the Buhari administration removed the subsidy on diesel is false. It was scrapped in 2003 during Obasanjo’s tenure.

A suspect, Abdullahi Isa, has been arrested by the police for dehumanising, locking up and starvating his wife for nearly two years in Maiduguri Metropolitan, Borno State on Friday.

In a video seen and obtained by our correspondent shows a woman being carried into a waiting ambulance. When Daily Trust contacted the Women and Childrens’ rights activist, Comrade Lucy D. Yunana, who was seen in the video, she said the incident occurred in the Gwange Three Area of Maiduguri, the state capital on Friday.

She explained that Bulama of Gwange (3) took her staff to the suspect’s resident where the woman had been locked up for nearly two years.

“The suspect by the name Isa Abdullahi of Gwange (3) in Maiduguri Metropolitan Council is the husband of the survivor (name withheld).

We were informed that it was the neighbours that fed her, she has not been given food but most of the time neighbours usually sneaked in and give her food.

“Thankfully, our staff were conducting some awareness on SGBV in Gwange when Bulama of the area took our staff to the house where she was locked in and what they saw was indeed terrible and prompted us to inform the relevant authority to save the woman’s life.

“We went there along with the Zonal Coordinator of the Human Rights Commission, Barr. Jumai Mshelia and saw her in the room, what we saw in the room was in a bad and dehumanized condition. The man was arrested by men of the Gwange Division of Police and he is currently in the police station.”

Comrade Lucy added that she reach out to the necessary people and the woman has been taken to the hospital for treatment, the medics are currently working on her..

But the suspect, Isa Abdullahi claimed that they had seven children together but all are dead and her wife has been tormented by an evil spirit which was the reason he lock her up.

Parents and students of some universities across the country have cried out over the hike in school fees, saying the development could worsen their current economic pains and lead to mass students’ withdrawals, Daily Trust reports.

Many universities, both federal and state-owned, have issued releases on upward adjustments of registration fees for courses being offered with some of the increment spiking as high as 300%.

The development coupled with the harsh economic realities exacerbated by the recent removal of fuel subsidy and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) devaluation of naira, has compounded the woes for ordinary Nigerians in the pursuit of university education, parents and students said.

While the Students’ Loan Scheme provided for by the recently signed Students’ Loan Bill was seen as a trigger for this upward review of registration fees, educationists and other stakeholders have said the lack of clarity on how the scheme would benefit Nigerians has further complicated the process with wider implications.

Some parents who spoke to Daily Trust said they were already overburdened by the cost of feeding, transportation, energy, among others. Specifically, civil servants said their take home pay, which barely lasts a week, would not in any way cover the cost of funding the higher education of their children even if they dedicated everything.

Some students who sponsor themselves in schools by engaging in SMEs or menial jobs said from what they have seen so far in respect to students’ loan scheme, it would be extremely difficult for some of them to access the facility.

They, therefore, called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to first provide mitigating factors, revamp the economy before removing subsidy in the education sector to avert mass drop out by those who could not pay the fees prescribed by the schools they attend.

Ekpoma varsity students protest

Daily Trust reports that students of the state-owned Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Edo State, recently staged a protest against the nearly 300 per cent increment in the school’s registration fees, which they said now makes some courses in the school more expensive than what is obtainable in some private universities. According to them, law students are now expected to pay as high as N741, 500 as against N185, 000 paid in the previous year.

Similarly, they said medical students were now expected to pay N638, 000 as against N216, 000 based on the new increment. The students lamented the development, saying the state government had made it impossible for the indigent to go to school.

“What the management is telling us is that before a salary earner in Edo State could send his child to study law, he would have to work for 23 months before he can pay one level school fees for his child,” one of the protesters said.

Vice President, Inter-campus Affairs, Vanessa Egheahie, had said that should the state government refuse to revert to the old fees, NANS would move its headquarters to AAU to enforce the reversal.

Since the announcement, the school authorities have not spoken on the matter.

Unimaid too

In Borno, a cross-section of students and parents who spoke with our correspondents expressed concerns over the development while calling on school management to rethink considering the current harsh economic realities in the country.

For instance, when the University of Maiduguri introduced the new tuition fees earlier this year, some underprivileged students and parents raised concerns saying they could no longer cope.

Malam Yusuf, a student of the chemistry department in the institution said after several weeks of resumption, many of his classmates were yet to resume due to the hike in fees.

“It is sad that many of us couldn’t afford what the institution charges. In fact, I stopped calling some of my classmates because, what they always told me is mind boggling and you cannot help,” he said. He called on the federal government to prevail on universities to review the fees so that all returning students can complete their studies.

Another student who wouldn’t want to be identified corroborated, saying: “Despite the fact that the students union government called on students to be patient that negotiation was ongoing to see how the institution would review the fees, most of the students could not come back because their confidence had waned.

“We used to pay N39, 000 for registration but it is now N150, 000. It is incredible, who will give you this money in addition to the cost of accommodation, feeding, books and others? Many students would resort to fate and withdraw,” he said.

A concerned parent, Gwamna Mshelia, described the hike as unbearable while calling on the institution to reconsider its decision.

“Most of these students are from poor family backgrounds. So the university is just saying that education is not for the children of the poor in Nigeria,” he said.

Tanko Ahmad, the Public Relations Officer of the university had said that the management of the institution had done everything possible to simplify the registration procedure and easy payment.

“The Students Union Government (SUG) has contacted the institution that students couldn’t resume due to the hike. To ease the situation for them, the management asked them to pay in instalments, 60 per cent in the first semester and the remaining 40 in the second semester.”

‘There would be many dropouts in Kano’

In Kano, many parents and students fear the development could lead to an increase in the number of school dropouts, saying university education might have gone out of reach for ordinary Nigerians.

The Bayero University Kano last week announced in a special bulletin the increase in central registration fees and administrative and hostel maintenance charges for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

According to the new school fees, students of Nursing would pay the highest among undergraduates with N220, 500 (fresh) and N197,500 (returning) followed by those of the Faculty of Clinical Sciences (MBBS) and Dentistry who will now pay N170,000 (fresh) and N160, 000 (returning) and all students of education courses will pay between N137, 500 and N138, 500 for fresh students while returning students will pay between N132, 500 and N138, 500 depending on their course.

The least in the category are students from Faculties of Arts and Islamic Studies, Law, Management Sciences and Social Sciences who will pay N97,000 as returning while fresh students will pay N105, 000. Students from Faculties of Computer Science, Communications, Earth and Environmental Sciences will also pay N100, 000 as returning while fresh students will pay N110, 000 respectively.

Muhammad Suleiman, a recent graduate from Bayero University, Kano (BUK) said while he considered himself “lucky” to have graduated, the development meant that his friend and course mate, who had a spill over may end up without a university degree after over five years when months wasted through strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are factored in.

“If this had happened even in my final year, I do not think I would have been able to complete my studies because even with the last N38, 000 registration fees I paid, I knew what my parents went through to get it. For my younger ones that are still in secondary school now, we don’t even know what will happen to them.”

Similarly, Aminu Idris, a 200 level student, said three of them from the same father are now studying in the BUK and that he does not think their parents can afford to pay for them.

“No one would like to drop out of school for the other. The increment will make many of us dropout of school and the student loan that might be of help is till October, so there will be a massive drop-out. It is really sad.”

A guardian, Bilya Yaro Dawakin-Tofa said he may have to start looking for alternatives for his sister who is currently in 200 level in BUK.

“I found this increment as unfortunate. I can’t imagine paying for her and at the same time taking care of the rest of the family with my meagre income. “

Panic mood in Plateau, Taraba, Benue

Our correspondents report that there are strong signals over school fees increment by the next session at the universities in Plateau, Taraba, Benue, among others. For instance, at the University of Jos, what happened in other places has created anxiety among students and parents.

Although yet to be officially announced, information to that effect has been spreading recently, especially when the students were already in their last examination for the current session.

A 300-level Economic student who simply identified herself as Victoria, said she saw information shared on Twitter by a student, and that it was purportedly from the school’s Twitter account.

She said the message purportedly indicated that fees in their department had been increased from N45, 000 to over N100,000.

A parent, Ocean Omekpa, said he hoped that the proposed increment should just be mere speculation as things are just difficult.

Another student of Archaeology, Favour Achor, said she heard as well that in their department, the fee had been hiked from N45, 000 to N96, 000 from next session.

The Deputy Registrar, Information and Publications of University of Jos, Abdullahi Abdullahi, did not immediately respond to questions on the issue before press time, saying he was in a meeting and would revert.

