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Nigeria: Press focuses on US election, agitation for non-payment of salaries, others

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The US election and the place of Nigeria and the rest of Africa in America’s foreign policy and the agitation of federal government workers over failure of government to pay their outstanding salaries dominate the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday


The Guardian reports that with the United States’ Africa and immigration policies now a subject of controversy, the place of Nigeria and the rest of the continent in America’s foreign policy post 2020 came into focus last night

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None of the two candidates in today’s presidential election— President Donald Trump and Joe Biden — has been able to give clear indication of what his policy would be for Africa.

“The hope — and the expectation —is that a Biden victory would be better for Africa,” US-based Professor Eloho Otobo told The Guardian. He, however, pointed out that Nigeria should not forget that Africa also had similar hopes, when Obama was elected. Yet there are few, if any, big Obama legacy for Africa.

It recalled that the Power Africa lnitiative (for a sum of $7bn) announced by Obama at the first and only Africa-US Summit in 2014 was modest compared to China’s investment in power in Africa, even as in 2014.

The Guardian reports that following the looting and destruction of warehouses across the country, including rice mills, Rice Millers Association of Nigeria (RIMAN) has raised concerns that the nation’s rice production is currently under threat and calls for urgent government intervention to forestall scarcity of the staple food in the market.

The Guardian learnt that 29 rice mills were looted and vandalized across the nation, with RIMAN members estimated to have lost about N228 million worth milled and paddy rice, aside vandalized equipment and private property. RIMAN, in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, and signed by its National President, Peter Dama, condemned the destruction, and looting carried out by miscreants in the name EndSARs protests against its members across the country.

He lamented that tonne of milled and paddy rice, furniture, machines, equipment and operational vehicles at the premises of these rice mills were destroyed and looted while some parts of buildings were set ablaze, adding that at the moment, these factories are in ruins. RIMAN is, therefore, shocked and sad at the level of the havoc that was carried out on these rice mills and other government and private properties within the country.
The Vanguard reports that aggrieved civil servants yesterday laid siege to the office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, over what they described as failure of the Federal Government to pay their outstanding salaries for two or three months.

Vanguard reported yesterday that staff of no fewer than 428 Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, were owed salaries for two to three months, having exhausted their recurrent allocations for the fiscal year.

The workers stormed the office of the Head of Service at about 9a.m. in what was to be a peaceful protest but were prevailed upon to shelve the idea before the arrival of newsmen accredited to cover the office.

One of the workers who participated in the protest, told Vanguard that they were told to give the Federal Government ample time to address all outstanding issues relating to payment of their salaries.

The Punch reports that the Nigerian Communications Commission on Monday announced that it had granted approval for two mobile network operators, MTN Nigeria and 9Mobile, to carry out trials on the workability of embedded Subscriber Identification Modules Service in Nigeria.

It said the trials, approved to run for a period of one year, would involve testing 5,000 e-SIMs by the two networks, subject to compliance with a number of regulatory conditions.

It outlined the conditions in a statement issued in Abuja by the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Ikechukwu Adinde, to include full compliance by the MNOs with the Registration of Telecoms Subscribers Regulations 2011.

Others include the Mobile Number Portability Regulations and Business Rules 2015; Guidelines on SIM Replacement 2017; and non-degradation of the quality of service experience by users of e-SIMs.

The commission’s Executive Vice Chairman, Umar Danbatta, said the primary objective of the e-SIM trial was to assess the technical performance of the e-SIM on telecoms service providers’ network towards eventual rollout, if satisfactory.

An e-SIM is a small chip that is embedded on a mobile phone or a smart device. It is designed for convenience, flexibility and simplicity. The e-SIM makes it easier for subscribers to choose a pre-paid plan provider and switch between network operators.

ThisDay reports that the Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, yesterday put the debts of Nigerian airlines over the last 10 years to aviation agencies at about N22.2 billion.

Sirika also said the federal government would soon start the disbursement of the N5 billion bailout it approved for the operators of the aviation sector. The House of Representatives, however, directed the Ministry of Aviation to suspend the planned ceding of four airports to private investors, pending the resolution of the contentious issues raised by labour unions and other stakeholders.

The minister spoke in Abuja at a public hearing on the Civil Aviation Amendment bills by the National Assembly, which would modernise and make the country’s aviation industry, be in tandem with international best practices.

The minister explained that the domestic carriers owe the agencies $6.9 million and N19.6 billion respectively and lamented their inability to pay their bills to the agencies, including five per cent charge from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), passenger service charge, landing and parking fees to the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and overflight charges to the National Airspace Management Agency (NAMA).

 

GIK/APA

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