₦airaland Forum

HenryQuest: Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Finance, Hon Abdulmumuin Jibrin, last weekend declared N320billion missing from the remittance by the Nigeria Nationl Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). He said that the sum of  N1.516 trillion was paid in by NNPC into the Federal Government treasury.

Jibrin noted that what Nigerians want is total remittance of revenue generated from oil sales and not crude oil sales figures declared recently by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. He said:  “It should be noted that this is after taking into consideration, payments for Joint venture cash calls (i.e. cost of production) and petrol subsidy payments. However, only N1.516 trillion has been remitted to the Federal Government coffers by the NNPC showing a shortfall of N320.654 billion for the period”, the lawmaker noted.

“Again, it should be noted that this is actual revenue generated at the prevailing market rate of crude oil and gas. The budget for the Fiscal year 2013 was based on $79 per barrel, whereas the price had hardly fallen below $100 per barrel for the whole year. This implies that even though we are receiving way above the benchmark on our crude oil and gas sales, we are not meeting our targets because our crude oil production has fallen way below budgeted estimates as a result of massive crude oil theft and unabated corruption in the oil and gas sector,”Jibrin lamented

The Finance Committee chairman maintained that Nigerians are not as keen on [b]crude oil sales figures as the actual [/b]remittances from in NNPC to the federation account, adding that the amount remitted was more important and NNPC should have been more honest to present the figures so that Nigerians could understand what actually accrued  to the Federal Government.

His words: “For January to September 2013, the federation was expected to earn N1.837 trillion (or N204.168 billion per month) from the sale of crude oil and gas marketed by the NNPC with the Petroleum Minister as its board chairperson”

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/cover/reps-declare-n320bn-missing-from-crude-oil-remittance/

I dont understand why they say did money is missing, NNPC coundn't meet revenue projections and was unable to sell oil how was the money stolen?

how much/month?

[size=8pt][b]THE Lagos State Government has unveiled plans to raise the number of Independent Power Plants (IPPs) in the state to five, with a combined capacity of 47.35 Mega Watts (MW) by 2014.

Already, the state government has built two plants in Akute (12.5MW) and Lagos Island (10MW), while plans are in top gear to commission the newly completed Alausa power plant (10.4MW) by next month[/b

10MW, 12.5MW is to small for a state like lagos to make noise about. in my office where i work in offshore rivers state, we generate 20MW to power our operations and thats just four big generators produced by GE. no body is making noise be cos it means nothing to power requirement. seven up ikeja where i worked in 2008 had two gas gen of 8MW each for their plant in Ikeja. if you are talking of 100MW then we can sit up and listen to you, ask akwa Ibom, rivers and Abia how they did theirs

When they proposed to remove Fuel Subsidy in december 2010, pple vehemently resisted it, called GEJ insensitive, and would you now blame the FG for allowing fuel Subsidy?
http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2012/01/10-fuel-subsidies-nigeria-songwe

Transformation can be defined as a thorough and dramatic change in form or appearance, so when President Jonathan promised Nigerians a Transformation Agenda, it is easy to assess if he is delivering on his promise by checking to see if there has been a change in the form and or appearance of Nigeria and Nigerians.

In this short note, it will be impossible for me to address all the areas in which there has been transformation in the lives of Nigerians and Nigeria, however, permit me to direct the attention of Nigerians to the genesis of the Transformation Agenda even as I touch on just a few sectors in which transformation is apparent.

When President Goodluck Jonathan was campaigning for the votes of Nigerians between 2010 and 2011, he came up with a Transformation Agenda whose details were shared with Nigerians and uploaded unto the website of the National Planning Commission (please see www.npc.gov.ng).

There were many agenda in that document, and these were tied to dates, including amongst others, an agenda to build more universities as well as improve the ones in existence, an agenda to improve Nigeria’s power generating and transmission capacity and an agenda to improve on road, sea and air transport infrastructure.

So, how has the President fared in these? It is now common knowledge that the FG has set up and funded nine new universities spread across the six geo-political regions which are now functioning, and enough has been written about these by myself and others so I would not dwell on that.

But what about the other sectors?

If anybody had cared to read today’s papers, they would have found that 13 consortia had paid the 75% outstanding payments for the power generating and distributing companies that they bidded for successfully to the Bureau of Public Enterprises. What does that tell you? It shows that the president’s Roadmap to Power Sector Reforms are working. The power sector is being successfully privatized.