In Benue, Gideon Ogaba, a 200 level Chemistry student at the Joseph Sarwuaan Tarka University Makurdi (JOSTUM) formerly known as the Federal University of Agriculture said his parents would find it difficult to cope with any increase in fees.

“Already, the economic hardship is taking a toll on families. My father’s salary has not increased so if they go ahead to hike fees, it would be difficult for me to continue.”

Similarly, a 400-level student of Benue State University (BSU), Nancy Ornguga, opined that any further increase of tuition fee would impact negatively on undergraduates.

A parent, Peter Duru, said angrily: “They want to kill us; that is what they are out to do. How can they start increasing fees at this time? How do they want us to cope? I have three children in the university; how do they expect somebody like me to cope? Is this government meant to kill us or to help us to grow as individuals or people?”

Similarly, students at Federal University, Wukari and Taraba State University, have expressed concern over planned tuition fee increase in universities.

A 200 level student of Federal University, Wukari, Gabriel James told Daily Trust that many students were already facing problems of feeding and accommodation, adding that if there is any increase in school fees, most students would not be able to afford it.

Similarly, a 300 level student at Taraba State University, Abubakar Dauda, said it was unfair for the federal and state governments to increase university tuition fees at this time when most families were unable to meet their daily needs.

But a vice chancellor of a federal university who spoke off the record said while they empathise with parents and students, they were also constrained.

“Running the universities is extremely expensive. Do you know that diesel alone guzzles over 70 per cent of the subvention coming from the centre? Do you know how much it costs to pay salaries of academic and non-academic staff? Do you know how expensive it is to ensure security on campus, logistics and others?

“I think while there is the need for the federal government to have other ways of easing the pressure on parents, universities should also learn some lessons on how to diversify so that we can collectively salvage the situation,” he said.

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has warned that implementation of the proposed hike in electricity tariff by power distribution companies may force more multinational companies to relocate their factories outside Nigeria.

President of MAN, Francis Meshioye, who gave the warning while speaking to newsmen, noted that some international manufacturing firms had already exited the country due to the harsh operating environment including power crisis, adding that any further hike in tariff would lead to an exodus of companies, and thus called on the government to reconsider the move.

Recall that various public notices from some of the electricity distribution companies, DisCos, had stated that the electricity tariff would be raised by about 30 to 40 per cent for selected categories of consumers with effect from July 1, 2023.

They have, however, backtracked on their earlier announcement of a tariff hike, stating that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had yet to approve the hike.

Meshioye stated: “In every system there’s always a core structure and this includes the elements that make up the total cost spent in generating your revenue. Now, what we experience as manufacturers is that energy cost is a major cost in processing our products.

“The downsizing of businesses in Nigeria, for instance, shows that businesses are not doing very well. So this power issue and other things have made some manufacturers, particularly international businessmen to relocate from Nigeria to other countries.

“Therefore anything to reduce this energy cost will be very beneficial both to manufacturers and the masses in general. So it (power) is a high cost to us, and a major driver in terms of cost. At the same time, it could lead to other things.

“It is one of the things that make some manufacturers to seek to move their business to another region and site their factories there. It is not the only reason, but, of course, it is one of the major ones.”
On other reasons that might make manufacturers to exit Nigeria, Meshioye said: “We have the unpredictability of the foreign exchange rate. In a business model, the more predictable the forex, the better you are. But the availability of the forex itself is another thing. All these are problems that border manufacturers.”

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed why he left Daura, Katsina State, for London.

Buhari said he left Daura for London because he wanted to stay in a quiet place.

He explained that visitors have been trooping to visit him while in his hometown of Daura.

A statement by Buhari’s ex-media aide, Garba Shehu, reads: “He chose to go home in Daura hoping to find the type of quiet he wished for himself, but realizing that this was not the case, visitors trooping in morning, day and night, he moved out to a more distant place.

“It remains his wish that he be allowed to have his needed rest, and for the Tinubu administration to have the right atmosphere to work on the realisation of the promises they made.”

Following the end of his administration, Buhari returned to his hometown of Daura.

However, the president had left Nigeria for London, after which, he met with President Bola Tinubu.

Reporters from three large news organisations have not been invited to cover a meeting of oil industry CEOs with energy ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The organisation’s secretariat typically gives accreditation to any journalist who wants to cover the meeting at their headquarters. This time, that opportunity wasn’t offered to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, according to Reuters.

The three media organisations are among the world's leading suppliers of financial news and information.

They compete to cover news in real time from events such as OPEC+ meetings, which can have a material impact on the price of oil and the global cost of energy.

The OPEC Secretariat, which oversees media accreditation, had issued invitations to some journalists to cover the OPEC-hosted July 5-6 seminar in Vienna, Austria.

OPEC sent an email on Tuesday inviting reporters at other media organisations to attend, the sources said.

Those included the Financial Times and trade publication Argus, as well as S&P Global Commodity Insights, known as Platts, the sources said. The communication stated that "this email serves as your personal invitation," according to a copy forwarded to Reuters.

However, reporters who normally cover OPEC from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal did not receive invitations, according to people familiar with the matter who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, includes top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. OPEC+ pumps more than 40% of the world's oil supply.

Reuters reports that OPEC declined to comment on why reporters from the three media organisations were not invited to cover the OPEC-hosted seminar.

"We believe that transparency and a free press serve both readers, markets and the public interest, and we object to this restriction on coverage," a spokesperson for Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO), said on Wednesday.

"Reuters will continue to cover OPEC in an independent, impartial and reliable way, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles."

According to the report, reporters at Reuters received an email on Tuesday stating that earlier accreditation was not an invitation to attend. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reporters received a similar communication, sources familiar with the matter said.

"We are very concerned by the prospect of OPEC excluding certain journalists, including from Bloomberg, from next week's seminar," Bloomberg News said in a statement.

"For the sake of market transparency, we strongly advocate for OPEC to allow journalists from relevant global news outlets to attend."

The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comment.

This would be the second consecutive OPEC+ event in which OPEC has restricted media coverage. The same media groups were denied access to OPEC's Vienna headquarters during a June 4 oil policy meeting.

OPEC gave no reason for excluding the three organizations from the previous policy meeting in June.

China’s woven fabric, women suits, fake hairs and other goods valued at N1.4 trillion ($1.95 billion) were ferried to Nigerian ports in April, 2023 as several interventions by the government to revive the ailing local textile industry have failed.

Findings by New Telegraph revealed that only $150 million goods were exported to China from Nigeria, lead- ing to a negative trade deficit of $1.95 billion out of $2.1billion trade recorded in April between the two countries.

Top imports from China to Nigeria are synthetic filament yarn woven fabric valued at $160 million; pesticides, $84.1million; non-knit women’s suits, $81.5 million; telephones, $67.2 million and fake hair, $59 million. It was learnt that none of the textile company have started production since Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention.

The apex bank had already complained that Nigeria lost over N1.65 trillion to the smuggling of textile goods annually, leading to the collapse of over 130 firms.

According to the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of the imports to Nigeria from the country were mainly from Guangdong Province, $544 million; Zhejiang Province,$452 million; Shandong Province,$242 million;

Hunan Province, $180 million and Jiangsu Province, $138 million, while Nigeria exports destinations to China were mainly to Fujian Province, $45.1 million; Beijing, $42.5 million; Zhejiang Province,$12.7 million; Guangdong Province, $10.7 million and Shanghai Province, $7.63 million. During the period, GACC noted that top imports of China from Nigeria were petroleum gas, $95.8 million; crude petroleum, $71.5 million;

niobium, tantalum, vanadium and zirconium ore, $13.5 mil- lion; zinc ore, $13.1million and raw aluminium, $12.6 million. Also, between April 2022 and April 2023, the exports from China to Nigeria increased by $409 million or 24.3 per cent from $1.69 billion to $2.1billion, while imports increased by $57.4 million or 62.3 percent from $92.1 million to $150 million.

Also, the increase in China’s year-by-year exports to Nigeria were products such as pesticides, $56 million or 199 per cent, synthetic filament yarn woven fabric, $37.9 million or 31 per cent and light synthetic cotton fabrics, $34.3 million or 1.46 per cent. It would be recalled some textile material valued at N63.6 billion ($132.51 million) were dumped into Nigerian market in 2020.

The imported materials, which include wool and woven fabrics, were shipped to the country from China. Also, the International Trade Statistic on Nigerian imports revealed $45 million wool and woven fabric were brought to the country in 2015, $29.8 million textile material in 2016, while the country took delivery of 2017, $22.12 million; 2018, $12.3 mil- lion and 2019, $23.16 million.

