Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Dr Olisa Agbakoba

By Lydia Ngwakwe

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Dr Olisa Agbakoba, has said that for Nigeria to experience rapid economic growth there is the need for some agencies of the Federal Government to come together and harness their potentials.

I like to see agencies such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Maritime and Safety Agency (NIMASA) come together with the Minister of Finance, to review how far we can harness our resources, he said.

He said the harnessing of potentials and resources could be done under the auspices of the Office of the Vice President which, according to him, has shown intellectual diligence.

Agbakoba, founding Partner of Olisa Agbakoba and Associates, a maritime law firm, gave the advice on Saturday in Lagos at a forum organised by the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the FICAN discussion centred on the 2021 federal budget and the Nigerian economy.

He said Nigeria could take a cue from former US President Barack Obama, who in 2009 came up with the American Recovery Act under which the American economy was revived.

According to Agbakoba, it is possible for Nigeria to do something similar but noted that it would require a lot of critical thinking.

He said after putting the necessary structures in place the government would need to involve the private sector.

He called on the government not to involve itself in the running of enterprises, stating that the country needed a new economic planning and ideology.

The senior lawyer expressed his dissatisfaction with the current economic sustainability plan of the government, pointing that the operational aspect of the plan ought not be in the hands of the government but the private sector.

On the 2021 federal budget, he noted that it was full of procurement by public institutions and said such was hardly seen in a US federal budget.

Acknowledging the challenges facing the Nigerian economy Agbakoba advised that for the economy to work, the government should limit itself to policy formulation and to play the role of a regulator while the private sector run the enterprises.

When you look at the 2021 budget, you find out that there is no way Nigeria is going to grow at three per cent next year.

No country comes from minus eight per cent to three per cent, from the negative or minus to a positive of three, he said.

Agbakoba said that Nigeria did not need to have a big budget as its economic resources in the states could determine each states capacity and not the money that it has.

The SAN urged the Federal Government to look within and sell off unwanted assets to the private sector.

He listed some of the assets that should be sold off to include the airports, refineries and the Federal Secretariat, pointing out that the government could collect taxes from their operators.

Agbakoba expressed his support for the closure of the nations borders and urged the government to also look into the trade subsector which, according to him, is responsible for 14 per cent of the GDP.

He said: The border closure is right because it is giving us money and the Nigerian Customs Service is making more money with the closure, he said.

He also advised the government to come up with a proper policy and investment at the ports and allow the private sector to run them.

He said if properly harnessed Nigeria could garner N7 trillion yearly from the maritime sector. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

Illustration: Construction of housing estate

By Ibironke Ariyo

The Controller General, Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), Mr Jaafaru Ahmed, says the Service has commenced its housing estate construction for staff nationwide.

Ahmed said this at the inauguration of the correctional cooperative society (COCOS) housing estate Lugbe, Abuja on Saturday.

He said that COCOS was established to serve as a frontline support that would provide financial succour to the personnel of the NCoS.

He said that the construction was more of a prototype as plans were on ground to replicate same in all the states of the Federation in order to give opportunity to officers to own decent and affordable accommodation.

According to him, the housing estate is a product of the partnership and collaboration between the NCoS represented by the COCOS and KYC inter-project limited.

The estate comprises 160 plots which have been distributed among interested staff whose take -home pay could accommodate the required monthly deductions.

It is indeed an estate within a mega estates; this is our own way of complementing Governments efforts at meeting the housing needs of its citizenry, he said.

Ahmed, however, urged the beneficiaries to take full advantage of the rare opportunity by living up to expectations.

He reiterated commitment to providing the leadership required to drive the NCOS to enviable height.

The General Manager, COCOS, Mrs Lydia Dauda, commended Ahmed for his continuous encouragement and guidance to the vision.

Dauda noted that the staff housing scheme by the COCOS was the first ever by the Cooperative in its 28 years of existence.

She said that the Cooperative had been able to pay N506 million for land and part of the infrastructure.

This is a first of its kind project and the first of many more to come and this vision was conceived sometimes in 2015.

The Previous Management of the Cooperative began negotiations with KYC Inter-project limited for 60 plots of land in their estate and eventually, part payments were made.

Coming to 2019, the management of KYC came to our office to return the part payment as there was no renewed effort to consolidate the contract.

At this point, the management of COCOS (then PRISCO) considered it a viable investment to continue the project. Our recommendation was to make-up the payment to the developers which we can then recover in piece-meal from members.

We then approached the CG to inform him of the development and to seek his approval. He asked us to verify the authenticity of the land and thereafter, gave his approval for the project.

