Nigeria: Press spotlights plans by govt for joint cable protection, others

The report that the Nigerian Government has issued a call for a unified effort among West African nations to protect shared telecommunications infrastructure, following a recent internet outage that affected the region is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that the Federal Government has issued a call for a unified effort among West African nations to protect shared telecommunications infrastructure, following a recent internet outage that affected the region.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, made this call during the 21st West Africa Telecommunications Regulatory Assembly Annual General Meeting held in Freetown, Sierra Leone at the weekend.
This was disclosed in a statement on Sunday evening by the Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Reuben Muoka.
A major internet disruption on March 14th impacted West and Central Africa, leading to failures in multiple subsea cables and causing widespread disruption to online services, including banking operations.
The EVC’s message was delivered at the WATRA AGM by the Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the Commission, Nnenna Ukoha.
He stated that the recent submarine cable cuts that resulted in nationwide outages on multiple networks in 12 African countries have raised the urgent need for the subregion to establish a mechanism to protect itself from damage to submarine infrastructure and its attendant impact on the subregion.
Maida referred to a report by Cloudflare, an IT service management firm, which indicates that about six countries, including four West African countries, were still suffering from the outages caused by the submarine cable cuts.
The newspaper says that the Federal Government of Nigeria has concluded plans to train some newly recruited personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory as the School Safety Protection Squad to halt cases of abduction of schoolchildren from their schools.
The Commander of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre of the NSCDC, Hammed Abodunrin, disclosed this in an interview with The PUNCH on Sunday just as the Defence Headquarters said troops rescued 137 abducted pupils of the LEA Primary School and the Government Secondary School Kuriga in the Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna, within Zamfara State.
This came as President Bola Tinubu welcomed the news of the release of the Kuriga schoolchildren, as well as the release of pupils of a Tsangaya school in Sokoto State, commending all the parties involved in the feat for their valiant efforts.
The Defence Headquarters announced that 137 Kaduna schoolchildren were rescued but it did not explain what happened to the remaining as 287 pupils were kidnapped from the schools on March 7, 2024.
Efforts to get further clarifications from the Defence Headquarters did not succeed as the Director of Defence Media Operations, Maj Gen. Edward Buba, didn’t pick up calls to his mobile telephone and had yet to respond to a message sent to him as of the time of filing this report.
But the Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, in an interview on Channels Television, put the number of the abducted pupils at 137.
The Vanguard newspaper reports that the Minister of Information and Culture, Mohammed Idris, says the Nigerian Government has attracted 30 billion dollars Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to the real sector of the economy.
Idris said this when he met with the business community in Kano on Friday.
“These investment commitments covering manufacturing, telecoms, healthcare, oil and gas, and others are already being realised.
“The Nigerian economy grew by 3.46 per cent (year-on-year) in Q4 2023, compared to 2.54 per cent in the preceding quarter; a better performance than anticipated.
“Capital importation into Nigeria was up 66 per cent in Q4 2023, compared to Q3 2023, reversing a 36 per cent decline in the previous quarter.”
According to him, President Bola Tinubu’s new Oil and Gas policy reforms programme when implemented will generate a billion cubic feet per day additional gas supply, as well as create 2.3 million jobs.
The minister said that it would boost the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 17 billion dollars, Compress Nigeria’s oil and gas contracting cycle from 38 months to six months.
The minister also said that the new tax incentives being implemented had the potential to attract up to 10 billion dollars in new oil and gas investment.
He said that the New Presidential Policy would reduce operating costs for oil and gas operations in Nigeria, which was higher than global average.
Idris said that already, Nigeria’s oil production had risen from 1.22 mbpd in Q2 2023 to 1.6 mbpd in Q1 2024 Post Oil Subsidy Removal Economic Relief/Interventions:
The newspaper says that Nigeria’s public debt has increased by 10.7 per cent from N87.87 trillion in Q3’24 to N97.34 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2023, according to data released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Friday in Abuja.
The DMO, in an update yesterday said the increase in the debt stock was largely due to new domestic borrowing by the Federal Government, FG, to part finance the deficit in the 2024 Appropriation Act and disbursements by multilateral and bilateral lenders.
The Office noted that the N97.3 trillion public debt comprises domestic debt of N59.12 trillion and external debt of N38.22 trillion. The sum of $3.5 billion was used to service external debt during the review period.
DMO said: “Nigeria’s Public Debt Stock as at December 31, 2023 was N97.34trillion or $108.229 Billion. This amount comprises the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), the thirty-six (36) States Governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
“There was an increase of N9.43 trillion over the comparative figure for September, 2023 which was largely due to new domestic borrowing by the FGN to part finance the deficit in the 2024 Appropriation Act and disbursements by multilateral and bilateral lenders.
“At N59.12 trillion, total domestic debt accounted for 61 percent of the total public debt stock while external debt at N38.22 trillion accounted for the balance of 39 percent. Consistent with the debt management strategy, Nigeria’s external debt stock was skewed in favour of loans from multilateral (49.77 percent) and bilateral lenders (14.02 percent) or total of 63.79 percent which are mostly concessional and semi-concessional.
“Whilst the DMO continues to employ best practice in public debt management, the recent and on-going efforts of the fiscal authorities to shore up revenue will support debt sustainability.”
GIK/APA