Worried by the influx of smuggled textile into the country, the Director General of the Nigerian Textile Employers Association of Nigeria (NTEAN), Mr Kwa- jaffa Hamma lamented that none of the moribund textile industries had been revived since 2017. It was learnt that the CBN had invested over N120 billion across the Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) value chain since the inception of its intervention programme in the industry with over 320,000 farmers financed between 2018 and 2020.

The apex bank had said that by 2020 output for seed cotton would be over 300,000 metric tonnes in oreder to enhance the production capacity of the ginneries in producing over 102,000 metric tonnes of cotton lint, which should meet and surpass the cotton lint requirement of the textile industry in the country.

However, the director general noted stakeholders in the textile and garment industries were already worried that government was putting more money into cotton production than the moribund textile industries they were supposed to revive. According to him, government’s intervention was supposed to be top-down and not bottom-top as currently implemented.

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The President of the State of Birland, HRM Dr. Emir Haiyawi, has appointed a Nigerian, Amb. Prof. Joseph Legend Mfon, FIMC, CMC, FIOGR, as the Minister of Environment of the State of Birland.

The President of the State of Birland issued the official decree for the appointment of His Excellency Amb. Prof. Legend on June 13, 2023, jointly signed by the Prime Minister, H.R.M Prof. Queen Eden Soriano Trinidad.

The State of Birland is Africa’s newest country and number 55th on the continent of Africa with a geographical location between Sudan and Egypt and a landmass of 2,060 hectares.

This humanitarian nation has received several endorsements and recognition by other countries.

Amb. Dr. Joseph Legend Mfon will by this appointment work towards representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the State of Birland; initiation and facilitation of strategic agreements; treaties and conventions; promotion of information; trade and commerce; technology, and friendly and bilateral relations with other countries.

The President of the State of Birland also stated that the policy on humanitarian diplomacy has been established to provide National Societies and the International Federation with a more effective framework for advancing their core objectives.

It is, therefore, an overarching policy, different from others in that it is designed to support the key messages of National Societies and the International Federation with greater visibility and influence, but not to change the substance of those messages.
The establishment of this humanitarian diplomacy policy is therefore complementary and supportive of all existing policies, programs and strategies of the International Federation.

The appointment will open series of bilateral ties between the state of Birland and other countries with the qualities, attitude and candour of the Secretary of Diplomacy.

The Government of the State of Birland is proud of having a Nigerian who is capable and highly skilled in such a sensitive office.

Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja, Nume Ekeghe and Ugo Aliogo in Lagos


The World Bank has disclosed that no fewer than four million Nigerians were pushed into the poverty trap in the first six months of this year, with another 7.1 million more expected to join the conundrum if properly targeted measures are not taken to manage the impact of fuel subsidy removal.

According to Washington-based institution, “compensating transfers will be essential in helping to shield Nigerian households from the initial price impacts of the petrol subsidy reform.”

The multilateral development institution which made the disclosure in Abuja, yesterday, during the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU), also stated that the recent removal of petrol subsidy and the foreign exchange (FX) reforms were critical steps towards addressing long-standing macroeconomic imbalances.

The reforms, it noted, have the potential to establish a solid foundation for sustainable and inclusive growth.

Dissecting the NDU, the World Bank Lead Economist for Nigeria and co-author of the report, Alex Sienaert, said four million more Nigerians were pushed into poverty in the first half of 2023.

Sienaert, who stressed the need for a new social compact to protect poor and most vulnerable Nigerians in the aftermath of fuel subsidy removal, noted that about 7.1 million more Nigerians would further slip into the poverty quagmire at the end of the year if the right incentives were not properly channeled to help poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

Commenting on the headwinds of the forex reforms, he observed a number of adverse consequences, including rising inflation and the increase of debt-to-GDP to about 46 per cent.

The June 2023 edition of the World NDU titled, ‘Seizing the Opportunity,’ acknowledged the recent major reforms initiated by the new administration under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, such as the elimination of the petrol subsidy and reforms in the FX market.

The report observed that the reforms were crucial to begin to rebuild fiscal space and restore macroeconomic stability, adding that they would lift Nigeria’s growth potential, with the economy expected to grow at 3.3 per cent in 2023, 3.7 per cent in 2024, and 4.1 per cent in 2025.

“While inflation will be higher in 2023, it will be lower in 2024 and 2025 if the right policy mix is sustained. Compensating transfers will be essential in helping to shield Nigerian households from the initial price impacts of the subsidy reform.

“Without compensation, many households could be pushed into poverty by higher petrol prices and forced to resort to coping mechanisms with long-term adverse consequences, such as not sending children to school, or not going to health facilities to seek preventative healthcare.

“To build on the immediate, major reforms, and seize the opportunity to rise to its potential, Nigeria still has other urgent choices to make,” the report said.

It stated: “In the first part of 2023, Nigeria’s economic growth weakened, and real gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell from 3.3 per cent in 2022 to 2.4 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) in Q1 2023.

“The challenging global economic context has put pressure on Nigeria’s economy. However, domestic policies play the major role in determining Nigeria’s economic performance and resilience to further external shocks.

“The previous mix of fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies, including the naira redesign program, did not deliver the desired improvements in growth, inflation and economic resilience.

“The new government has recognised the need to chart a new course and has already made a start on critical reforms, such as the elimination of the petrol subsidy and reforms in the FX market.

“With the petrol subsidy removal, the government is projected to achieve fiscal savings of approximately N2 trillion in 2023, equivalent to 0.9 per cent of GDP.

“These savings are expected to reach over N11 trillion by the end of 2025. However, compensating transfers will be essential to help shield the most vulnerable Nigerian households from the initial price impacts of the subsidy reform, as without compensation, many households could be pushed into poverty by higher petrol prices and have to resort to coping mechanisms with long-term adverse consequences.”

It added: “Similarly, the move to harmonise the FX windows will help to improve the efficiency of the FX market, unlock private investment, and reduce inflationary pressures, but it is crucial to complete this important reform by removing FX restrictions, clearly communicating how the new FX regime will operate, and implementing supportive monetary and fiscal policies.

“The current move by the government to implement long-anticipated reforms such as the removal of costly and opaque petrol subsidy, and efforts to harmonise the multiple FX windows, are timely and crucial to set Nigeria on the path of economic growth.”

“Persistently high inflation and low fiscal revenues continue to hinder economic growth. It remains imperative to change course, as sluggish economic growth risks becoming deeply entrenched through low investment due to weak macroeconomic conditions, escalating poverty, and fragility.

“The removal of the petrol subsidy and the FX reforms have opened a window of opportunity that, if effectively seized by sustaining and building on these reforms, could have a transformative impact on the lives of millions of Nigerians and establish a solid foundation for sustained growth,” the World Bank report stated.

The report recommended specific, critical measures to build on the government’s ‘bold start’ in implementing critical reforms, to ensure that Nigeria rises to its full potential.

These included restoring macroeconomic stability by increasing non-oil revenue, reducing inflation through a sequenced and coordinated mix of trade, monetary and fiscal policies, and completing the FX reform.

Others are expanding social protection to protect the poor and most vulnerable, and developing and communicating how, as fiscal space recovers, resources will be redirected over time to meet urgent development challenges.

The World Bank report observed that Nigeria could seize this window of opportunity to further implement a comprehensive reform package that encompasses a range of complementary fiscal, monetary, trade, and structural policy measures to maximise the collective impact on growth, job creation, and poverty reduction.

To shield the poor and most vulnerable from increases in living costs, temporary and targeted cash transfers should be considered, as part of a new social compact to sustainably redirect resources towards addressing Nigeria’s most urgent development priorities, it stated

In a panel discussion on the report, the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti; his Oyo State counterpart, Seyi Makinde; Special Adviser to the President on Monetary Policy, Mr. Wale Edu; the World Bank Country Director in Nigeria, D. Chaudhuri Shubham and the Chairman of Coronation Capital, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede provided different perspectives on how to sustain the reforms and cushion the impact on poor and vulnerable Nigerians.

For Shubham, the reforms should be accompanied by compensatory actions to mitigate the short-term impact on the poor, adding that, “Nigeria should now seize the opportunity to implement a robust, large-scale cash transfer programme to provide quick relief to the poor, near-poor, as well as low-income households which are most directly affected by higher petrol prices, as part of a broader compact to redirect scarce fiscal resources towards development priorities.”

On his part, Otti observed that, “the reforms should have happened yesterday,” lamenting that a situation where the country used over 100 per cent of its revenue to service debt was intolerable.

The Abia State Governor who applauded the FX reforms as well as the subsidy removal, said they would come with pains.