Now many Nigerians like to blame the government for inadequate power supply and cite incidences of the major Western powers and South Africa where the populace experience uninterrupted power supply. But what they fail to note is that in those nations, it is NOT the government that provides power. Rather it is the private sector, well regulated by the government that does so.

President Jonathan was aware of this fact and knew that insanity is not just confined to roving about the streets or a sanatorium stark raving mad. In fact, the most elementary form of insanity according to the genius, Albert Einstein, is for one to keep doing the same thing while expecting different results.

President Jonathan reckoned that if the government keeps on running the power sector it will be more of the same, so he fast tracked the power sector reforms and to prove his commitment and sincerity, he even let go of an effective minister whose presence made investors fear a conflict of interest.

Now, for the first time in history, Nigeria’s Gencos and Discos have been successfully privatized and you and I should know what that means. It means better days are coming. No private investor is going to allow his or her assets sit idly. He or she is going to run the company in a business like manner just as was done when the telecommunications industry was deregulated.

But the President is not stopping there. His administration is leaving no stone unturned and this year alone, seven power plants and 150 new sub-stations have already been completed and are awaiting commissioning.



Now, it is difficult to factor into the mind the effect of this breakthrough, but consider that one of these power stations which has gone into use already is the Agu-Awka power sub station. Now, hear what the All Progressives Congress, APC, flag bearer in the coming Anambra gubernatorial elections has to say about this feat.

Said Senator Ngige, “Agu-Awka power station is a new transmission line that is under a test-run and that explains why in the past three weeks, major parts of Awka capital territory have been enjoying uninterrupted power supply.”

Now, consider that 150 of such sub stations have been completed and are waiting for commissioning to provide power to more than 150 communities. If this is not “a thorough and dramatic change in form or appearance” then nothing else could be!

Imagine that in Nigeria we had in the past constantly failed to meet our education targets because 12 million children roam the streets of Nigeria as itinerant scholars known as Almajiri, who have no access to the formal education system.

Now, it is easy to blame the Federal Government, and this would be the reason why I championed a cause to get Nigerians to familiarize themselves with their Constitution. By virtue of the 1999 constitution as amended, primary education is devolved to the states and local governments.

But desperate illnesses require desperate remedies and President Jonathan did not say that since this responsibility does not fall on him he should do nothing. He felt that anybody that has the ability also has the responsibility and he decided to intervene and directed his ministers of education to use federal funds to build 400 schools for almajiris complete with hostels for the students and quarters for their Malams as well as science laboratories and Qu’ranic recitation halls.

As I write this, 153 of these schools have been completed and students are now in session. Now, you may say that this is just a drop in the ocean when you take into account that there are 12 million almajiris. However, if everyone had contributed his drop to the ocean in the years before Jonathan, there would not be such an alarming number!

And finally, as I close this short note, it is a notorious fact that the people of Southeastern Nigeria are probably the most mercantile people in the Nigerian federation, they like to trade and it has once been said that if you go to any part of the world and do not see an Igbo, then you must leave that place because it is uninhabitable! Yet, the Southeast had never had an international airport though its people are some of the most travelled of any people on the African continent.

President Jonathan again put on his thinking cap and began to plan to give the region an international airport. The Akanu Ibiam Airport in Enugu was upgraded, remodeled and today it stands proudly as an international airport. If you want to see “a thorough and dramatic change in form or appearance”, I recommend that you travel to Enugu this Saturday, the 24th of August to watch as an Ethiopian Airways plane takes off with passengers on the inaugural international flight from the Akanu Ibiam INTERNATIONAL Airport in Enugu.

Of course, it is easy for the opposition to scoff at this feat, but the ordinary Nigerian leaving in the Southeast knows what this means. Hitherto, they had to fork out sixty thousand Naira (N60,000) to fly to connecting airports before they could make their international flights. But today, they can spend that money on themselves and their families as President Jonathan puts money in their pockets.

Reno Omokri is Special Assistant (New Media) to President Jonathan.

The hypocrisy in ASUU

Nigerians were once reputed to be the happiest people in the world. This isn’t because life is good, but because most Nigerians make jokes of their problems. Thus when students decided to toe this line in the light of the ongoing ASUU strike, it was not unprecedented. Jokes about ASUU strike have been viral on social media. Definitions of ASUU strikes (supposedly to foreigners who inquired) include a self-imposed extra leave for all lecturers; and an annual festival during which students are not allowed to go to school.