We concluded negotiations for the initial 60 plots. However, demands for the land increased and we had to seek the CGCs approval to acquire 100 more plots bringing the total to 160 plots.

With the kind approval of the CGs, we were able to make substantial payments for the 160 plots of land including part of the infrastructure cost, she said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

NASS Complex

By Kingsley Okoye

The National Assembly (NASS) is tointroduce electronic-hansard in parliamentary procedures in the first quarter of 2021.

Mr Ojo Amos, Clerk to the NASS,made this known on Friday at the opening of a two-day retreat for top management staff of the National Assembly and National Assembly Service Commission (NASC).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the retreat, which has Issues, Challenges and Prospects in Legislative Bureaucracy as theme was organised by NASS in partnership with Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC).

Another partner is the National Institute of Legislative Development Studies (NILDS).

Amos said the e-Hansard is the record of debates of the Parliament.

He said that the focus on the e-hansard was to drastically reduce the volume of paper works in parliamentary activities.

He said the e-governance parliamentary technology would be very convenient for legislators and watchers of National Assembly in Nigeria and everywhere.

You will agree with me that e-hansard is a most veritable tool in our e-parliament agenda. Amos said.

He said current management of NASS had made frantic efforts to give top priority to digitalisation and provision of ICT materials in parliamentary business.

According to him, the building of legislative specialists to effectively man the process of law making can never be overemphasised.

He also said the absolute well-being and happiness of NASS staff was paramount, noting that the need to make a success of the nations democratic project was not negotiable.

Amos said given the recent challenges faced by retirees of NASS on pension contributions, NASS management was canvassing for establishment of a National Assembly Pension Board (NAPB).

According to him, NAPB, if established would address challenges of its retiring staff.

Amos said one of the real challenges of the management in parliamentary business was to develop the capacity of all relevant staff and that of legislators to be at par with what was obtainable in other parliamentary democracies across the world.

He, however, noted that capacity enhancement of staff has been a priority, believing that parliamentary democracy was meaningless without adequate training and re-training of relevant staff.

Prof. Suleiman Abubakar, Director General of NILDS in his remarks said NILDS was founded to respond to obvious legislative institutional and capacity gaps occasioned by long years of military rule in the country.

He said since assumption of office, the institute had made collaborations with NASS and NASC a priority.

Abubakar said NILDS had introduced Post -Graduate Programmes since 2013 in affiliation with University of Benin in parliamentary administration, legislative drafting of bills and motions, legislative studies, bills analysis , elections and party politics, among other courses.

He said beneficiaries of the programme had been legislative aids, lawmakers, clerks of committees, officials of Ministry of Justice among others.

He said the programme was helping to strengthen capacity of staff of National Assembly.

According to him, earlier in the year, the institute with support of NASC organised training for 300 new legislative aides on fundamentals of legislative proceedings.

He said the institute would continue to provide capacity training for both staff and legislative aides in parliamentary business. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

COVID-19 test

Mass testing for the Coronavirus, (COVID-19) in Austria will be rolled out in twowaves in December and January to prevent further lockdowns, the government announced on Friday.

Afew minutes of testing can prevent several weeks of lockdown for the entire country,Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a statement.

We will be able to pinpoint a high number of infected persons quickly, and will be able to break infection chains,he added.

Kurz said that Seven million antigen tests that produce results within minutes have been ordered for the country with a population of 8.9 million people.

He further said that testing would commence with school and daycare teachers from Dec. 5 andDec.6 when the country was expected to end its current second shutdown phase.

Police officers will be tested next, followed by a phase of voluntary testing for the entire population. (dpa/NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Simon Akoje

Global Fund says it will invest about million over the next three years to fight Tuberculosis (TB) in Nigeria and 10 other African countries, which are classified under high burden TB countries in Africa.

Dr Eliud Wanerdwalo , Senior Disease Coordinator at Global Fund, made the disclosure during the 33rd Stop TB Partnership virtual Board Meeting on Friday.

According to him, the Fund will be providing additional million to support programmes targeted at finding missing TB cases.

Nigeria is expected to get about million from the total grant to improve its health system to effectively respond and contain TB for the next three years.

African countries benefitting from the grant include Nigeria; Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

In this session, we are collectively investing about million US dollars over the next three years to fight TB, Malaria and HIV this present about 45 per cent of our investment.

So you can see how important these regions are to the Global Fund.

COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardised global efforts to save millions of lives and provide access to essential TB care and prevention.

Health systems are overstretched due to the unprecedented global health emergency, leading to serious restrictions in access to TB diagnosis, treatment, and prevention services.

Globally; these disruptions could result in an additional 6.3 million people developing tuberculosis and 1.4 million additional deaths resulting from TB between 2020 and 2025, he said.