Otti called for a collective effort from governors, leaders at all levels and other stakeholders to work assiduously to mitigate the negative impact of the reforms on the poorest of the poor.

“What do we do with multidimensional poor? That’s where policy makers, the governors should focus on to ensure that the poorest of the poor benefit by making sustainable policies,” he said.

However, he warned that care must be taken to ensure that fuel subsidy does not resurface in the near or distant future, adding that it was time to actually transit form regulation to real deregulation.

Also speaking at the panel discussion, Edun disclosed that there was an ongoing discussion on how to cushion the impact of subsidy removal between the Chief of Staff to the President Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and relevant stakeholders.

Noting that the $800 million secured from the World Bank was already handy, he disclosed several other windows of palliatives were being considered.

He said: “On the interventions, government is planning on the inflationary effect on the removal of subsidy,

“The subsidy removal decision actually caught many by surprise and I think that is the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“If you think back, in his action plan, he had committed to removing the fuel subsidy in order to correct the fiscal imbalances and improve the environmental investment which in his ultimate aim is to grow the economy, to give way to private investment as a means of creating jobs and reducing poverty which is his ultimate goal.

“When the subsidy was removed, clearly, there was a need for communication and with all stakeholders and currently under the Chief of Staff to the President, there is a gathering of stakeholders including the unions, which is discussing the intervention measures that will ameliorate and help particularly the poor and the most vulnerable to get through what we all believe and we are all sure that with the right measures, will be a temporary spike in inflation.

“So therefore, there’s a discussion on the cost of governance, and there’s are discussion on using CNG to have a cheaper fuel that can be used. There’s one group that is looking at mass transit, they’re looking at housing, and ultimately, there’s a group looking at the social sectors, housing and education; all within the context of discussing the response to the fact that fuel subsidy has been removed,” Edun said.

Acknowledging the spike in inflation, he also noted that there was also fiscal dividend derivable from the reform.

Responding to a question on whether Tinubu would violate Section 38 of the CBN Act on the Ways & Means window of the apex bank to lend to the government, Edun explained that as far as there was a threshold, Tinubu would not violate the limit.

“As far as Ways and Means is concerned, there is a law. He (Tinubu) intends to stick to it. He will stick to the spirit and letters of the CBN regulations,” the presidential aide said

Meanwhile, the World Bank Group (WBG) has approved an additional $500 million loan for Nigeria to help improve the livelihood of women in Nigeria.

Announcing the latest loan in a statement, the World Bank stated: “The World Bank has approved $500 million for Nigeria for Women Program Scale Up (NFWP-SU). The scale-up financing will further support the government of Nigeria to invest in improving the livelihoods of women in Nigeria.

“The NFWP-SU will help to ensure better economic opportunities for women which is essential for addressing gender inequality; guaranteeing better education, health, and nutrition outcomes for families; and building women’s and communities’ resilience to climate change.”

The World Bank noted that women’s empowerment was vital to their ability to build resilience to climate change, and by extension their households and communities.

According to the bank, by building assets, women could better respond to family needs and mitigate risks and the effects of climate and other shocks on livelihoods, adding that gender disparities in earnings hold back the Nigerian economy.

The statement quoted Chaudhuri, as saying: “We have seen promising outcomes from the parent NFWP which has helped to create economic opportunities for thousands of rural women through the Women Affinity Groups. NFWP’s model is helping to improve livelihood opportunities for women and enhancing their capacity to adapt to climate change and participating in local administrations for policymaking related to community empowerment.

“Closing the gender gap in key economic sectors could yield gains of between $9.3 billion and $22.9 billion, we are optimistic that this scale-up will help Nigeria to move closer to bridging this gap.”

Task Team Leader for Nigeria for Women Project, Michael Ilesanmi commented: “The programme aims to mobilise poor and vulnerable women into different institutions and, using these institutional platforms, link them to markets as well as financial and non-financial services.

“Through participation in Women Affinity Groups, project beneficiaries build social capital that can then be leveraged to access financial, political, and economic capital–thus leading to both social and economic empowerment.”

The residence of Nigeria Labour Congress President, Joe Ajaero has been gutted by fire in Lagos.

According to Vanguard, the labour leader’s Lagos residence was razed to the ground.

The cause of the fire could not yet be ascertained, the report added.

The labour union added that the fire which began from the roof was preceded by some strange noise that Ajaero’s family thought was from domestic animals.

It was also learned that even the quick arrival of members of the community and the fire department could not save the situation.

However, none of the members of the family was willing to speak to the press about the situation.

Ajaero was reportedly in Geneva at the time his house in Lagos was on fire.

When pressed for comment, he reportedly stated that he gave thanks to God that no lives were lost.

On Friday, the Debt Management Office (DMO) published its quarterly debt report, stating that Nigeria’s total public debt — federal and state governments — hit N49.85 trillion at the end of the first quarter (Q1) of 2023.

The latest figure increased by N3.60 trillion from the sum of N46.25 trillion recorded at the end of December 2022.

Nigeria’s debt is divided majorly into external and domestic debt. The external debt is in four major categories (agreements): multilateral, bilateral, commercial, and promissory notes.

The multilateral category is the external debt burden to international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, while the bilateral category represents money borrowed from other countries or governments.


CHINA IS NIGERIA’S LARGEST CREDITOR

According to the DMO, the five countries Nigeria is indebted to are China, France, Japan, India, and Germany.

The agency said Nigeria owes these five countries a total of $5.16 billion as at March, 2023, marking an increase of 2 percent compared to the $5.07 billion in December 2022.

In the quarter reviewed, DMO said Nigeria has borrowed $4.34 billion from China through the Exim Bank of China. The loan is 84 percent of the country’s total bilateral debt, implying that the Asian nation is Nigeria’s largest creditor.

In close proximity are France, with a $593.75 million loan to Nigeria through its Agence Francaise Development; and Germany ($144.75 million) through Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbua.

Others are Japan’s $62.02 million, through the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and India’s $26.64 million, through the Exim Bank of India.


CAN CHINA TAKE OVER ASSETS IN NIGERIA IN THE EVENT OF LOAN DEFAULTS?

There has been strong opposition mounted against the federal government stemming from its incessant borrowings from China. With Nigeria’s increasing indebtedness to the Asian lender, it is believed that her sovereignty could be seriously impacted, in addition to the potential pressure that huge debt burdens often have on economies.

According to the African Development Bank, Chinese loans are considered as being less bureaucratic and more welcoming than their Western counterparts, but there are massive gaps in how these loans are structured, hence the concerns about the security of Nigeria’s assets.

On the question of whether China can take over assets in Nigeria in the event of a default, the DMO said Africa’s biggest economy usually plans for its debt servicing every year.

Also, the debt office said all external loans are reviewed by legal officers from the Federal Ministry of Justice, and the legal opinion of the attorney-general of the federation and the minister of justice is obtained before any external loan agreement is signed.

“Nigeria explicitly provides for debt service on its external and domestic debt in its annual budgets. In effect, this means that debt service is recognised and payment is planned for,” the DMO said.

“In addition, a number of the projects being (and to be) financed by the loans are either revenue generating or have the potential to generate revenue.”

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says it paid N307.408 billion as petrol subsidy payment in May 2023.

The national company disclosed this in its monthly presentation to the federation account allocation committee (FAAC) meeting on June 22, 2023.

Subsidy or under-recovery is the shortfall for the underpriced sales of premium motor spirit (PMS), better known as petrol.

From January 2023 to May 2023, petrol under-recovery totalled N1.828 trillion — 55 percent higher than the amount paid in the corresponding period of 2022.

Subsidy payments gulped N274.769 billion in January 2023, N477.742 billion in February, N415.381 billion in March, and N353.130 billion in April, respectively.

Meanwhile, under-recovery arrears amounted to N3.735 trillion and has been “carried forward”, the state oil firm said.

“The May 2023 subsidy amounted to N307,408,874,345.82, thus, the outstanding balance carried forward is N3,735,689,387,761.22 as of June 2023 FAAC,” the document reads.

“The sum of N495,497,600,000 was recovered from FGN/CBN subsidy support.”

According to NNPC, the recovery consists of N400 billion from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and federal government subsidy support as well as “$220,000 (80 percent of $275,000) Nigeria liquefied natural gas dividend”.

The NLNG dividend is converted at N434.08/$1, which is the FAAC-approved exchange rate for May 2023, NNPC said.

The NNPC said it raked in N47.57 billion as domestic production sharing contract (PSC) crude oil and gas revenue in May 2023.

TheCable observed that NNPC’s summary of revenue and distribution made no reference to its FAAC remittances.

