Aso Villa Reads For Thurs. Feb 17, 2022
Every day, we bring you the important stories the media is reporting about the Federal Government of Nigeria
The Federal Government has approved N1,173,630,820,594.89 for the procurement of maintenance materials for the Ibadan-Kano standard gauge and the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri narrow gauge rail lines. The amount also includes printing contracts by the National Examination Council for the 2022 senior school certificate examination. The Minister of Education, Adamu, said the Council approved N4.97bn for printing contracts ahead of the 2022 senior school certificate examinations organised by NECO. [Punch]
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, said that the nation’s economy grew by 3.4 per cent in 2021, up from the 1.92 per cent contraction recorded in 2020. Disclosing this in the just released National Gross Domestic Product Q4 2021 report, the NBS said: “Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 3.98%(year-on-year) in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2021, showing a sustained positive growth for the fifth quarter since the recession witnessed in 2020 when output contracted by -6.10% and -3.62% in Q2 and Q3 of 2020 under the Covid pandemic. [Vanguard]
The Federal Government has reimbursed the medical expenses of two athletes who got injured at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games last summer. The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development disclosed this in a statement on its official Facebook page on Thursday. The athletes include Enoch Adegoke and Usheoritse Itsekiri who both suffered hamstring injuries while competing in the 100m men’s event. Adegoke got injured during the final and Itsekiri during the semifinals. [Punch]
The successful auction of 3.5GHz spectrum licence in Nigeria in December 2021, and the expected rollout of 5G network in Nigeria this month, The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has set the pace of 5G network deployment in Africa, the Nigerian Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (NIEEE) has said. The Engineering body in a statement signed by its outgoing National Chairman, Kings Adeyemi, singled out Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta and the entire management staff of the Commission for accolades. [This Day]
The nation’s electricity generation, weekend, increased to 4,569 megawatts, MW, from 3,835.3MW, recorded a week ago, indicating an increase of 19.1 per cent, due mainly to the recovery of some units at Egbin Power Plant. The incident, according to data obtained from the System Operator, an autonomous unit of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, has impacted on transmission and distribution of electricity to consumers. [Vanguard]
