₦airaland Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxPSoXpwL2o

Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Gabduje has predicted the humiliation of Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki come September 19 when the state governorship election will take place.

He also promised that the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who is heading Obaseki’s re-election, will be isolated.

Ganduje, while addressing the press on Monday, said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is only interested in the Edo State treasury, hence the support for Obaseki.

He said, “Governor Obaseki will be humiliated and Governor Wike isolated.”

The Kano State Governor spoke with newsmen shortly after his 49-member campaign council was inaugurated by the National Chairman of the Caretaker/Extra-Ordinary National Convention Planning Committee (CEONCPC) Governor Mai Mala Buni at the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja, vowed to secure victory for APC at the poll.

READ ALSO: Atiku reacts as Wike, Fintiri gets new appointment
Following his disqualification, by the APC, Obaseki resigned from the ruling party

He later joined the PDP where he participated in the party’s primary election and emerged as the party’s sole candidate for the September 2020 governorship election.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EzTT7kU8YE


Senator representing Anambra South Senatorial District, Ifeanyi Ubah, on Tuesday came hard on the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Kayamo, saying he was ignorant of lawmakers’ oversight functions.

Ubah was reacting to the impasse between the Joint Committee on Labour and Productivity and the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo on Monday.

He said Festus Keyamo is not a “substantive Minister”, but behaved rascally, wondering what he would benefit from manifesting ignorance of how the legislature works.

Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, he argued: “The legislature is empowered to check activities of the executive.

“Festus Keyamo is not even a substantive Minister. A rascal and he came here to display rascality.

“What will a Senator be doing with N20,000 or N30,000 if not for the interest of Nigerians”, he remarked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXxX2WzN5do

The Senate has called on government at the federal and state levels, as well as relevant Ministries and Agencies to sustain the immunization of infants and children in the country.

The call was made against the backdrop of a motion considered to commemorate the declaration of Nigeria as a polio virus free nation by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday, 11th June, 2020.

The upper chamber while congratulating the Federal Government for the feat, urged the Federal Ministry of Health to adopt guidelines and other measures to prevent the transmission of polio into Nigeria by foreign tourists or Nigerian travelers.

Sponsor of the motion, Senator Chukwuka Utazi (PDP – Enugu North) said, “the attainment of polio virus free status by Nigeria is historic and remarkable not only to Nigeria, but for the entire continent of Africa considering the contagious nature of the virus.

“This achievement also serves as a major boost to the realization of the goal of eradicating polio globally for good” According to the lawmaker, “since 1998 when the World Health Organization first declared the polio virus a disease of international concern that must be eradicated by the year 2000, more than 350,000 children were reportedly paralyzed on account of the virus in more than 125 countries.

As recent as 2012, Nigeria accounted for more than half of the reported cases globally.” He added that, “Nigeria in the recent past successfully contained and defeated the dreaded Ebola virus and also moved on to contain the spread of Lassa fever and monkey pox. “However, the recent declaration of Nigeria as a polio free nation calls for special tribute to health workers, health administrators and other stakeholders and further action such as immunization to forestall a reversal of this success”, Utazi said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7bD6Humuyo

The leaders of the National Assembly have explained their positions against the plan to increase electricity tariffs in the country by July.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan and House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila expressed their rejection of the plan on Monday at a meeting with electricity distribution companies, DISCOs and the regulator, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission.

On Tuesday the two leaders met with Vice President Osinbajo on the same subject. They spoke to journalists after the meeting. Read their remarks
below.

Ahmad Lawan
We have come to visit our Vice President, one of our leaders in connection with the impending electricity tariff in the country.

The joint leadership of the National Assembly sat yesterday with DISCOS and Nigeria Regulatory Agency. We believe that this is not the right time to increase the tariff in the electricity sector. Nigerians have a lot of challenges today because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation requires that we do everything possible to make life easy for our citizens.

Of course, government is doing a lot in this respect but we believe that DISCOS should meet with consumers, find better cost effective tariff. But before then, there must be some steps to ensure that the consumers are properly metered otherwise, you will still go back to guessing what consumers are consuming. That is to say that let the billing be scientifically based, it has to be based on what you actually consumed.

So we had this discussion with Mr. Vice President and we are sure that that announcement in the increase of electricity tariff in Nigeria is untimely. We believe that we need to do more work to ensure that before any increase, there must be some measures, steps, line of actions that must be exhausted including the metering. This is a welcome idea to the Vice President as well.