In July 2022, the national oil company transitioned to a limited liability company.

Speaking during the transition event, Punch reported that Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), NNPC Limited, said the firm was now a private entity and had nothing to do with FAAC anymore.

Responding to a question on what would happen to NNPC’s monthly FAAC contributions, kyari replied, “We are now a private company; would MTN go to FAAC?”

In the same month, Kyari had said the oil company would charge the federal government a fee to carry out petrol subsidy payments.


PETROL SUBSIDY REMOVAL AND TINUBU’S ADMINISTRATION

In his inaugural speech on May 29, President Bola Tinubu declared that the petrol subsidy payments had stopped — a pronouncement that set in post-subsidy realities immediately.

The president, on Saturday, admitted that the speech was unplanned, a revelation that has sparked fresh debates on the federal government’s readiness to scrap under-recovery payments.

Still, after the presidential declaration, NNPC announced the adjustment of the pump price across its retail outlets nationwide.

Justifying the act, Kyari said the federal government has not funded the petrol subsidies for 2022 and 2023, despite budgetary provisions.

“Absolutely, there is a provision in the budget but you do not have the cash to back it up or you also don’t have the fiscal obligation that should have come for the NNPC to settle for this and this definitely means that there is provision for the end of June, according to the appropriation act but you can’t give what you don’t have,” he had said

Kyari also said the federal government still owes the firm the sum of N2.8 trillion spent on petrol subsidy.

The Osun State Government has announced the cancellation of its free train service for holidaymakers coming to the state for this year’s Eid-el-Kabir festival.

It explained that the gesture had been cancelled due to a train accident around the Abeokuta-Lagos old gauge line which resorted in blockage.

A statement by the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Commerce, Industries, Cooperatives and Empowerment, Mrs Kehinde Odediran, on Monday, said the accident affected part of the train track, halting any train movement on the Lagos-Abeokuta line.

The statement further noted that a report from the Nigeria Railway Corporation confirmed movement on the train track was currently impossible due to the ongoing repair.

The statement further read, “Osun state government regrets to announce that the annual Imole Free Train service scheduled to convey hundreds of passengers from Lagos state to Osun to mark the Eid- El- Kabir celebration will no longer hold. The unfortunate development is a result of serious technical issues being currently experienced by the Nigeria Railway Corporation ( NRC).

“We wish to state with all sense of responsibility and in line with the ideals of Senator Ademola Adeleke’s annual Imole free train service that as soon as the technical hitches get rectified, normal services will resume accordingly.

“We also wish to state that, notwithstanding the present unfortunate development, the administration of Senator Ademola Adeleke will continue to provide the Imole Free Train Service to all our people during all festive seasons without any let or hindrance.”

The acting Inspector General of Police, Olukayode Egbetokun, has vowed to effect the withdrawal of Police Mobile Force personnel from VIP escort/guard duties.

This is as he established the Special Intervention Squad which according to him would have 40,000 highly trained police officers including selected officers from the Police Mobile Force.

The development, he said, was to allow the police to take back its place in the “internal security architecture” of the country.

Egbetokun spoke during a meeting with Squadron leaders and Tactical Commanders in Abuja on Monday

He said, “In a bid to kick-start the process of regaining our pride of place in the internal security architecture of our dear country first and foremost, modalities for the creation of a new special squad – the Special Intervention Squad have been initiated.

“This special squad shall consist of 40,000 specially trained elite officers. The Squad will be formed by selecting officers from the pool of existing Police Mobile Force personnel and all tactical units in the country.

“These officers will undergo an intensive pre-deployment training to make them combat-ready for frontline operational duties in all the states of the Federation, with a particular focus on areas plagued with unrest and turmoil.

“By pooling together the expertise and experience of our PMF personnel and other tactical units, we can establish a formidable force that is well-equipped to handle the evolving challenges we face.”

He added that the establishment of the squad would help the police to promptly respond to security threats, noting that 1000 personnel would be deployed to every state.

Egbetokun said, “This dedicated force will bolster our capacity to respond swiftly and decisively to security threats, ensuring that our presence is felt and our response is effective in every corner of our country. 1000 personnel from this new squad will be deployed to every state of the Federation for immediate operations as standby intervention units, while more troubled spots or zones will receive the remaining officers out of the 40,000.

“These officers will not perform routine police duties but will be housed and kept combat-ready at all times engaging in daily training readiness for deployments to intercept and neutralize high-profile criminals and those terrorizing our communities. ”

The police boss stated that the new special squad would be equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to combat evolving criminal activities, insurgency, and other security threats, especially the activities of non-state actors.

Egbetokun said that the withdrawn PMF officers will be replaced by officers from the Special Protection Unit.

He said, “We shall effect the withdrawal of PMF personnel from VIP escort/guard duties. While the protection of dignitaries remains paramount, it is imperative that we realign our priorities to address the escalating security challenges faced by the nation as a whole. By relieving the PMF of VIP escort and guard duties, we can redirect their focus and efforts toward addressing critical security concerns that affect our communities at large.

“To support the foregoing strategic plan and make needed manpower available for frontline duties, the withdrawn PMF officers will be replaced by officers of the Special Protection Unit only where necessary.”

Egbetokun said a special committee headed by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Operations) had been set up to assess and advise on how the strategy could be implemented seamlessly.

He added that the committee is expected to submit its report in two weeks.

The Nigerian Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says there is no credible data to ascertain the daily consumption of petrol in Nigeria.

Orji Ogbonnaya, its executive secretary, said the agency will conduct a study to ascertain the accurate fuel consumption in the country.

The NEITI executive secretary spoke on Monday at the stakeholders validation workshop on the 2022 Annual Progress Report (APR) in Abuja.

Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption has remained a matter of mystery.

In 2022, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited said Nigerians consume “60 million litres of petrol daily”.

The figure was challenged by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) which claimed that the national oil firm “lifts 98 million litres into the market”.

“If we are consuming 60 million litres of PMS per day by their (NNPC) own computation, why would you allow the release of 98 million litres per day?” NCS had queried.

On June 1, 2023 — nearly a year later — Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO) of the NNPC, concluded that “there is no credible data to ascertain the daily consumption of petrol in Nigeria”.

As a result, Ogbonnaya stressed on the need for an empirical figure at the stakeholders forum.

“We believe that the figures that are being thrown up as daily consumption of PMS (fuel) in Nigeria are not very correct,” Ogbonnaya said.

“We think we need to have an empirical figure and that is why NEITI is commissioning a study on the actual PMS consumption in Nigeria.

“We have every reason to believe that the figure may be less than what is being projected and the removal of subsidy has also removed all the incentives for hiking this figure in a manner that lacks empirical and logical reason.”

Ogbonnaya said the agency has been pushing for the removal of fuel subsidies and now that it has been removed, the oil sector activities will become more transparent instead of being shrouded in secrecy.

“The removal of subsidy will remove a lot of opacity and suspicion in budgeting based on estimates. That is why subsidy removal is a very fundamental policy shift that needs to be sustained,” he added.

“For a very long time, my disposition has been for the removal of subsidy. And this government, right from day one, has taken that bold step. There shouldn’t be any going back.

“We should move forward from there and then put in place a robust arrangement that will show a clear departure from the way and manner we have operated under subsidy. Nigerians want to see what will change when the subsidy is no more.

“And we have highlighted this because we know that subsidies put a lot of impediments on transparency and accountability in the management of revenues from the oil and gas industry over the years.”

About 100 top officers, including generals, brigadiers-general, air vice marshals, and admirals in the Nigerian Army, Air Force, and Nigerian Navy may proceed on compulsory retirement following the appointment of new service chiefs on Monday by President Bola Tinubu, The PUNCH reports.

Aside from the imminent gale of retirement, many officers would be promoted to their next rank to fill the vacancies that would be created by the retiring generals as part of the reorganisation of the services by the new service chiefs.

This is happening six months after 24 major generals and 38 brigadier generals retired last December after serving the nation for 35 years.

Tinubu announced the immediate retirement of General Lucky Irabor who was the Chief of Defence Staff; the Chief of Army Staff, Lieut Gen Farouk Yahaya; the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, and Air Marshal Oludayo Amao, the Chief of Air Staff and replaced them with new military chiefs.

The new service chiefs are Maj Gen Christopher Musa who is the Chief of Defence Staff; the Chief of Army Staff, Maj Gen Taoreed Lagbaja; the Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla while Air Vice Marshal Hassan Abubakar was appointed the Chief of Air Staff.

DIG Kayode Egbetokun was appointed as the acting Inspector-General of Police and Maj. Gen. E Undiandeye, Chief of Defence Intelligence.

