Aso Villa Reads for 10/09/2020
Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria
The Federal Government and the United Nations Children’s Fund have expressed commitment towards stopping all forms of attack on educational facilities in Nigeria. The commitment towards ending violence in schools is coming on the heels of the nation’s securing $20m for accelerated funding of emergencies for the North-East from Global Partnership. They both expressed their commitment at the maiden commemoration of International Day to Protect Education from Attack held in Maiduguri on Wednesday. Speaking at the occasion for the Federal Government, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, said the government recognised access to quality education as a fundamental human right of every child. He said, “In spite of these, many Nigerian children are denied this fundamental right due to the incessant attacks on our educational facilities. When school facilities are attacked, learners and teachers are abducted, killed or maimed, and schools are closed; millions of children are denied access to quality education.” On its part, UNICEF urged government at all levels to prioritise the safeguarding of children and education institutions.[Punch]
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Wednesday inaugurated the national steering committee to oversee the development of the Nigeria Agenda 2050 and Medium-Term National Development Plan to succeed Vision 20:2020 and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, 2017–2020, Punch reported. Mr Atedo Peterside and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, will jointly chair the committee for the development plan. The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement titled “Agenda 2050: President Buhari inaugurates national steering committee, says new development plan will lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030.” “The main objectives of these successor plans are to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within the next 10 years, particularly given the World Bank’s projection that Nigeria will become the world’s third most populous country by 2050 with over 400 million people,” the statement quoted Buhari as saying at the inauguration. Buhari noted that it had become necessary to develop successor plans to the Nigeria Vision 20:2020 and the ERGP, in order to ensure continuity and efficiency in the country’s development planning. He said the committee would oversee governance structure comprising the central working group and 26 technical working groups for the important national assignment.
The Federal Government asked a Milan court on Wednesday to order Eni and Royal Dutch Shell to pay $1.09bn as an immediate advance payment for damages it is claiming in one of the oil industry’s biggest-ever corruption trials. Shell and Eni jointly acquired the rights to Oil Prospecting Licence 245, a Nigerian offshore oil block, for about $1.3bn in 2011 from Malabu Oil and Gas, a company owned by a former Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dan Etete. Reuters reported that at a hearing into alleged corruption linked to the oil majors’ acquisition of the OPL 245, Lucio Lucia, lawyer for the Nigerian government, called for a guilty verdict and an advance payment, ahead of any broader damages package set by a court at a later date. According to the report, Lucia did not specify how much Nigeria was seeking in damages overall but said the disputed deal had deprived Abuja of “profit oil”, adding “these are massive amounts”. The lawyer said that calculated under two different scenarios, the profits that had been lost amounted to $4.5bn and $5.9bn respectively. Prosecutors allege that about $1.1bn of the amount paid for the acquisition of OPL 245 was siphoned off to politicians and middlemen, half of it to Etete himself.[Punch]
The Federal Government has explained its decision to fully remove subsidy from petrol, saying the country stands to rake in over ₦1 trillion annually which would be deployed to fund other critical components of the economy. Minister of State, Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva disclosed this Thursday in Abuja in an interview with some political correspondents. He said; “I believe that this discussion around subsidy has been a vexed issue that has captured the imagination of this country for a long time now. Successive administrations have attempted to deregulate. But sometimes, some administrations lacked the political will and at other times, the time was not good for it. What is deregulation going to do? It is going to free up a lot more money.” “At least from the very beginning, it will save us up to a trillion and more every year. Already, we have taken up the budgetary provision for the subsidy which is about N500 billion in the budget.”[Vanguard]
The Federal Government and leadership of the National Association of Resident Doctors, NARD, yesterday night signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with a view to resolving the ongoing nationwide strike by the resident doctors. Following the MOU, NARD leaders are expected to meet today with a view to calling of the ongoing strike. The MOU was signed at a conciliation meeting convened by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Dr Chris Ngige, attended by the leadership of NARD and the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, the Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, FMoFB&NP, as well as the office of Accountant General of the Federation. The Minister of State for Health, Senator Olorunnimbe Mamora, his Labour and Employment counterpart, Festus Keyamo SAN, and the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris also participated in the meeting, which lasted for about six hours. Briefing journalists after the meeting, Ngige, informed that NARD admitted that the Hospitals and Isolation Centres now have sufficient Personal Protection Equipment, PPE. Among others, the minister said: “The Federal Government had paid N9.3 billion to Insurance Companies for Life Group Insurance and payment of death benefits for Health Workers. Enrollment was by the submission of nominal rolls by the various Health Institutions which NARD had been mandated at previous meeting to accomplish.”[Vanguard]
The National Directorate of Employment, NDE, has commenced the training of 100 youths in Bayelsa State in agriculture under the Sustainable Agriculture Development Training Scheme, SADTS. Flagging off the training in Yenagoa, the State capital yesterday, the Director General of NDE, Dr Nasiru Argungu, said the NDE was using the SADTS initiative to offer young school leavers, graduates, school dropouts and retirees employability skills in agriculture to escape unemployment. Dr Argungu, who was represented by the State Coordinator of NDE, Mr Ahamenfule Osuchukwu, said the beneficiaries who were selected from the three senatorial districts in the state would be trained on fish, snail and poultry farming as well as crop farming, and charged them to embrace the programme as see agriculture as a business.[Vanguard]
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has so far generated N976.6 billion revenue from January to August for the country. The document obtained from the service through its Public Relations Office by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday indicated that the sum was realised from import duties and excise duties, among others. The statistics showed that the NCS generated its highest revenue from import duty followed by the one gotten from the service’s Value Added Tax (VAT). From the document, NCS realised N471.7 billion from import duty trailed by the N216.4 billion generated from the Customs’ VAT. According to the statistics, the sum of N120.4 billion is generated from Non-Federation Accounts levies, while N84.3 billion is gotten from Federation Accounts levies. The document also showed that the sum of N76.9 billion was generated from excise duty and N6.6 billion was received from fees. NAN recalls that the sum of N1.3 trillion was generated as revenue in 2019 by the NCS.[Vanguard]
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