We leverage countries which we had presented today, and Nigeria will receive million for tuberculosis for the next three years.

We are very pleased to get our colleagues from the African Union to host this event for 11 African countries about their progress in scaling up their TB programmes, and also the commitment to continue to support the programmes, even in this challenging period of COVID- 19.

More importantly we are willing to continue with commitment to fund the response in Africa.

For us in the Global Fund, we believe, everyone who needs treatment should be found especially those who are in a difficult situation, those who are in a normal circumstance, and those who do not go to the facility.

We should make all efforts to find them and put them on treatment, this will ensure that it will cut the chain of transmission of tuberculosis and the spread of the epidemic.

We understand countries are facing unprecedented challenges in implementing this commitment this COVID period, but we would like to work with countries to ensure that they redouble their efforts, not only to recover the losses which they have experienced this year, he said.

Also speaking, Suvanand Sahu, Deputy Executive Director, Stop TB Partnership Secretariat, Geneva , said the areas of investment is to improve the access in diagnosis and purchase of more diagnostic equipment and also to improve access to data.

We are investing in communities to be able to undertake screening and diagnosing using community health care workers across.

We know that close to over 60 per cent of Primary Health Care seeking in Nigeria is through the private sector and there will be a significant investment in improving the network of private health, Sahu said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

Malam Mele Kyari, NNPC boss

By Solomon Asowata

Mr Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says he is optimistic that the corporation will declare dividends in 2020 in spite of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Kyari spoke at an interactive session with the National Association of Energy Correspondents (NAEC) in Abuja on Friday.

He said: Our vision is that NNPC will become a company of excellence and declare dividends to Nigerians and shareholders.

We are optimistic that at the end of 2020, NNPC will declare dividends to Nigerians in spite of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kyari said that accountability and transparency were key to turning NNPC into an efficient and profit-oriented enterprise.

He said this was what informed the decision of the corporation to publish its operational and financial reports monthly.

Kyari said: NNPC has never published its audited financial statement in 43 years. We came and started doing that and released the 2018 financial statement which showed that NNPC lost N803 billion.

We were not afraid of doing that and there were a lot of criticisms that we lost money in refinery operations and pipeline business.

We went ahead and published the 2019 audited report and was able to learn and cut cost and became more efficient.

There is no company in the country which has cut its losses within one financial year by N800 billion.

That means we reduced 97 per cent of our losses by cutting our cost and improving our efficiency.

He said that the NNPC was able to maintain its obligations to the Federation Account for seven months without fail in spite of the huge impact of the coronavirus on the oil and gas industry. (NAN

Source: NAN News

FRSC

By Chimezie Anaso

The Anambra Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has confirmed the death of an unidentified petroleum tanker driver, who got trapped underneath the fallen vehicle.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the accident happened at the popular Immigration Junction at the Awka axis of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway on Friday.

An eyewitness, John Okafor, said that the accident occured at about 3.45 pm, when the driver of the Enugu-bound tanker, attempted to manoever off the road to avoid ramming into vehicles held up in a gridlock.

Okafor said: The tanker suddenly ran into the end of a lane due to speed and in an attempt to avoid hitting the vehicles ahead of it, the driver manoevered out of the road.

In the process, the vehicle lost balance due to its speed and weight because it was conveying diesel.

It eventually fell on its side and the driver got trapped underneath, adding that he was later pulled out motionless by men of the FRSC.

The Public Education Officer of FRSC in Anambra, Mr Kamal Musa, confirmed the incident to NAN.

Musa said the man was pulled out dead, adding that his remains had benn deposited at the Chukwuemeka Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital, Amaku, Awka mortuary.

NAN reports that corps operatives had a hectic period controlling traffic and dispersing some residents of the area, who rushed to scoop diesel spilling out of the tanker. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

GMD OF NNPC, MALAM MELE KYARI

By Edith Ike-Eboh

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Malam Mele Kyari, said that President Muhammadu Buhari nerver interfered in the opetations of the Corporation.

Kyari disclosed this at a media interactive with National Association of Energy Correspondents in Abuja, on Friday.

He said that the corporation had the full support of the president to operate effectively for the growth of the industry,

I can tell you that the privledge we have today in this company of having unfettered control without any distraction or inteference to make decisions and be accountable and responsible for our decisions has never happened until this government.

I can tell you this because I have been around for 29 years and have worked closely with top management of the NNPC for about 15 years.

This is the only president who has nerve asked NNPC to do something.

I have the personal privilege to have access to Mr President, to his private audience and I can tell you that under no circumstances has he controlled what we want to do.