Also, a former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, who was appointed last week as the Security Adviser to the President, was elevated to the National Security Adviser.

In line with precedence, Maj Gen Musa will adorn a full four-star General rank while Lagbaja will be decorated with the three-star rank of Lieutenant General and Ogalla with the same rank equivalent of Vice Admiral and Abubakar with the Air Marshal rank.

But the decoration with the new ranks by the President would come after Senate confirmation.

The PUNCH learnt that the planned retirement of the senior officers across the three services was in line with the long-standing military tradition that officers who were senior to the service chiefs would be retired.

It is a tradition in the military that when a junior is appointed as a service chief, senior officers, who are ahead of him or her, would proceed on retirement.

The understanding is that senior military officers are unlikely to take orders from their juniors.

While the new CDS is a member of 38 Regular Course, the COAS, the CNS, and the CAS are members of 39 Regular Course.

Multiple sources said it meant that the security chiefs were junior to some generals who are members of Course 37 and Course 38.

An impeccable source explained that about 100 top officers spread across the Army, Air Force and Navy could leave the service in the coming weeks because, in the military, it is improper for a senior officer to serve under his juniors.

Speaking to one of our correspondents in Abuja on Tuesday, a retired general explained that many top brass, particularly, members of Course 37 and Course 38 would likely leave the service.

Though the former military officer was not sure of the number of senior officers that may retire in the army, air force and navy, he explained that the figure could be as high as 100.

He stated, ‘’Top officers that would leave the service may be up to 100 because it cuts across the three services. The retirement exercise would not affect RC 39 officers; they would simply go to the Defence Headquarters because the Chief of Defence Staff is RC 38.

Certainly, RC 37 and 38 officers will leave the service. Though, some of them may be retained because the last time, COAS Yahaya, who was a member of RC 37 retained some of his mates. So, he is leaving with his coursemates now.’’

Asked about the number of officers that make up a regular course, the source said there was no fixed number, adding “Along the line, some of them would have been weeded out through retirement, deaths, accidents, sickness and other factors. So, the course members that get to the top level are usually about 20 or 30 per cent of the officers that enrolled together.’’


Senior military officers

Corroborating the retired general, a serving military officer noted, ‘’All officers who are senior to the new service chiefs are supposed to go home; mostly senior officers who are members of Course 37, 38 and some of 39.

“I said some Course 39 members because they are coursemates of the new service chiefs. Some service chiefs may choose to work with some of their course mates and others may decide not to work with them, but 37 and 38 will certainly go.

“Course 39 officers are to go too but some may be allowed to head the tri-services like the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Nigeria Defence College, and Nigerian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre “

Another source said the coursemates of the former CDS cannot be retained because they are seniors to the three service chiefs.

He stated, “Yes, the CDS is a member of Course 38, but by military tradition, he is not expected to make any appointment from among his coursemates because the COAS, CNS, and CAS are members of Course 39.

‘’If he does, they would be senior to them. Even those in Course 39 will go. Those that would escape being retired are those who are on senior courses at foreign missions. Looking across the three services, that number may be more than 100.”

It was further learnt that all officers under Nigerian Defence Academy Regular Course 39 who could not be accommodated at Defence Headquarters are to proceed on voluntary retirement.

Former CDS General Irabor is a member of the NDA Regular Course 34. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant on June 28 1986 into the Signals Corps of the Nigerian Army.

The former COAS, Lt Gen Yahaya is a member of the 37 Regular Course of the NDA. He commenced officer cadet training on September 27, 1985 and was commissioned into the Nigerian Army Corp of Infantry as a Second Lieutenant on December 27, 1990.

Vice Admiral Gambo, the ex-CNS, is a member of 36 Regular Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy, and Air Marshal Amao, the 21st CAS, joined the Armed Forces of Nigeria as a Cadet of the Nigerian Defence Academy Regular Course 35 in January 1984.

On the other hand, the new CDS Maj Gen Musa is a member of the 38th Regular Course of NDA and he was commissioned into the Infantry Corps on September 21, 1991.

The 23rd COAS, Maj Gen Lagbaja is a member of NDA RC 39 and was commissioned on September 19, 1992 while Vice Admiral Ogalla, the new CNS is a member of NDA 39 Regular Course.

The new CAS, Air Vice Marshal Abubakar enlisted into the Nigerian Air Force as a member of NDA RC 39 and was commissioned as a pilot on September 19, 1992.

The PUNCH gathered that those who may retire alongside the former service chiefs include the Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy, Maj Gen Ibrahim Yusuf and the Commandant of the National Defence College, Rear Admiral Murtala Bashir.

Others are the Chief Of Policy and Plans, HQ NAF, AVM IG Lubo; the Commandant, Armed Forces Command and Staff College Jaji, Air Vice Marshal Oluwarotimi Tuwase.

The Director of Defence Information, Brig Gen Tukur Gusau could not be reached for comments as of the time of filing this report. He did not respond to calls and he had yet to reply to a text message as of press time.


Egbetokun decorated

Meanwhile, Vice President Kashim Shettima, on Tuesday, decorated Mr Kayode Egbetokun as the Acting Inspector-General of Police, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The VP performed the decoration alongside the wife of the new police helmsman, Mrs Elizabeth Egbetokun, barely 24 hours after a major shake-up in the country’s security leadership.

Speaking to journalists after the ceremony, Egbetokun expressed eagerness to resume duties on Wednesday, saying he felt like a tiger ready to chase away all the internal enemies of the country.

Asked how he felt about the weight of his new responsibility, Egbetokun said, “Now, I have just been decorated and I’m looking forward to taking over tomorrow morning by 11:00 am.

“I really can’t describe how I feel currently, but if I have to tell you anything, I will tell you that right now, I feel like a tiger inside of me, ready to chase away all the criminals in Nigeria.

“And some other times, I feel like a lion in me, ready to devour all the internal enemies of Nigeria. That’s how I feel right now.”

On his part, the former IG, Usman Baba, described his successor as an old, experienced hand who would build on what he is leaving behind.

“It’s a stage; you come, you work and you go. I’m happy I’m handing over to somebody I know that will carry the mantle of leadership from where I have stopped.

“We grew up on the job. I was his boss at a time, not even when I was IG. He worked under me twice; we’ve been working together and I know how he will go ahead to champion the course of the police from where I have stopped,” Baba said.

Egbetokun would hold the office in an acting capacity until confirmed by the 10th Senate as the 22nd substantive IGP.

The ceremony was witnessed by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; the Chairman of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, Hope Uzodinma; the President’s Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume and others.

In a related development, the immediate-past Speaker of Kaduna State House of Assembly, Yusuf Zailani has applauded the President over the appointment of retired AIG Nuhu Ribadu as the National Security Adviser and the service chiefs.

Zailani, who is also the Chairman of ‘The APC Speakers Forum’, in a statement on Tuesday by his Press Secretary, Ibrahim Danfulani, said he was specifically delighted with the appointment of the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, noting that Ribadu’s professionalism, hard work and dedication to service, track record, earned him the job.

He also described the appointment of CDS Maj Gen Musa, who hails from Zangon Kataf Local Government of Kaduna State as deserving and a reward for sacrifice to the service of the nation.

https://leadership.ng/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG-20230618-WA0026.jpgMuili Seun

Muili Seun, a young Nigerian entrepreneur and philanthropist, has decided to sell off his innovative campus networking platform, GoCampus.

The thriving campus networking platform, which successfully connects College students on campuses, had garnered over 370,000 users across three countries in just four months.

Seun negotiated the sale with an Indian tech guru, Vickram Sybri, marking a significant milestone in his entrepreneurial journey.

GoCampus quickly gained popularity among college students, revolutionising the way they interact and connect with each other. With its user-friendly interface and unique features, the platform serves as a virtual hub for students to engage in meaningful conversations, exchange ideas, and foster valuable connections.

However, due to limitations in the platform’s infrastructure, it experiences occasional downtime during periods of high traffic and activity.

Recognising the need for a more robust infrastructure to support GoCampus and its growing user base, Muili Seun made the difficult decision to sell off the platform.

After a careful consideration, he successfully negotiated a deal with the Indian tech guru, who saw the immense potential of the platform and its alignment with his own business goals.

The transaction, which details were not made public, saw Seun selling GoCampus to the Indian tech guru for a sum of $71,000 USD.

While the financial aspect is significant, LEADERSHIP gathered that the primary motivation behind the sale was to ensure that GoCampus could continue to thrive under the guidance of a technologically advanced team.