Can we get to a point where we can get steady power supply so that billing, metering and all of that won’t be too hard for Nigerians?

I believe that the share purchase agreement signed by the government and the DISCOS at the point of the privatization must be adhered to. These are businesses and they must do everything possible to provide services. It is when they provide efficient and effective services to consumers that they can make money. But as a government, we too must make sure that we discharge our obligations as provided for in share purchase agreement signed. Once we are able to achieve that, we will have a better situation in the power sector in Nigeria. It is doable, it has happened elsewhere. So, we cannot continue to give DISCOS and GENCOS the resources that we can ordinarily deploy to build hospitals. But whatever it’s necessary for us to do as part of our agreement with them we must do those.

Today is International Day of Parliamentarism, how well have you supported government and discharged your responsibility in this period of COVID-19 in terms of emergency laws, monitoring spending etc?

Well, we have been doing our best but it’s for the public to judge what we do. I wouldn’t say we should rate ourselves but I want to assure you that in the prevailing circumstances, the National Assembly has been doing its best. We try to attend to all those issues we believe are contemprenous, those resources that government need to address COVID-19 situation.

Recently, we passed the budget 2020 and of course that included the stimulus package to support the COVID-19 situation. So we have been doing our best and we are always available to undertake those parliamentary interventions that will be required as at when due.

Femi Gbajabiamila
On the hike of electricity tariff and the DISCOS complaints of operating under heavy financial burden:

Let me just say that we saw the President earlier this morning and we have seen the Vice President today. The whole idea is that when there is a major policy decision, it is always good that the legislature and the executive are on the same page so that we don’t sing different tunes.

I will like to say that I think we have all agreed on an increase in cost-reflective tariff but the issue is that the timing is also important. Sometimes, timing is more important than even the policy decision that you make. There is a saying that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. So the intentions is good but what about the timing. We have all agreed to suspend this for a while, tarry a while and get the buy-in of the people, explain to the people why this has to be done, that it is for the betterment for the electricity to get stable. They are businessmen and cannot be undercutting themselves. I think so far so good, the President listener attentively, the Vice President listener attentively and I think everybody is on the same page and hopefully, we will get some reprieve between now and whenever but it’s not going to happen today.

N186bn for health sector omitted as Revised 2020 budget approval suffers setback in Senate

The Senate on Tuesday stepped down consideration of the N10.509trillion revised 2020 budget forwarded to it for consideration by President Muhamnadu Buhari due to omission of N186billion proposed for the health sector.

The upper legislative chamber had given expeditious consideration of the revised 2020-2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP).

The revised 2020 budget was expected to be passed by the Senate on Tuesday before it was jettisoned during plenary.

Trouble for the revised budget evolved when, as listed on the Order Paper, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, called on the Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Jibrin Barau ( APC Kano North), to lay the report .

Senator Barau also stunned the Senate by informing his colleagues that refusal of the Budget office to capture the entire N500billion intervention fund for COVID-19 in the appropriation bill .

Also, he said while N314billion was captured as part of the intervention fund, the balance of N186billion proposed for health sector, was not captured.

Barau said: “Upon making such observation at committee level, we quickly informed the budget office of the omission last week .

“Though the budget office as part of excuses given for the omission said since the entire N500billion was captured in the MTEF/ FSP documents already passed by the Senate , that there was no need for it to be fully captured in the budget .

” But we rejected that excuse in line with sections 80 and 81 of the 1999 Constitution which empowers the National Assembly to appropriate every single Kobo for the executive before spending .

“On the strength of our superior argument, the budget office admitted wrongness of the omission but promised to write a letter to us to be used as evidence of helping them to include it

” But the expected letter never came till now , making us not to be ready for presentation of any report now .

“If by the end of today, the office still refuse to send the letter to us, we shall be left with no other alternative than to print out our report today based on proposals contained in the Appropriation bill for consideration in plenary tomorrow,” he said .

Angered by the development, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan said: “The Senate hereby advise those responsible for the budget documents and expected letter to do the needful without further delay. They need to be meticulous and responsible.

“The National Assembly cannot be a destination where lack of efficiency on somebody’s job would be entertained.

“If we put figures without documents , they will accuse us of padding . We must have the documents printed today unfailingly, lay it tomorrow and give it final consideration on Thursday,” Lawan said.