The call by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the declaration of a state of emergency on rape and other forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and the IMF’s advice for additional spending of 18 percentage of Nigeria’s GDP on infrastructure to achieve Sustainable Development Goals dominate the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Vanguard reports that the National Human Rights Commission NHRC has urged Nigerian governments at all levels to declare a state of emergency on rape and other forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence SGBV, describing both as “criminal offences that have devastating effects on both the survivors and the society at large”.
Tony Ojukwu, Executive Secretary of the NHRC, disclosed that the Commission in partnership with NAPTIP is organizing a 5-day of activism with the theme ‘Equality and Dignity for Nigerian Women’ which will take place across the states of the Federation, beginning with a walk in Abuja from June 16 to conscientize and sensitize the public on the dangers of rape and other SGBV, as well as the steps to take to address them.
“At the headquarters in Abuja, the Commission, with its partners and other stakeholders will visit the National Assembly, the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Ministry of Women Affairs, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, the Inspector General of Police, the Ministry of Information, Media Houses and other relevant stakeholders on a wake-up call to join the fight against rape and SGBV”, the Executive Secretary stated.
The Punch says that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated additional spending of 18 percentage points of Gross Domestic Product by 2030 for Nigeria to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
It stated this in its report on, “Technical assistance report––additional spending toward Sustainable Development Goals,” for May 2020, which was released on Monday. Part of the report read, “Making progress in the Sustainable Development Goals requires substantial additional resources.
“Concomitant with the reform priorities identified by the United Nations, World Bank, European Union, and other international development institutions, the mission estimates additional spending of 18 percentage points of Gross Domestic Product by 2030—a level higher than the average low-income and developing countries.
“Relative to other low-income and developing countries, additional spending is higher in education and water and sanitation, and lower in health, electricity, and roads.” The IMF noted that Nigeria faced serious development gaps.
The newspaper also says that the Senate has demanded detailed written submissions from the Head of Service of the Federation, permanent secretaries and heads of federal ministries and agencies on the levels of their involvement in the job racketeering scandal going on under their watch.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, wrote the strongly-worded query to the various heads of the MDAs, through the HoS, which was dispatched to the accounting officers by the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.
The official communication was titled, ‘Petition against the permanent secretaries and directors of human resources and administration of various MDAs for a deliberate failure to document, engage and deploy qualified candidates to their various MDAs between 2016 to 2019.’
ThisDay says that the federal government has said it’s developing a three-year response strategy to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
At the regular briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic, yesterday in Abuja by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said in view of the assessment that the pandemic might last for a longer period, the federal government had decided to map out a three-year health sector response plan, which would guide efforts at containing the virus in the long-run.
“COVID-19 will be with us for a long time and we shall keep learning as we go along. In this respect, the Federal Ministry of Health is developing a three-year Health Sector COVID-19 Response Action Plan, which we shall use as a roadmap with which we can plan over the next 36 months,” he added.
He described the new plan as the product of learned minds, which is divided into “short-term, medium-term and long-term, with a flexibility to accommodate what changes or what we learn additionally about COVID-19 along the way.”
The newspaper also says Nigeria has raised N162.56 billion to help finance infrastructure projects through the sale of Islamic bonds to local funds and insurance companies, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said.
The government had planned to sell N150 billion of the sukuk in its third outing, the DMO said, but it increased the size of the offer after it received a more than four-fold subscription.
GIK/APA