Speaking on the development, Muili Seun stated that, “It was a difficult decision to part ways with GoCampus, but I wanted to ensure its continued success and growth. The platform faced challenges due to infrastructure limitations, resulting in occasional downtime during peak periods. By selling the platform to an established tech guru, I am confident that the platform will receive the necessary support and resources to overcome these obstacles.”

Seun expressed gratitude to the entire GoCampus community for their unwavering support throughout the platform’s journey. He expressed his sincere appreciation, saying, “I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the users of GoCampus who embraced the platform and made it what it is today. Your enthusiasm and engagement have been the driving force behind GoCampus, and I am confident that its future is bright.”

With the sale of GoCampus finalised, Muili Seun is now focusing his energies on new entrepreneurial endeavours. He aims to leverage his expertise and experiences to develop innovative solutions that address societal challenges and contribute to the betterment of lives within the community.

The Human Rights Watch in a report titled ‘Corruption, Godfatherism and the Funding of Political Violence,’ observed that “godfathers are not mere financiers of political campaigns; rather (they) are individuals whose power stems not just from wealth but from their ability to manipulate national, state or local political systems in support of the politicians they sponsor.”

The report added that “in return, they demand a substantial degree of control over the governments they help bring into being.”

The Nigeria’s Fourth Republic which started in 1999, produced a number of notable political godfathers who have been shaping governance and politics within their spectra of influence, especially at the national and state levels.

The current president, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is considered as one of the most prominent political icons in the country since his stewardship as governor of Lagos State in 2007, which led him to becoming a political godfather not only in Lagos but also in the South-West and even in Nigeria’s political space.

Some prominent political godfathers include former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, former Chief of Army Staff and Minister of Defence, Gen. T.Y Danjuma, former Minister of Information in the First Republic, Chief Edwin Clarke, Chief Chris Uba in Anambra State, Chief Tony Anineh popularly known as “Mr. Fix It”, former governor of Delta State, Chief James Onanefe Ibori, and a former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso.

In the 2023 general elections, the country has witnessed the emergence of a new set of ex-governors who are considered as godfathers in their various states, due to the level of influence they command either for their ability to endorse their candidates who eventually won the governorship seats, or due to their overall history of political prowess.

Nasiru El-Rufai: Kaduna

In his inaugural speech, the new governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani promised to consolidate the achievements of his predecessor, Malam Nasiru Ahmad El-Rufai. He later announced the renaming of the most popular street in Kaduna metropolis, Rabah Road, after the former governor.

About a year before Sani won the governorship election, El-Rufai while approaching the end of his second tenure as governor of the state, had made clear his intention to install Senator Uba Sani (who had once served as his aide) to be his successor.

He also revealed that he had given Sani exclusive access to the state cabinet meetings “to keep him abreast of all government plans and policies.”

Among his earliest appointments upon assumption of office, Governor Sani announced the retention of some senior government officials who had served in El-Rufai’s administration including the immediate past Secretary to the State Government “to provide the link between the two administrations.”

Nyesom Wike: Rivers State

Speaking during his first speech as the new governor of Rivers State, Siminalayi Fubara assured residents of his resolve to continue in the leadership style of his predecessor, Nyesom Wike and build on his achievements.

“We will follow his footsteps to balance consolidation and continuity. We will consolidate the developmental strides of the previous administration,” he stated.

Also in May, Wike told Fubara that he would not “disturb” his government, adding that he would guide him to ensure that he doesn’t disappoint the people of Rivers State.

“We will not disturb you from running your administration, but we will not allow you to make us cry. We want you to succeed more than us so that when we are passing on the road, we will raise our shoulders and say we told you that he would do better than us,” Wike said.

Fubara, a former Accountant-General of Rivers State and member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has many times described Wike as his political mentor.

Speaking at a special thanksgiving service in Port Harcourt in May, the new governor said that he would not allow anything to strain his relationship with his predecessor, Wike.

“In governance, you can’t please everybody, but you must do your best to dispense good governance to the people. The former governor (Wike) performed exceedingly well and we are going to build on his legacy,” he said.

Also commenting over speculations that Wike would defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Fubara, during a thanksgiving reception in Rivers in honour of his predecessor, on Sunday, called on the former governor not to distance himself from him even if he defected to the ruling APC.

He said, “While we are seeing sign that it’s like you want to go over to the other side with everybody wishing that, please don’t be too far from me because I know that the sharks, the tigers are really around looking for what to hurt.

Ifeanyi Okowa: Delta State

The new Governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori during his inauguration pledged to build on the legacy of the out-gone Governor of the State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.

Oborevwori also recently gave approval for naming of the Old Lagos-Asaba Road after the immediate ex-governor.

Oborevwori who was a two-term Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly had emerged as the new governor of Delta State after a fierce battle for the state’s governorship tore major political actors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apart.

Former Governor James Ibori, who is known all over as the national leader of the party in Delta, fell apart with Okowa who stood firmly behind the current governor, Sheriff Oborevwori.

While Chief James Ibori preferred Olorogun David Edevbie to succeed Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa had his eyes fixed on Oborevwori as his chosen successor.

Oborevwori won convincingly in the entire nine local government areas of Delta North and eight LGAs of Delta South.

Ifeanyi Okowa is now considered the new political godfather in the state, alongside Chief James Ibori who has been holding sway for about 24 years.

Atiku Bagudu: Kebbi State

Abubakar Atiku Bagudu is the immediate past governor of Kebbi State who served two terms between 2015 and 2023.

Previously, he had served as the Senator for the Kebbi Central Senatorial District. Bagudu succeeded former governor Adamu Aliero when he won the by-election for the Kebbi Central Senatorial seat following Aliero’s appointment to become the Minister for the FCT.

He contested and won the ticket for the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 Kebbi Central Senatorial election which he eventually lost to the former governor and incumbent Senator Aliero of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

However, the current governor of the state, Nasir Idris of the APC was backed by Bagudu during the 2023 governorship election.

Given the political prowess of both Bagudu in Kebbi State politics, he is now considered as the newest political godfather in the state.

The United Kingdom (UK) today announced that it has radically simplified trading rules and cut tariffs on products from Nigeria and other developing countries to save businesses and consumers millions of pounds a year.

According to a statement issued on Monday by the British High Commission in Abuja, this development follows UK’s new post-Brexit Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) scheme – entering into force today, which covers 65 countries, including Nigeria.

The scheme removes or reduces tariffs and simplifies trading rules so that more products qualify for the scheme, making it more generous than the EU scheme the UK was previously a member of. The scheme will benefit developing countries looking to diversify and increase exports, driving their prosperity and creating jobs. Over time, as developing countries increase trade with the UK under the scheme, businesses could save millions more on import costs, the statement said.

In Nigeria, over 99 per cent of goods exported from the country will automatically be eligible for duty-free access to the UK. Nigeria will receive enhanced preferential access for almost 3,000 products. E.g. 4.5 per cent removed on cocoa paste, 26.5 per cent removed on fruit juices, and 14 per cent removed on prepared tomatoes, the statement added.

UK ministers for International Trade Nigel Huddleston launched the scheme while on a visit to Ethiopia’s largest industrial business park, Bole Lemi.

Speaking at the park, minister Huddleston said: “This DCTS scheme is a brilliant example of the UK taking advantage of its status as an independent trading nation and I am excited to see it implemented today.

“It will create opportunities for businesses around the world, supporting livelihoods, creating jobs and diversifying local and international supply chains. It will also benefit UK businesses and consumers by lowering import costs on a whole range of products.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, said “ the UK’s new trading scheme for 65 developing countries, DCTS, shows how we can use trade to deliver development.

“It will benefit traders around the world, including women-owned businesses, which we are supporting through the UK Trade Partnership programme.”

The scheme benefits businesses all over the world and British companies that trade with these countries in everyday products such as bicycles and camping gear.

Speaking on the launch, UK deputy British High Commissioner in Lagos, Ben Llewellyn-Jones said

“Nigeria is one of the UK’s most important partners in Africa and the UK Government is committed to working with Nigerian businesses and exporters to boost trade between our two great nations. The UK’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme harnesses the power of trade to help Nigeria and other emerging economies grow and prosper.

“One major benefit of this new UK trading scheme is that it abolishes tariffs on over 3000 everyday products that Nigeria currently exports including cocoa, cotton, plantain, flowers, fertilizers, tomatoes, frozen shrimps and sesame. The overarching aim of the new scheme is to grow trade with developing countries, boosting the economy and supporting jobs in those countries, as well as in ours.”

Indications have emerged that the shareholders in the controversial national carrier, Nigeria Air, have yet to sign any agreement to formalise their stake in the project.