He only wants to know and be sure that what we are doing is in the best interest of the country, he said

He said that migrating to the deregulation of the downstream oil sector was a huge challenge and difficult decision for the president as he understood the pain it would put ordinary Nigerian through.

According to him, the president supported the decision because government can no longer afford subsidy with harsh economic impact of COVID-19.

The GMD said that the Corporations new focus was on gas development as the most resilient source of energy in the energy transition process.

The only oil and gas that survived during the COVID-19 with minimal negative change was gas. Gas will help the country out of its major challenge of electricity.

The biggest challenge we have here is to take electricity to homes, industries and to use the resources we have to create that enetgy this country needs.

Today for two reasons we are not getting electricity because the production is low and we are not able to transmit it to those who need it.

That means there is bottle neck in transmission and distribution system, he said

He said that gas had a lot to offer as it created work and economy that was not existing today noting that it could create industry with many other benefits.

Kyari maintained that although Nigeria was known as an oil country it is more a gas nation than oil.

He assured that the Corporation would continue to work to ensure full gas development in the country for economic growth.(NAN)

Source: NAN News

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo

By Maureen Okon

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says creating an enabling environment is key to boosting local investment in the country.

Osinbajo said this on Friday in Abuja at the Nigerians in Diaspora virtual Investment Summit (NDIS), organised by Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) in collaboration with Nigeria Diaspora Summit Initiative.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the summit, holding between Nov. 20 and Nov. 21, is the third edition. It has the theme: Post-COVID-19 Economic Resurgence: Targeting Diaspora Investment.

The summit is targeting investors in the health, education, Agric-business, creative industry and sports sectors.

Other areas include entertainment, Telecom, ICT/Fin-tech and manufacturing sectors.

The vice president said that the Federal Government was keen on improving the countrys economy after the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This is the third summit and this is my third appearance. The reason each time I accept invitation is the same our Diaspora is one of the vital resources that we have.

literally, Diaspora is an endless reservoir of talents, trade and investment opportunities in tourism, education, culture and sports.

But, even more important is the shared range of well trained and experienced talent that the Diaspora represents. It is that potential that makes our Diaspora network an endless source of economic hope and social aspirations.

When we met last year little did we know that the world will be afflicted by possibly the worst health crisis and the most devastating economic down turn in a generation.

For us in Nigeria as with many developing countries, it means as of this quarter a minus six per cent slow down in GDP. It is a sad development especially after 12 conservative quarters of growth.

So, in response, we designed a plan and the focus is on creating jobs, first via agriculture propgrammes where we have already enumerated five million farmers, Osibanjo said.

He said that government had also begun a mass housing programme where 300,000 homes would be built across states in the country using local materials to create job opportunities.

For this housing project, we have block makers and producers of panel and windows all from local companies. The whole idea is to generate job opportunities and income in every locality.

We also have a solar programme to makes five million connections across the country to service 25 million indigenous people, he said.

The vice president further said that the project involved a credit extended to solar home system assemblance and retailers by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

All our pragrammes are supported by credit facilities which CBN is offering. We have N1.3 trillion in all, so the whole idea is that the CBN is offering these credit facilities through the commercial banks to support our housing programme, solar home system and the agriculture programmes.

What we try to do in response to COVID-19 and also improvising our own economy policy is to attempt to make the physical environment as attractive as possible.

This is important to us because the only way to attract local investment is to ensure that we have physical environment that is attractive and make sense for people to invest in, Osibanjo said.

Source: NAN News

Empowerment of girl-child critical to socioeconomic change NGO

By Joy Odigie

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Gift a Child Initiative, on Friday called on the Federal Government to commit 26 per cent of its budgetary allocation to education as recommended by UNESCO.

Miss Deborah Eseni, the Coordinator and founder of the NGO, made the call at an event organised to commemorate the Universal Childrens Day celebrations held in Benin.

Speaking during her presentation, Eseni said the call had became imperative in the event of COVID-19 pandemic which had completely changed things globally.

She said that children needed to be assured of a better future by ensuring adequate budgetary allocation for education in the country.

This year, a lot has happened globally and children were affected as well following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which has changed things globally.

Government at all levels and all stakeholders must begin to provide platforms for children to be heard and be part of every decision making process.

To achieve this, every child must be given qualitative education that would be of immense value to the society in the future.

This is why government must commit 26 per cent of its budgetary allocation to education for sustainable development of the economy as recommended by UNESCO, she said.

According to her, the universal childrens day celebration is observed globally every Nov. 20.

The theme for this years celebration is Reimagine a Better Society for the Children. (NAN)

Source: NAN News