The aim of this piece is neither to discuss the necessity or frequency of strike action nor to apportion blame. Rather, I write to highlight the latent hypocrisy of ASUU, and how lecturers have exploited an unfortunate situation for their gains, at the expense of Nigerian students.

Aside the ‘Police is your friend’ slogan, I wonder if there could be any greater hypocrisy than ASUU’s claim to be fighting to save the education sector from collapse, in light of recent revelations.

Let me quickly state that I’m not against the strike. As I wrote in a previous article, there is a tendency for every employee whose employers defaults on agreement to go on strike. However, while we criticise our politicians for shielding the truth from the public, our lecturers have toed the same line. ASUU never mentioned to students and the public that their priority was allowances, which is no crime anyway.

When medical doctors go on strike, it is stated that they want improves salary and working conditions. They never pretend to want better hospital beds or new ward clothing for patients. They are straight to the point and no one has ever blamed them for wanting better lives.

However, ASUU say they are after increased funding for education. They say they are protecting the future. They wants generation unborn to be grateful to them for revitalising the education sector, while still getting better pay.

While declaring the strike, ASUU said it was all about funding. They said government has gone back on its promise to inject N100 billion into the sector. They even claimed that the highest a lecturer will get in the allowances they are demanding is N12,500 per month, or N150,000 per annum. Lots of people berated the government and praised ASUU. That was before Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala revealed that government needs N92 billion to meet ASUU’s demands.

As a Yoruba adage goes, the wind has blown and the fowl’s anus is visible. Government set up a committee and agreed to invest N300 billion into the sector, with N100 billion already approved. This ecstacy made the committee chair, Governor Suswam say that the strike would be called off in less than a week. However, rather than end the crisis, it brought to the fore ASUU’s priority for going on strike: their bogus allowances.

ASUU’s claim of requesting just N87 billion is laughable and uncharitable to the students whose academic progress have been halted due to the impasse. To ASUU, increased funding only means infrastructure to aid their research and promotion (better lecture rooms, air conditioned offices, equipped laboratories etc); more research grants (so that they won’t have to spend their salary on research); better pay (that some of them hardly justify); outrageous extra or earned allowances (that makes you wonder what exactly they are paid for in the first place); among other things.

They have also insisted that a high percentage of said funds must be reserved for universities, who only make up less than 20% of entire Nigerian students in tertiary institutions (of course to the detriment of polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education).

In their selfishness, they neglected primary and secondary education, forgeting that these will determine the quality of intakes and graduates of the universities. They forget that other tertiary institutions are important as well (strengthening them will reduce pressure on universities). They are insensitive to the fact that their demands (if paid in full) could trigger other unions to demand more outrageous allowances (thus increasing recurrent expenditure and reducing amount left for capital expenditure).

But wait, there are many posers for ASUU, the self-acclaimed defender of public education who claim to love students more than themselves. Do they really care about students? Have they ever demanded payment of bursaries and scholarships, which most of them benefitted from? Do their local branches take official positions when school managements make obnoxious policies? Where was ASUU when Governor Fashola successfully commercialised education in Lagos State University? Who rents out their boys quarters to students who are not connected enough to get accommodation in the halls of residence at outrageous prices? Are they not the same people who constitute committees that victimise students?

Let me reiterate that I am not against a union fighting for its members’ welfare. However, they should be man enough to admit it (instead of brain washing students with a saviour posture), and should be sensitive enough to align it with the realities of the day, particularly when humans are involved (in this case, students).

While the strike is ongoing, final year Law students in University of Ibadan and University of Lagos have wrote exams, in order to meet up with Law School admission. Is this a case of Animal Farm, where some animals are more equal than the others? I didn’t say lecturers have children in those classes. I wish ASUU and the government can reach an agreement soon, so that the children of the helpless can progress.http://telegraphng.com/2013/08/the-hypocrisy-in-ASUU/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

Ur assesment on Dino is spot on

this thread doesnt say "the leader" of bokoharam was caught, it says "a leader" of bokoharam was caught. there is a big difference. how can anyway now say its a lie they couldnt have caught shekau? no one said they caught shekau.the colaboration with and the coperation of Niger intellence is welcome development. mayb GEJ threathened them with military action.

thehomer: The federal government shouldn't be doing this. This is yet another avenue for criminals to loot the treasury. $16 billion seems to be the magic figure when government officials wish to steal.

the $16B is to be invested by private sector not govt. so fg officials stealing the money doesnt come in

this is august o , where is the light rail, too much talk no action