A memo presented by the Ministry of Aviation to the ninth House of Representatives indicated that no public-private partnership had been signed by the stakeholders.

In addition, the memo presented by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission to the ninth House during its investigation of the project also revealed that shareholders had yet to sign any agreement as regards their stakes because of unresolved issues, including their structure and respective functions in the Nigeria Air.

The national carrier was launched at the twilight of the Buhari administration, an exercise the Green Chamber has described as a fraud. The then Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had in his response denied any wrongdoing, saying there was nothing fraudulent or secretive about the project.

Sirika also accused the former chairman of the House Committee on Aviation, Nnolim Nnaji, of demanding from him five per cent stake in the airline, a claim Nnaji has also denied.

There were reports that an aircraft belonging to Ethiopian Airlines, which holds the largest stake of 49 per cent in the project, was chartered, repainted to bear Nigeria Air’s colours and was flown to Nigeria for a display, after which the aircraft returned to Ethiopia and was repainted to its original colour.

The Senate and the House had summoned stakeholders in the aviation industry to separate meetings over the controversy.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Aviation in a memo to the House, dated June 2, 2023, with Reference Number MCA0008/S.33/T4/22, and signed by the Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, M. R Shehu, said 100 per cent of the stakes had been taken.

The memo partly read, “I am directed to refer to your letter Nos: NASS/9HR/CT.017/121 dated 31st May, 2023, and NASS/9HR/CT.017/122 dated 1st June, 2023 on the above subject and to respond to your request as follows:

“Full disclosure of ownership structure of Nigeria Air: The proposed ownership structure of Nigeria Air Limited is as follows: Ethiopian Airlines Group, 49 per cent, $122,500,000; The FGN, five per cent, $12,500,000; MRS Oil and Gas Company Limited, 31 per cent, $77,500,000; Skyway Aviation Handling Company Plc, 15 per cent, $37,500,000; Total, 100 per cent, $250,000,000.

“All PPP agreements reached and signed with Ethiopia Airline with regard to the Project: There was no PPP agreement signed.

“PPP agreement reached and signed with all other parties: None.”

The memo however contradicted the position of the former Personal Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital Communications and New Media, Bashir Ahmad, who tweeted on June 6, 2023 that partnerships and agreements on the national carrier had been signed.

He wrote on his verified Twitter handle, @BashirAhmaad (sic), “NigeriaAir is NOT a fraud, the Aviation Ministry has made a significant progress towards its realisation. Branding unveiled, partnerships and agreements signed, most of the operational certificates issued and operational offices opened. NigeriaAir will fly to make Nigeria proud.”

On the Full Business Case for the Nigeria Air, the memo indicated that FBC is usually prepared by the Transaction Adviser and reviewed by the ICRC for issuance of Compliance Certificate.

Meanwhile, the ICRC, in its memo to the House dated June 6, 2023, with Reference Number ICRC/DG/2/S.15/XII/45, and signed by the Director-General, Michael Ohiani, gave a contrary account of the ownership structure.

The commission, which is leading the negotiations for the deal, stated that Ethiopian Airline has 49 per cent; MRS Oil and Gas Limited, 15 per cent; SAHCO, 15 per cent; Federal Government, five per cent while 16 per cent had yet to be allotted.

The ICRC memo also indicated that the proposal was turned down five times by the Federal Executive Council under the Buhari administration before it was eventually approved the sixth time.

The ICRC gave details of the deal, “The national carrier project was initiated by the Ministry of Transportation in 2016 as part of the Aviation Sector Roadmap, which was approved by Mr President (Muhammadu Buhari). The project was structured to be implemented as a public-private partnership initiative, for which the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission’s regulatory guidance was sought.

“The ICRC provided the required guidance for the implementation of the project in line with the requirements of the ICRC Establishment Act 2005 and the National Policy on PPPS. Following the guidance provided, the following milestones were achieved:

“Constitution of project steering committee and a project delivery team to guide the implementation of the project. Appointment of a Transaction Adviser – this was done in compliance with the Bureau of Public Procurement Act. Lufthansa Technik was first procured but later changed to Airline Management Group/Traniero after obtaining FEC approval. Development and submission of an Outline Business Case by the Airline Management Group in 2018.

“The structure involved the Federal Government of Nigeria holding five per cent equity, while the remaining 95 per cent is held by private partners (the foreign partner who is required to have undertaken at Ieast 10 years scheduled international operations) will hold a maximum of 49 per cent, while the Nigerian partners hold a minimum of 46 per cent.”

The ICRC said its Certificate of Compliance to the OBC confirmed the viability and creditworthiness of the project.

Speaking on the reason why FEC rejected the proposal five times, the ICRC noted, “It is important to note that the OBC was presented to FEC six times before it was approved. This was due to the insistence by FEC that the Federal Government will not contribute any funds to the take-off of the airline as was initially structured. FEC requested that the project should be fully privately financed since it’s viable and bankable,” Ohiani noted.

Documents not signed

The ICRC said after 10 weeks of advertisement, only the Ethiopian Airlines consortium submitted a bid and that the project proceeded to the negotiation stage, based on Section 5 (a) of the ICRC establishment Act 2005.

The section states that if after advertisement in accordance with Section 4 of this Act only one contractor or project proponent applied or submits a bid or proposal, or only one contractor or project proponent meets the prequalification requirements, the ministry, agency, corporation, body may undertake direct negotiation without competitive bidding for any contract to be entered into, pursuant to Section 1 of the Act.

On the reason why the documents were yet to be signed, the memo noted, “Several preparatory meetings were held as a prelude to negotiations between the Ministry of Aviation and other government stakeholders before engaging with the Ethiopian Airlines Consortium.

“The commission thereafter requested the implementation of the following before negotiations: the consortium to be a Special Purpose Vehicle; consortium to sign a shareholders’ agreement/updated consortium agreement; the 16 per cent unallotted shares to be fully allotted in compliance with CAMA 2022 and transparency principles; and project to adhere fully to the requirements of the request for proposal document.”

The memo indicated that negotiation was thereafter convened to discuss the issues highlighted for the consortium to implement but had to be suspended when it was observed that members of the consortium were working at cross-purposes.

This, it said, was based on the following observations/complaints by members; that the consortium had not agreed on their structure and function; some members were not privy to the documents under consideration; the consortium had not met on their own and had informed the meeting that the TA to the ministry had been the one calling for all their meetings and guiding their interactions.

It continued, “The consortium was thereafter requested to meet and resolve all their issues and present a common position for the purpose of negotiations and executing the PPP agreement with the government. They were unable to resolve their issues and sign the shareholder’s agreement as requested.

“This led to a letter of complaint from SAHCO expressing its concerns and not accepting the shareholders’ agreement as presented. Ethiopian Airlines responded with justification for the issues raised. Efforts to mediate through physical meetings and correspondences towards ensuring the signing of the shareholders’ agreement are ongoing.

“A meeting of the government representatives was thereafter convened at the ICRC to harmonise the position of the government before engaging in any discussion with the private proponent.”

It said the meeting agreed that every member of the consortium would be required to sign the PPP agreement individually as well as the shareholders’ agreement.

It added that the meeting further agreed that the 16 per cent unallotted shares must be fully allotted; that the project must have duration to comply with the requirements of the ICRC Establishment Act and that all clauses that allocate financing and regulatory risk to the government must be reviewed and adjusted appropriately.

The ICRC said it wrote a regulatory position to all members of the consortium on April 17, 2023, with a review and highlighted issues that needed to be addressed and corrected before the shareholders’ agreement could be signed.

According to the commission, some of the issues included that the Ministry of Finance Incorporated to hold the five per cent Federal Government’s equity and sign the shareholders’ agreement on behalf of the government; full allotment of the 16 per cent unallotted shares in the consortium recognition and valuation of the Bilateral Air Services Agreements as part of Federal Government’s contribution to the project; provide clarity on the status of local airlines currently operating regional and international routes, in view of request for total rights over all the existing BASAs; and “the deletion of the clause that waives sovereign immunity by Nigeria.”

The ICRC added that the ministry convened a negotiation meeting on April 18 and 19, 2023, at the ministry “but could not proceed as representative of the Federal Ministry of Justice cited a court order restraining any action on the project.”

The memo indicated that the next step was for all shareholders to sign the shareholders’ agreement and that negotiation should resume and be concluded once the court order was lifted.

On the next step, the ICRC memo added, “Full Business Case to be prepared and submitted to the ICRC for review and issuance of certificate; presentation to the Federal Executive Council for approval; vetting of draft PPP agreement by Ministry of Justice; and contract execution.”